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[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Interesting they ranked Japan the highest. I've seen similar rankings by the military, and they consistently rate Russian, Arabic, and Chinese at the very top. (coming from English, same as the infographic)

Japanese has a partial-phonetic alphabet, so that makes things easier than Chinese. Maybe it's that Japanese has more of a consistent subtlety to it to sound like a native speaker, which can be hard to master. I've heard that for foreigners this small level of intonation and inflection can be almost impossible to master, even after a decade of immersion.

[–]Chipit[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Once you handwave away the characters (that's a big handwave!) Chinese isn't actually that difficult. It's SVO and most characters have a single pronunciation. Japanese grammar is devilishly difficult and every character may have 5 pronunciations. However there are only 2000 characters in Japanese and 10,000 in Chinese.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I think it's actually the opposite. I know about 1200 Chinese characters. The thing with Japanese is that the grammar is very formulaic so once you master that you're good. But Chinese has a random patchwork quilt of grammar that isn't as logical or consistent as Japanese, and that's the real hard part imo.

[–]Chipit[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Oh, really? Hah! Didn't know you were into Chinese. For work, or personal enrichment?

Try the Chinese Grammar Wiki, it's tremendously helpful. https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar Chinese grammar does get more difficult at the end, when you have to sound like an educated person. But the dirty little secret is that most Chinese people aren't that good at Chinese. A lot of them suck at it, frankly. That's what happens when most of your population didn't make it past 9th grade.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

For fun, I started studying it after I lived there for a while. I'm also learning traditional and simplified simultaneously, which doesn't make things any easier.

But the dirty little secret is that most Chinese people aren't that good at Chinese. A lot of them suck at it, frankly.

Heh that's funny, I could believe it. And I agree I can get to a passable level, but sounding educated and articulate in Chinese is another decade of work. I have trouble remembering the tones too. I can pronounce them fine, but I have trouble retaining them despite my best efforts, unlike the written characters which I can remember fairly easily. So I can actually read Chinese a lot easier than listen to it, which I guess is opposite from normal for most Chinese learners.

[–]Chipit[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It helps a lot if you don't think of them as separate "tones" but rather completely different phonemes. That's how Chinese think of it, they would never confuse a second tone word with a fourth tone one.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I know, I try to think of it like putting emphasis on the right syllable in English. If you emphasize the wrong syllable it sounds so very wrong. But this hasn't really "clicked" yet for me in a deep way. I think I just need more practice.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

[–]Chipit[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yeah, John Pasden used to be the man, back in the blog era. But nobody goes for Classical Chinese except bonafide scholars. And the idioms are greatly overrated. It's just something that certain learners focus on for their "bling" value. They just want to look clever, which you already get plenty of being able to put two words together in Chinese.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree about the Classical Chinese, it's not important really. But I'd say the idioms are important to fluency in modern Chinese. But it depends on how many idioms you include... there are a lot that are completely unused in the mainstream for hundreds of years. They collect their chengyu like pokemon cards