Now back to my regularly scheduled language beat, I’d like to share a couple of links with you that should help put the study of Chinese into perspective.

First, Ben Ross debunks the myth that Chinese is the hardest language to learn in the world, even if it certainly seems like it at first.

And from back in 2003, here’s a Brendan O’Kane post going through the basics of mastering our beloved 中文.

Enjoy!

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About Matt

Matt spent six years in China, mainly based in the beautiful spring city of Kunming. During that time he worked in consulting, journalism as well as English teaching. Matt studied Chinese for 2+ years and loved exploring the mountains of Yunnan by mountain bike). He now lives in New York City where he is pursuing a Masters in International Affairs at Columbia University.

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Discussion

5
  1. Well thanks for these two links, i have visited both of them. I got one good online school to learn chinese name is – Chinesesphere

  2. There was an interesting article i read comparing Japanese and Mandarin. Which one is more difficult.

    It had some underlining points, that most people argeed with. That if you study a week with Mandarin vs Japanese you will beable to use your Mandarin less in the real world than if you studied Japanese for a week.
    This is because the tones of mandarin combined with the bad pronounciation makes it really hard for locals to understand you.

    However learning Mandarin at the start is easier because of the grammar where japanese grammar hits you like a huge right hook at the very start.However after that first bump of grammar(will last for a few months) it actually gets easier where the difficult of the tones will last for years.

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