Why is Chinese so Difficult to Learn?

Chinese is extremely difficult to learn as a second language. From my experience, the challenge is created primarily by the following characteristics, all of which are interrelated with and compound each other:

1. The Written Character Script

The Chinese language does not have an alphabet. The written character script is very different than an alphabet. Most experts say that a person needs to know somewhere between 2500 and 4000 unique characters in order to become reasonably fluent in the language. Just think about memorizing this many unique characters designs, some of which are incredibly complex. As an example, this character requires 36 strokes to write: 齉

It is pronounced, “Nàng” and means, "to speak with a nasal twang."

Of course, some words are made up of more than one character. Two characters and 45 strokes will get you “parrot” (yīng wŭ), for example: 鹦鹉

On top of this, the character script is only partially phonetic. Knowing how to write a character does not mean that you know how to pronounce it. And, knowing how to pronounce a character does not mean you know how to write it. Yes, English spelling often is phonetically irrational. Why is there a “b” in “debt”, for example? But, in most cases it is reasonably predictable.

A misconception I held for a long time is that pinyin is an alphabet-based translation of the character script. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Pinyin is just a method for representing the phonetics of the spoken language. A one-to-one relationship does not exist between pinyin syllables and Chinese characters. “Jiào” is the pinyin representation of the common verb 叫, which means “to call”. But, it also represents the sound of the character 觉, which means, “a nap”. Because of pinyin’s limitation in this regard, you will not find books, magazines, or other texts written in pinyin. It is used just as an aide for teaching the spoken language, and as a tool for narrowing the selection of characters when entering text on a computer with a standard keyboard.

An interesting anecdote: Peter Hessler wrote in, “Oracle Bones” that Mao desired to scrap the character script during his time, and to replace it with an alphabet system based on the Roman alphabet. But, Stalin convinced him to reconsider for reasons of cultural pride. Therefore, Mao embarked upon a less ambitious initiative to simplify the complexity of characters instead. The result was the simplified character script that is used on the mainland today.

2. Tones

Native speakers of non-tonal languages generally have a hard time adapting to tones. We are used to tailoring our pitch and inflection to express situation-specific emotions or to provide emphasis, rather than for making clear whether we are talking about a horse (mă) or a mother (mā). Tones also are difficult for novices to distinguish from each other during normal speech, which further complicates the development of listening comprehension skills.

3. Plethoric Homonyms

Mandarin has many characters that sound similar to each other, per the “jiào” example above. In addition, most words are made up of only one or two characters and therefore consist of only one or two syllables. This has resulted in a massive proliferation of homonyms as the language has grown over time. This in turn makes communication more context dependent than with most other languages.

The large number of homonyms makes it difficult to develop strong listening comprehension skills without first having a large vocabulary. If you don’t know the meaning of all the words you hear in a sentence, it is difficult to guess what the sentence is generally about. And, since you don’t know for sure what the sentence is about, it’s difficult to guess what the mystery words within it mean. This creates a classic chicken and egg problem. You need to understand the words in order to figure out the context, but you also need to understand the context in order to figure out the words. Therefore, you are unable to do either.

This complication is further amplified by tones. If you aren’t certain which tone you heard (Did he say, “jiào” or was it “jiāo”?), then the degrees of freedom become even greater.

4. Weakly Typed Grammar

Explicit expressions of tense (present, past, future) and pronouns (I, we, you, them) are often omitted in the spoken language. When you marry the complexity of tones with the large number of homonyms, and then throw a weakly typed grammar on top of it all, this creates a language that is egregiously context sensitive. Is the person talking about a horse or a mother? Are they talking about what is going to happen to the horse/mother now, or in the future, or in the past? Are they describing what they did/are doing to the horse/mother, or what we did/are doing to it? It is extremely challenging for the novice to fill in all these interdependent holes.

5. Difficult Sounds

Tones are just one of the speaking challenges presented by the language. Many of the consonant and vowel sounds in the language are different than a straight English interpretation of pinyin would indicate. They require using different motions and parts of the mouth than we are familiar with from other languages.

For reference, here is a description of the “q” sound from the textbook, “Integrated Chinese”:

"q is an aspirated voiceless palatal affricate. It is produced in the same manner as j, but it is aspirated. Note that the Chinese q is similar to English ch except that is articulated with the tip of the tongue resting behind the lower incisors."

Got that? Two years into studying the language, I still am unable to correctly pronounce even basic q words like, “qù” (to go).