There is no doubt that written Chinese is difficult to learn – even for the Chinese! But the spoken language is a different kettle of fish.

In many ways, Mandarin Chinese is much easier to learn than European languages. Here are some features which make Mandarin easy:

  • no subject/verb agreement
  • no plurals
  • no conjugations
  • no tenses
  • simple numbering system which is applied to dates and time expressions
  • simple conditional sentences
  • simple prepositions

Can you say that about the English language??