Is Chinese difficult to learn?
Yes, and no. Learning to speak Chinese is not very difficult. While you need to learn some new sounds, there aren’t as many different sounds as in English. The Chinese system is completely phonetic and, unlike English, has no exceptions. And Chinese grammar is very simple since there is only one verb form, with no masculine, feminine or plural forms. Excellent software is now available for typing Chinese, lessening the importance of writing characters by hand. For those who do not wish to learn Chinese characters, Chinese can be written with our alphabet using a system called ‘Hanyu Pinyin’ (for example Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin are all Romanized using Pinyin instead of Chinese characters).
