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Is learning a non-european language hard?

April 26, 2017culture hard Language Languages learning non-European Society

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Is learning a non-european language hard?

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I’ve studied Polish (while living in Poland) and Mandarin Chinese (while living in Taiwan), and I think that Polish is MUCH harder than Mandarin. Not all european languages are easy for native speakers of English, and not all european languages are the same level of difficulty. To me, Polish grammar seems impossible for non-natives to master. It’s ridiculously difficult for English speakers. It’s unintuitive. On the other hand, Mandarin Chinese grammar is very simple. You can put together grammatically correct sentences after just 1 or 2 classes. My best study tip, no matter what language you’re studying, is to color-code. This doesn’t work for everyone, but it really works for me. For German and Polish, I color-coded nouns to show whether they were feminine, masculine, or neuter. For Mandarin, I color-coded all words to show whether they were Tone 1, Tone 2, Tone 3, Tone 4, or Neutral. It helped me remember how to classify them.