Don't get nuts about it...!



Can you say “Hello” in Chinese? Yes, you can - just say “ni hao (你好)”. Can you say “How are you?” in Chinese? Yes, you can - just say “ni hao ma? (你好吗)”. Many people believe Mandarin Chinese is a difficult language. Guess what...they are right!

I'll share with you an interesting quotation:“Chinese Mandarin is Easy — Comparing Its Difficulty with Japanese, German, and Spanish“, by Mike Wright. :P

Most Chinese people will cheerfully acknowledge that their language is hard, maybe the hardest on earth (many are even proud of this, in the same way some New Yorkers are actually proud of living in the most expensive city in America). According to a survey conducted by the Chinese Ministry of Education and Language Commission you need to know about 1,000 Chinese characters to be able to read 90% of current Chinese publications. This fact is really getting me nuts! Can I do it...? In a near future...?

(At least I already know how to write Nut...坚果)

Well actually, spoken Chinese is easier to learn than you might think. Chinese grammar is simple in comparison with European languages. There are no inflections, cases, genders, or declensions. Chinese has little or no bound morphology and there are no grammatical rules to memorize. Each word has a fixed and single form: verbs do not take prefixes or suffixes showing the tense or the person, number, or gender of the subject. Nouns do not take prefixes or suffixes showing their number or their case.

Now, you can see that is a big decision whether or not to start your Chinese study. I've decided to go for it. Good luck Nutela with your Chinese challenge! Hope you don't find this nut too hard to crack...