<p>Has anyone taken mandarin? I am really wanting to take it, and I think I am next semester at The University of Oregon, but I am really nervous about taking it. Is it very difficult to learn? I am a latino kid. I already know three languages, but they aren't aren't even close to that kinda stuff, spanish and french. Let me know if you have a minute. Thank you every one!</p>
<p>Yes, the Mandarin dialect of Chinese is difficult. The difficulty is enhanced at many schools with significant populations of Korean students as they tend to study Chinese, which shares similarities with Korean, & this substantially raises the curve.
The Mandarin spoken dialect is no more difficult than the Cantonese dialect; written Chinese is the same for both dialects & requires an enormous amount of memorization of characters (at least 350 to be considered literate).</p>
<p>I speak Mandarin.</p>
<p>I think the only difficult part is learning the four tonals and writing the script. I can read it just fine, but have trouble writing. It's also extremely difficult when your instructor is not a native English speaker. All of my instructors barely spoke English it proved difficult trying to learn a new language from them. </p>
<p>You can take free lessons (to see if you're interested) at Learn</a> Chinese - ChinesePod</p>
<p>When I considered applying to be a Foreign Sevice Officer for the State Dept. (decades ago), the US Government expected fluency in a language within 6 months, except for the Mandarin dialect of Chinese which was allowed 24 months. So yes, it is difficult for Americans, but not so for those raised in many Asian countries, such as Korea. I studied in China in the 1970s on a Yale in China program which did not allow single semester students to study Chinese as a year of intense study is needed just to get started.</p>
<p>Agreed, the tones and memorization are pretty brutal and are very different from eng/spanish etc. (350 characters is far from literate. It's probably more like 1500-2000 to be barely literate)</p>
<p>If you want to learn Mandarin, do it. Don't avoid a subject you're interested because it might be challenging. I speak (...near enough) fluently (can't write worth a crap), I'm not Asian, I've only been studying it for two years, though I did spend a lot of time practicing and also studied abroad in Beijing. </p>
<p>A good way to get additional help (in my experience) is to find a language exchange partner online. There are a lot of native Chinese speakers who are willing to do language exchanges - you help them with their English, they help you with Mandarin, especially if you have a program like Skype where you can speak with them - the time difference can be challenging, though.
I've been friends with my exchange partner for almost two years and she's helped me a lot...can't say how much I've helped her if at all.</p>
<p>Good luck! gaining fluency in mandarin is very difficult, but once you feel the gist of it, it gives you a great boost of confidence. </p>
<p>writing it on the other hand... is much more difficult. you'll forget nearly everything if you don't constantly practice. and because of the use of symbols instead of an alphabet, its almost impossible to use sound (like in english) to remember the characters.</p>
<p>Post #5: To be able to read at a third grade level, how many characters need to be memorized?</p>
<p>Thank you everyone! I am very excited to start! :)</p>
<h1>8, mm i dont know, but 350 is not enough. i finished 4th grade in china and i pretty much know all the characters o.o, just have some trouble writing~~</h1>
<p>I think writing is a challenge because of how you're supposed to make the characters, and then writing one character takes like twenty minutes (I might be exaggerating.)</p>
<p>I think the order is left to right, top to bottom, inner to outer. I prefer to just write it how I choose, but that was really drilled into me by my Peking U instructor. I don't know whether character stroke order is of any actual importance or not.</p>
<p>What do you guys think would be better, taking a class that doesn't earn credit at a community college, or taking the 100 class at the university for credit, even though it will be harder</p>