<p>To amplify, one of my daughters is so good at conversational Chinese that Chinese people would ask her if she was raised by a Chinese family. The Chinese kids in her classes would say, “Your accent is better than mine.” But reading and writing? Translating? Really hard. Even reading a newspaper takes a lot. Try translating Mandarin fiction and you’ll spend as many hours as a hard compsci class. </p>
<p>And all that depends on hearing the tones.</p>
<p>Also, it sometimes seems like everyone in China is trying to learn English.</p>