Simple Aspects of Learning Chinese

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The Chinese language is often considered one of the world's most difficult languages to learn, but this sentiment is a major oversimplification. Like any language, learning Chinese has its challenges. As a language learner, placing yourself in an ideal learning environment is key to learning Chinese. Let’s have a look the easy aspects of Chinese.

1. Grammar

Chinese has relatively few grammar patterns—most of which are straightforward. Moreover, there are no tenses in Chinese language. Chinese words do not change forms, or conjugate, like English verbs. This is something Chinese learners can be grateful for. Below is the notoriously unpredictable English "to be" verb next to it's perfectly consistent Chinese counterpart:

I am——我是 (wǒ shì)

He is——他是 (tā shì)

They are——他们是 (tāmen shì)

The comparative simplicity of Chinese grammar, especially verb conjugation, is clear: Am, Is, Are vs. 是 (shì), 是 (shì), 是 (shì)

2. Pinyin

Pinyin is the standard system of romanized transliteration of Chinese characters. It is an enormous help for Chinese learners. One great thing about pinyin in this digital age is that, you can type pinyin into your computer and they will give you character suggestions. This means that you can text or write emails in Chinese without needing to know each stroke of the character.

As long as you know the pinyin and recognize the character you are looking for, you can type in Chinese.

3. Construction/Structure

The common idea that learning Chinese means having to memorize three to four thousand completely unrelated characters makes the language seem completely impossible, fortunately this idea is also completely untrue. Learning one character opens up a whole world of other logically interrelated characters.

For example, perhaps you already know the character for fire, 火 (huǒ), and the character for mountain, 山 (shān), but you're trying to figure out how to say "volcano". After looking up the Chinese word for volcano on your online dictionary, you realize it's incredibly straightforward: merely add fire (火) to mountain (山) and you get fire-mountain, 火山 (huǒshān), or volcano!

A whole host of Chinese words are constructed in this way. If you know the Chinese character for electricity (电, diàn) you will immediately have easier access to large variety of words:

"Electric Picture" (电影, diànyǐng) = Movie/Film

"Electric Car" (电车, diànchē) = Tram/Trolley

"Electric Speech" (电话, diànhuà) = Phone

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