Learning Chinese Language is Easy
Are you learning Chinese? Instead of focusing on how difficult it is to learn Chinese Mandarin, let’s start the first article by being positive and motivated so that you will continue learning it. As a Singaporean Chinese living in Belgium and having non-Chinese friends learning Chinese, I know the difficulty that they face.
The problems of learning Chinese are somewhat similar. At the same time, I also try and convince them how easy Chinese is as compared to the native language that they have. That is also the language I am learning now, which is Dutch.
① Chinese Language has no Grammar Rule
The first most obvious benefit of learning Chinese is that it has no grammatical rule. Unlike other languages, there is no such thing as past, present, future, perfect and imperfect tenses. Consider the following sentences.
Consider the following sentences: –
Yesterday, I went to work. (Past Tense)
昨天，我去上班。
Zuó tiān, wǒ qù shàng bān.
Today, I go to work. (Present Tense)
今天，我去上班。
Jīn tiān, wǒ qù shàng bān.
Tomorrow, I will go to work. (Future Tense)
明天，我去上班。
Míng tiān, wǒ qù shàng bān.
See how easy Chinese is? All you need to do is to change the time but the rest of the information remains unchanged. Unlike English and other European languages, you have to remember a set of grammar rule and participles with different roots and stems to agree with the tenses used. Do the above examples of Chinese sentences encourage you to learn further?
② Chinese Words has no Gender
Similarly to English, the Chinese language does not use any gender for the nouns. It makes speaking Chinese so much easier. Languages like French, Dutch and German require huge storage space in the brain cell for remembering whether the nouns are feminine, masculine or even neutral to be grammatically correct when writing and speaking. Hack it! You construct a Chinese sentence without all these grammar.
③ Chinese Nouns has no Singular or Plural
Another good reason why learning Chinese is easy. Use only the classifier or measure word (two BOWLS of rice) to state the quantity in Chinese languages. However, the writing and pronunciation of the noun do not change. In English, you add an “s” in most noun substantives to denote a plural which is not difficult to know. In the Dutch language, there are 3 plural forms which one has to know. Most plurals end with an “en”, some with an “s” and a few words with an “‘s” (foto’s).
Do you want me to order two bowls of rice for you?
你要我叫 两碗饭 给你吗？
Nǐ yào wǒ jiào liǎng wǎn fàn gěi nǐ ma?
No need. One bowl (of rice) is enough. Thank you!
不需要。一碗(饭) 就够了。谢谢!
Bù xū yào. Yī wǎn (fàn) jiù gòu le. Xiè xiè!
④ Easy to Understand Even when You are Phonetically Incorrect
Most people usually listen to the whole sentence to make out the meaning in the context. If you form a proper Chinese sentence but fail to pronounce certain words with the correct intonation, others may still be able to understand you. However, if the sentence structure is completely wrong with strange pronunciation, then others would not be able to get you right.
⑤ Flexible Sentence Construction
The construction of the Chinese sentences is rather flexible. If you move certain groups of words in a different position in a sentence, you can still be correct given that the sentence construction makes sense to the other party.
First Example
I, today, go to work (which is grammatically incorrect in English. You know it means “I go to work today”).
我今天去上班。
Wǒ jīn tiān qù shàng bān.
Instead of the above-mentioned sentence:
Today, I go to work. (Present Tense)
今天，我去 上班。
Jīn tiān, wǒ qù shàng bān.
Second Example
Why are you late?
为什么 你 迟到？
Wèi shé me nǐ chí dào?
你 为什么 迟到？
Nǐ wèi shé me chí dào?
Third Example
Every night at home, I (go and) sleep early.
每晚, 我在家里 很早 就(去)睡(觉)了。
Měi wǎn, wǒ zài jiā lǐ hěn zǎo jiù (qù) shuì (jiào) le.
When I am at home every night, I (go and) sleep early.
我在家里 每晚 很早 就(去)睡(觉)了。
Wǒ zài jiā lǐ měi wǎn hěn zǎo (qù) shuì (jiào) le.
I, every night, (go and) sleep early.
我 每晚 在家里 很早 就(去)睡(觉)了。
Wǒ měi wǎn zài jiā lǐ hěn zǎo jiù (qù) shuì (jiào) le.
The above Chinese sentence construction with the same number of words is to demonstrate how flexible and easy Chinese can be like the English sentences.
As for the words in the brackets, with either or both of them in place or to omit all out are correct Chinese sentence construction. Do not worry too much about making a mistake when learning to speak Chinese. Go ahead and speak out your thought. If the Chinese sentence that you say does not make sense, the native speaker will correct you.
Learn Chinese Language because China has the Most Number of Population in the World
The Chinese people usually do not pinpoint the other Chinese speakers that have made a mistake since the Chinese language has no grammar rule. The probable fault might be the inappropriate choice of vocabulary used instead of words positioning. Even if the wrong words are used, the Chinese would just make a joke out of it.
With more than 1.4 billion people in China representing over 18% of the total world population, it makes sense to learn the Chinese language. As the popular saying goes, “世界的每个角落都有华人 (There are Chinese in every corner of the world)”, it is not that difficult to connect to Chinese people and talk to them no matter where you live.
Moving on to the next post, we will discuss further on the introduction of 24 Chinese Vowels and 23 Chinese Consonants in Hanyu Pinyin.
