Yes, It's true! I've only been speaking Chinese for under 1 year! 8 months to be exact. I have to be honest... I initially thought that Chinese would be the hardest language for me to learn but to my surprise it is grammatically the easiest. Chinese-Mandarin grammar is very easy compared to the other languages that I have learned such as; Spanish & Portuguese. I must say that this might just be the closest to english grammar that I have learned.
For example:
Chinese verbs do not conjugate (same in English)
To talk using future, you simply add "yào" in front of the verb (in English it's "will")
To talk using past, you simple add "le" at the end of the verb (in English it's "ed")
As a matter of fact Mandarin doesn't even have as many words as English does. There are a lot of words and verbs in Mandarin that are used the same way but for different meanings. For example:
Zuò = Sit, Do , Cook
Yào = Want, Will
Learning Chinese grammar is probably the most enjoyable part of this journey to fluency! Now learning the tones can definitely be difficult for most westerners such as myself. Because we do not use tones in our language, it take some getting used to when learning Chinese. In some asian languages there are up to 6 tones. But thankfully in Mandarin, there are only 4. Haha! Like how I said "only"?
The 4 Tones in Mandarin are:
First tone: mā (high flat)
Second tone: má (rise up)
Third tone: mǎ (down & up)
Fourth tone: mà (down)
I remember when I first was introduced to tones in the Vietnamese language. Boy was I frustrated!! Maybe that's why I gave up on Vietnamese almost immediately.... haha but don't worry, I will be back at it soon. I will give myself 2-3 years to become fluent in Mandarin-Chinese then I will start back Viet lessons.
In conclusion, something to keep in mind is that all languages use tones but the difference is that they don't mean anything in our languages. However in some asian language such as Chinese, the tones are everything! You must know which tone that you are using for each word/verb. It is very important when speaking. Interested in seeing/tracking my progress in this language? Then Follow My Chinese Speaking Journey below:
https://youtu.be/pbxo0cYTckc
https://youtu.be/tCc0Lp3vgRE
https://youtu.be/sV6OwV-UAoo
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