Is It Hard To Learn Mandarin? Why Learning Mandarin Is Easier Than You Think

“Why is Mandarin difficult?” and “Is it hard to learn Mandarin?” are common Google searches for beginners in the Mandarin language. Keep reading to uncover the answers and pick up some tricks on how to learn Mandarin easily – and fast!

Today, Mandarin is the official language of Mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore, and is spoken all over in countries such as Malaysia, Hong Kong, the US, the UK, Canada, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Phillipines. It’s one the six official languages of the UN, and is clearly the lingua franca of the Chinese world.

According to Ethnologue, there are over 1.1 billion Mandarin speakers in the world, which makes Mandarin the largest language globally – when counting only native speakers. That information, coupled with the fact of its constantly expanding economy, makes for an incredibly desirable language – and one that many today are determined to master.

If you’ve landed on this article, you’ve probably pondered “is it hard to learn Mandarin?” at least once. And the answer to that question would be yes and no.

While many linguists would – quite rightly – crown Mandarin as one of the most intricate languages out there (what with its many tones and its non-lettered alphabet), there are many characteristics to the language that make it easier to grasp than others (there are no verbs, no tenses, no plurals, no subject-verb agreement, and no conjugations – hurrah!).

So whether it’s the potential business opportunities that drew you to this article or simply mild curiosity, keep reading as we break down our top tips for how to learn Mandarin fast.

How to Learn Mandarin Easily – 5 Tips

Grammar and Structure

Compared to languages like French or Spanish, Mandarin grammar is a piece of cake and essentially non-existent. Mandarin doesn’t have any of those pesky tenses we English speakers are all so used to, and when speaking in the past tense a simple 了 will suffice. Not to mention when using nouns, verbs, or adjectives, gender IS NOT required! The most important thing that you need to understand if you want to speak Mandarin is sentence structure.

And luckily for us there is a simple sentence structure rule within Mandarin that is unbelievably easy to follow: Subject + Time + Place + Verb + Object. If you need some extra clarification, check out the image below.

Pinyin pronunciation

Pinyin is the official romanization system of Mandarin Chinese and is phonetic compared to Mandarin characters (meaning that it uses the Latin alphabet). Pinyin may be a challenge for many, as certain Mandarin sounds don’t naturally occur within the English language. However, with practice it shouldn’t be a problem. Once you get acquainted with the slightly more difficult pinyin words that don’t have similar pronunciations in the English language then you’ll catch on rather quickly. Most of the challenges when learning the Mandarin language stem from characters and how they are not phonetic. We would recommend for non Mandarin speakers to learn first by reading pinyin since it is phonetic and then, as you progress, focus on associating characters with their pinyin.

For example, when initially learning Mandarin, instead of reading something like this:

我跟我的弟弟每天下午去公园打篮球

Read it as this instead:

Wǒ gēn wǒ de dìdì měitiān xiàwǔ qù gōngyuán dǎ lánqiú

Notice how it’s much easier to read due to it being phonetic. This way, if you read the character and the pinyin together you can understand what each character’s pronunciation is, tones included. If you’re having trouble or are unsure of how to pronounce certain pinyin, find below a very useful pinyin pronunciation chart. Understanding the pronunciation and the rules of pinyin will greatly help you learn Mandarin fast.

Still struggling with pinyin? Click here.

Using and understanding components

One of the most beneficial things you can realise when learning Mandarin is that Mandarin words are made up of components.  These components can help you understand and learn characters a lot faster. In some cases, these components may be a part of a whole Mandarin word, whereas in other cases it may be part of a single character.

An example of components within one character:

姐，妈，妹，sister (older), mother, and sister (younger)

Notice that they all have the character 女(nü, female) in common. When looking at the components that actually make up an individual character, it begins to make a lot more sense.

An example of components within a word:

电脑，电视，电话, computer, television, phone

The common denominator in this example is clearly 电 (diàn, electricity). When looking closer it’s uncovered that the meanings of these words are quite literal. Computer is translated as electricity + brain, whilst television is electricity + to view, and phone is electricity + speech.

Realising and respecting how components are a valuable part of Mandarin is the secret to understanding how to learn Mandarin easily. For more tips and tricks for mastering Chinese characters, check out our recent article on how to memorize Chinese characters.

Tones 

Mastering and remembering tones has to be one of the most difficult aspects of learning Mandarin as a foreign language, as there aren’t many tonal languages out there. Pronunciation of pinyin with respect to tones is very important within the Mandarin language, as one word in pinyin can be used for multiple different characters, all with very different meanings. One very important example of this happening is with the word si. While 四 (sì) means four, 死 (sǐ) means death. 

If you’re not confident in tones yet, context can often help to deduce the meaning behind a word. Words that are duo syllabic make it easier to infer the meaning of what is being said – irrespective of tones – because of the limited combinations, For example in English if someone were to say “I am going to the restaurant too, I’ll lead the way” due to the context people wouldn’t think of lead as in pencil lead. By understanding the situation and the context of what someone is saying, you’ll become confident in no time.

You may also be interested in: How Different is Cantonese from Mandarin?

You’re not alone

With one fifth of the global population now speaking Chinese, there are plenty of native speakers out there for you to practice your newfound language skills with face-to-face. There are also plenty of Mandarin courses and resources readily available both online and offline that can help to both simplify and speed up the language learning process.

In our view, it’s about time we stop asking “is it hard to learn Mandarin Chinese” and instead just start learning. Not only is it a great exercise for the brain, but it’ll open up a world of opportunity for you – from the ability to communicate with and befriend over 1 billion people to expanding your business network and professional potential.

We hope these tips have helped to remove any fears you might’ve had with regards to learning Mandarin. Find out more about how Mandarin Matrix can help you on your Mandarin language learning journey here.

Feature photo courtesy of Shutterstock, Photo 1 courtesy of Shutterstock, Photo 2 courtesy of Vivid Chinese, Photo 3 courtesy of China Culture Corner, Photo 4 courtesy of Ninchanese, Photo 5 courtesy of MissLinguistic