

Even though they are less complicated - thus, easier to pick up - than the traditional characters, the way they are put together to form words is different from how we make words in English. In 1950, China developed a system of "simplified" Chinese characters to combat illiteracy. Unlike English, there is no "alphabet," and there are tens of thousands of Chinese characters, each of them a unit of meaning. What Makes Chinese a Harder Language to Learn?Īs you can tell immediately from looking at written Chinese, this is a system that is extremely different from the English language.


All things equal, the closer a language is to English, the easier it would be for an English speaker to learn. Foreign Institute (the "FSI") has categorized the world's languages according to how similar they are to English. Chinese Is Harder Than Most Languages for English Speakers to Learn

It's very different from many of the world's spoken languages, and many view it as particularly complex. Is Chinese Hard to Learn?įor most people, it is hard to learn Chinese. In this article, we will take a look at the Chinese language, different variables that affect language learning time, and ways to learn Chinese in China more quickly. Most people who are interested in learning have two questions: "Is it hard to learn Chinese?" and "How long does it take to learn Chinese?" Based on government sources and anecdotes, Three to five years is a good estimate of how long it takes to learn Chinese fluently, but there are so many factors involved. With the increasingly global economy and the reemergence of China as an international business and cultural hub, there has never been a better time to learn Chinese.
