nsr

Hi,
this is my first time for this forum. First of all Pls accept my sweet greetings and regards.
I was attracted by the message teliing that Chinese is not such difficult. Actually I'm planning to learn chinese and I have already agreed with somebody to teach me but he left for sometieme but I was experienced that Chinese is so difficult, so I wish if some chinese native speaking can simplify the language for me. I'll be gratefull. By the way I'm Arabic native speaker stayint in UAE.

and regarding the link provided in the message, I tried to go through but unfortunately, it was all in chinese, not even single word in any other language

violent

chinese is not difficult,the reason why people thing it 's difficult is the character -stucture looks so complex.
"habit is second nature",when you for the habit of writing,listening and reading,then you will find it's so easy!
right?

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http://www.lairons.com
a chinese people practise english forum.
if you are english native speaker or a chinese learner you also can come here!

bjfall2006

I've been in China for a little over a year, yet my Chinese level seems to be stuck in the lower intermediate level. I'm not in school anymore, but I work and live with Chinese people. However, I can feel that without further reading, my Chinese is stuck to where it was when I left school!

A Chinese friend recommended that I listen to the pods at linese.com Linese - Experiencing China

I tried it out, they're quite interesting, but I keep getting left behind! Now I'm really curious if any foreign students out there can follow the pods comfortably.

Well, would appreciate any advice from others trying to break out of the intermediate level rut.

littlepanda

learning chinese can be hard - i'm chinese by descent and can speak cantonese with absolute fluency and can read most things needed in everyday life (newspapers etc.) but i think chinese is, like every other language, very rich in tradition and hence hard to delve into its depths. i would love to learn to read literature and the like someday...

as for grammar, chinese (at least standard chinese) most definitely has a grammar, and it has been much researched and studied, at least from the field i'm ffrom (linguistics).

in case any of you are interested in cantonese (a form of chinese originating from guandong province i.e. canton, spoken in hong kong, guangdong, macau etc.) and are looking for a grammar book on it, i highly recommend the routledge grammar of cantonese, by matthews and yip. all languages are dynamic and change with the times, but i think the fluidity of cantonese is exceptional!! a grammar book like this must have taken SO LONG to write!

on another note, i think standard chinese (a.k.a. mandarin, putonghua) is much easier for foreigners to learn as it only has 4 tones. it's useful for work and travel in china, since most chinese people speak it and is the country's official language. a good website that has been developed with the beginner in mind is www.ecChinese.com. it's absolutely free - a friend of mine set it up (so i am being a bit biased ) but i do think it's one of the more fun chinese learning sites available.

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Danny Deng

hi
Don't worry about what level you are in, just like what you are doing now. Everything takes time.
Which place are you in? I want to be your new Chinese friend. Can I?
Danny