QA讨论学中文，学汉字，有趣的汉字龜
Is Chinese arguably the toughest language in the world for a westerner to master? To speak, read & write in it as good as a native Chinese, would it take the best part of a lifetime? Apart from having official UN status, is it also a world language?
译文简介
对于西方人来说，汉语可以说是世界上最难掌握的语言吗?
正文翻译
Is Chinese arguably the toughest language in the world for a westerner to master?
对于西方人来说，汉语可以说是世界上最难掌握的语言吗?
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I've been studying Mandarin for 4 months now and I too thought it was hard at first Now that I've familiarised myself with the language, I can say with confidence that Chinese characters are not hard, in fact they are the easy part about Chinese because you know each character is different and it has its own tone and meaning. For me maybe as a VISUAL LEARNER is easier because my visual memory is good and Chinese characters vary in difficulty but with practice and repetition I've been able to master 740 as of today.
我已经学习普通话4个月了，一开始我也觉得很难，现在我已经熟悉了这门语言，我可以自信地说，汉字并不难，事实上它们是汉语中容易的部分，因为你知道每个汉字都是不同的，它有自己的声调和意义。对我来说，作为一个视觉学习者可能更容易，因为我的视觉记忆很好，汉字的难度各不相同，但通过练习和重复，我今天已经掌握了740个汉字。
是的，我付出了很多很多的努力(前段时间我在周六学了13个小时)。普通话最难的部分是什么?说，听，是的，还包括习惯中文的逻辑!尽管我广泛地学习了语音学，听力仍然很难。说话就更难了!人们说普通话的方式有一种流动和节奏。有人说声调很重要，有人说声调不重要——在我看来，声调很重要!尽早养成这种节奏是很重要的。我的普通话仍然没有节奏，但汉字很简单，我可以在脑海中打出这样一段话:
（答主自己写的中文：）
四个月前，我还听不懂、无法读写普通话。语言学习尤其是自学时很难。因为就像我的母语一样，它蕴含着数百年的历史、文化和不同的逻辑。但四个月后，我可以用汉字写出这样简单的句子，因为我读了很多书，所以找汉字很容易。普通话最难的是口语！不过，我可以很容易地分辨出 在(zài) 和 再(zài) 之间的区别，但是要完美地发音它们需要疯狂的努力。看电影、听播客和歌曲有助于我的听力。对于演讲，我认为熟能生巧。
Final thoughts, don't overthink it. Just do it. Move to China if you can, immerse in the language. Shed all your pride and tell yourself that you want to learn Chinese and you don't know anything about the language and culture. People are more than willing to help you. I haven't been fortunate enough to move to China so that's why my speaking and listening sucks but extensive immersion through movies with practice and repetition helps me a lot. I leave you motivation: 世上无难事，只怕有心人.
最后的想法，不要想太多。尽管去做。如果可以的话，搬去中国，沉浸在中文语言环境中。放下你所有的骄傲，告诉自己你想学中文，你对语言和文化一无所知。人们非常愿意帮助你。我没有足够的幸运搬到中国，所以这就是为什么我的口语和听力很差，但通过电影的练习和重复，广泛的语言沉浸感对我有很大帮助。我给借此话激励大家:世上无难事，只怕有心人。
罗洢诺
听说你的中文学习有了很大的进步，真是太好了。中文是一种迷人而美丽的语言。希望你能说得越来越流利。顺便说一下，我是一名高中英语学习者。我希望我的评论没有语法问题。
Ha ha ha well, thank you and yes , Chinese is a beautiful language although some difficulties do arise from time to time! (Okay, all the time) but ever since I started learning it, I just feel the need to learn it some more and more.Don't worry, your English is on point. No need to worry about it. You're also doing a great job.
哈哈哈，谢谢你，是的，中文是一门美丽的语言，尽管有时会出现一些困难!(好吧，一直都是)但自从我开始学习中文，我就觉得有必要学得越来越多。别担心，你的英语很地道。不用担心。你也做得很好。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Hi Viktor, very good! Chinese is my ancestral language and while I grew up speaking Cantonese at home, I also learned Mandarin in school long ago and still pretty conversational at it. Back when I was going to Chinese school as a kid and teenager, I was taught traditional Chinese characters which is even harder if a student just took the entire character for granted without dissecting what each strokes are called and the pattern of its character, which is what I did often back then.
嗨，Viktor，非常好!中文是我祖先的语言，虽然我在家里说粤语长大，但我很久以前在学校里也学过普通话，现在仍然能用它交谈。当我还是个孩子和青少年的时候，我在中文学校学习繁体字，如果一个学生只是把整个汉字当成理所当然的，而不仔细分析每个笔画的名称和汉字的样式结构，这就更难了，而我当时经常这样做。
What I mean is taking this character, for example:龜 That’s the traditional character for turtle which I struggled for the longest time to remember how to write that. Now I can write that by heart but it wasn’t the case until after graduating from college and when I purchased a book describing the patterns between traditional and simplified characters, the traditional character was overlaid with an actual picture of a turtle so when I rotate that character 90 degrees,I can see what part is the head, the shell, the feet and the tail. That’s when it became simpler for me to master the characters that have a large number of strokes.
我的意思是，以这个字为例:龜这是乌龟的繁体字，我花了很长时间才记住怎么写。现在我可以把它记下来了，但直到大学毕业后，我买了一本介绍繁体字和简体字之间样式结构的书，繁体字上覆盖着一只乌龟的真实图片，所以当我旋转那个汉字90度时，我可以看到头、壳、脚和尾巴。从那时起，掌握那些笔画较多的汉字就变得更简单了。
祝你学习中文和普通话顺利。许多在美国的中国移民的孩子，像我一样，都在努力学习中文写作、说普通话，所以我想分享一下，我为你感到骄傲，你在学习我祖先的语言(中文)方面的宝贵努力给我留下了深刻的印象，对于英语母语者来说，学习中文通常是一个挑战。
Yes.Yes.Yes.In increasing order of difficulty: grammar, vocabulary, reading, writing, and pronunciation.The grammar is simpler than that of English and there are no verb tenses. Just an extra word before or after the verb to indicate if it happens in the present, past, or future. It's hard to mess this up but if you do people will still understand you.
是的。是的。是的。按照难度的递增顺序:语法、词汇、阅读、写作和发音。中文语法比英语简单，没有动词时态。只是在动词的前面或后面加上一个额外的词来表示它是发生在现在、过去还是将来。这不会搞错，但如果你搞错的话，人们还是会理解你的意思。
记忆新单词是学习任何新语言过程的一部分。一开始阅读很难，但当你开始学习如何书写时，识别字符就会变得容易一些。拼音(发音系统)是用拉丁字母写成的，就像日语中的罗马字母一样，所以这对说英语的人来说很容易。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
至于写作，如果你只是想发短信、发邮件、写电子文档，你只需要知道如何用拼音拼写一个字就行了，比如suì jìao (sleep)。你的智能手机或笔记本电脑中的人工智能解释器会向你显示该拼音的常用字符列表。你点击你想要的字符，它就会出现在你的文档中。现在大多数中国人都是这么写的。
要正式学会用笔书写汉字，需要多年的练习，因为你需要学习书写汉字时的笔画顺序。如果你的笔画顺序错了，人们就会看不起你，把你当成偏远地区的乡巴佬(相信我，你会自惭形秽的)。所以，要学会如何正确地用笔写字，需要多年的练习。
最后，发音。这很难。你能做的最好的事情就是培养良好的音高和对不同音调的良好记忆。我在社交媒体上看到一个30多岁的美国人教中文短语。他已经在中国生活了10多年了，他仍然有很重的口音。这家伙不懂音乐;他听不出不同的音调!另一方面，几年前我曾与一位拥有完美音高的音乐会歌手合作过。他不懂中文，我教了他几句。
他能像说母语的人一样完美地说出来。他给我们的中国客户留下了深刻的印象，并达成了销售协议。他说得很好，顾客们开始和他交谈，认为他说得很流利。我提出发音问题的唯一原因是中国人对发音非常敏感。完美的发音意味着你被接受为中国人，你可以得到晋升，在你的领域取得进步，成为领导者。不管你的语法和词汇多么好，不正确的发音总是会让你成为一个外国人，在你所在单位，你就得不到晋升的机会
Hang on, I thought it was “shuì jiào”. Also, there are plenty of people with English as a SL who make great progress and advancements in their career pursuits regardless if their accents aren't perfect, so long as they are intelligible.
等等，应该是“shuì jiào”。此外，也有很多英语作为第二语言的人在他们的职业生涯中取得了很大的进步和成就，即使他们的口音不完美，只要他们能听懂就行。
forgot to mention that about 20% of the world population is of Chinese descent, so yes Chinese is a major world language.Also: developing listening skills is tougher than memorizing vocabulary but easier than reading and writing. Listening comprehension can be difficult until you grasp the 4 tones.
对了，忘了说世界上大约20%的人口是炎黄子孙，所以是的，中文是世界主要语言。此外，培养听力技能比记忆词汇更难，但比阅读和写作容易。在你掌握4个声调之前，听力理解是很困难的。
I'm from Taiwan, so we are terrible at differentiating between the “s” and “sh” sounds. I do think you're right—it's shuì jìao. From my own experiences working in the U.S. if you want to advance professionally your accent in English will need to be very good or close to native. I work in tech and I have met many software engineers with strong accents but they don't get promoted to management at very senior levels. My guess is that this will also be true in China, HK, Singapore, Taiwan unless you can bring a set of valuable skills can't be found in us.
我来自台湾，所以我们很难区分“s”和“sh”的发音。我认为你是对的，它是shuì jìao。从我自己在美国工作的经验来看，如果你想在专业上有所提升，你的英语口音需要非常好或接近本土口音。我在科技行业工作，我遇到过很多口音很重的软件工程师，但他们都没有被提升到非常高级的管理层。我猜在中国大陆、香港、新加坡、台湾也会是这样，除非你能带来一套在美国找不到的有价值的技能。
This is related to your expectation, the easiest language for some people are the American slang. You don’t need any teacher
这与你的期望有关，对一些人来说最简单的语言是美国俚语。你不需要任何老师，只需要两个月的语言交流。
It is arguable because it is actually hard for a Chinese speaker to pick up Japanese.The Japanese has 2 sets of alphabets and also include a good number of old Chinese character as part of the languages.These character could have multiple pronunciation similar to the Chinese language.In fact, a single character could be 3 syllables which is different from Chinese Language.
这是有争议的，因为说汉语的人实际上很难学会日语。日语有两套字母，也包括很多古老的汉字作为语言的一部分。这些字可以有多种发音，类似于中国语言。事实上，一个字可以是三个音节，这与汉语不同。
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
Chinese and Japanese are from completely different langauage families that are as different as English is to Finnish. So, I think Chinese speakers find Japanese very difficult to learn and vice versa. As someone who minored in Japanese in college my guess is that it's probably easier for Japanese speakers to learn Chinese. If you know 2,000+ kanji already mastering 1,000 more is manageable. The biggest obstacle is probably pronouncing the 4 tones.
汉语和日语来自完全不同的语系，就像英语和芬兰语的区别一样。所以，我认为说中文的人会觉得日语很难学，反之亦然。作为一个在大学里辅修日语的人，我猜说日语的人学习中文可能更容易。如果你知道2000个以上的汉字，那么掌握1000个以上的汉字是可以做到的。最大的障碍可能是四个声调的发音。
To know the perfect answer to your question,I would highly recommend you to visit BLCU (Beijing Language and Cultural University) in Biejing, China. There, you will meet students/scholars from diverse parts of the world who are quite efficient and surprisingly pro in spoken, written and reading part of mandarin Chinese.
为了获得这个问题的完美答案，我强烈推荐你去中国北京的北京语言大学。在那里，你会遇到来自世界各地的学生/学者，他们在普通话的口语、写作和阅读方面非常高效，令人惊讶。
我还想在这里引用我自己的一个例子。为了拿到学位，我已经学了四个月的基础中文。四年后，我有足够的信心独自一人在最繁忙的街道上自在地行走。
根据我的个人经验，我不应该说汉语是最难的语言，至少在口语和阅读领域是如此。然而，它的写作预计会让人起鸡皮疙瘩。不过如果一个有志者足够认真，仅仅4年就足以精通中文的各个方面。
I am English educated, I am A Singaporean Chinese. My grandparents are from China, I am consider the 3rd generation Chinese in Singapore. Chinese Langauage, Mandarin is my 2nd language. My worst subject is Chinese language, during my primary school days I failed and quite badly. During my schooling days I hate Chinese langauge. Because it is so strict, missed a stroke or wrong stroke is consider wrong and have to memorise hard. But now atvthe age of 59 I find Chinese lanaguage very interesting and unique. Never too late to learn. Thanks to my Chinese friends.and Colleagues and GOOGLE.
我是受英语教育的，我是新加坡华人。我的祖父母来自中国，我是新加坡的第三代华人。汉语，普通话是我的第二语言。我最糟糕的科目是中文，在我小学的时候，我语文总是不及格，而且很糟糕。在我上学的日子里，我讨厌中文。因为它是如此严格，漏写一笔或错误的一笔都被认为是不规范的，必须努力记忆。但现在，在我59岁的时候，我发现汉语非常有趣和独特。活到老，学到老。感谢我的中国朋友，同事和谷歌。
Chinese language character is pictographic calligraphy. Everyword Is like a picture. You must remember by memorising it first compare to English language a word is form by 26 alphabets A to Z is easier to spell, to write. Chinese character for example the word “l” or “me”. By missing one stroke or wrong stroke is consider wrong. Is a very discipline language. Come to speaking, the way of pronounciation 发音Fāyīng or like some use to say bitting of the words 咬字 differs from English.
汉字是象形文字。每个字都像一幅画。你必须记住，首先要记住它，与英语相比，一个单词由26个字母组成，从A到Z更容易拼写和书写。汉字，例如“我”这个字，漏划一笔或划错一笔都被认为是错误的。这是一门很规范的语言。说到中文口语，发音Fāyīng或者像一些人说的咬字，这方面与英语有很大不同。
这就是为什么你看到西方人很难把普通话说正确，就像在中国出生和长大的中国人说英语一样，我遇到过的那些问题，比如我来自北京的同事和其他来自不同省份的同事都很难发字母R和以s结尾的单词，我的一个来自武汉的中国同事发不出“thanks”的音，发出的是“SANKS”。
虽然汉语是一门很难掌握的语言，但用心去学是可以学会的。中文是一种非常有趣的语言，如果你深入阅读，就会发现它的美丽。4到8个字的成语就可以讲一个故事，中文里有一类词语叫成语。成语最初来源于中国古代经典或历史故事，因此它很有意义。在中国文化中，成语是前人的智慧。
铁板磨成针 Tiě bǎn mó chéng zhēn - iron plate ground into fine needles means With perseverance and patience nothing is impossible.官字兩個口 guān zì liǎng gè kǒu - official has two mouth means Official is always right, because commoner only has one, official has two mouth.You cannot win them.一丝不苟 yīsībùgǒu - even the finest can never get through means To be meticulous; to attend to every detail.
铁板（答主写的铁板）磨成针：有毅力和耐心，没有什么是不可能的，官字两个口：官员有两张嘴，意思是官员总是对的，因为平民只有一张嘴，官员有两张嘴，你永远说不过他们。一丝不苟：连最细微的地方也不马虎，形容办事注意每一个细节，一点儿不马虎
原创翻译：龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处
与我所知道的其他语言，即英语和马来语相比，汉语是最难的语言之一。我仍然在努力学习，但我越来越好了，部分原因是一些西方人的普通话说得如此之好，以至于你以为你在听一个中国人说话，为此我受到激励。中文即使不是最难的语言，也是一门值得学习的有意义的语言。我相信还有其他难学的语言。
後會有期hòu huì yǒu qī Hope to see you again.
后会有期：希望能再见到你
Bobby, I am a Chinese American and I have similar experience with you. I found the unique feature of Chinese that is different from any of the alphabetic/syllabic languages is that it is a pictural language and the visual part and audio parts are both engaged in the comprehension of the language. Also, the construction of words has set rules that helps you remembering the language. Furthermore, the multi-character phrases limited not just your examples of 成语 but also translation of foreign concepts such as 雷射 (laser) using the combination of the words thunder and shoot shows the ingenuity of person who made up the phrase (since when I read the word 雷射 the visual image of a red laser pointer comes directly to mind).
Bobby,我是一个华裔美国人，我和你有类似的经历。我发现汉语不同于任何字母/音节语言。它的独特之处在于，它是一种图像语言，视觉部分和声音部分都参与了对语言的理解。此外，字的构造也有一套规则，可以帮助你记住这门语言。此外，多字符短语不仅出现在成语中，还出现在一些舶来词中，例如雷射(激光)，使用雷霆和射击这两个词的组合，显示了创造这个短语的人的独创性(因为当我读到雷射这个词时，脑海中直接浮现出红色激光笔的视觉图像)。
Chinese is a living language with many newly added concepts which is require for any language that have a future. You can write a complete scientific and technical article in Chinese as well as you can write one in English, or Japanese, or German, or Russian, or … and just as someone from Shakespeare’s time cannot read a Physics Today article with comprehension, someone from the Song Dynasty cannot read《科技中国》with comprehension.
中文是一种活生生的语言，有许多新概念，这是任何一种有未来的语言都必须具备的。你可以用中文写一篇完整的科技文章，也可以用英语、日语、德语、俄语写一篇文章，或者……就像莎士比亚时代的人无法理解《今日物理》的文章一样，宋朝的人也无法理解《科技中国》。
汉字遵循这样一个规则，即通过看组成字的偏旁部首来猜测字的意思和发音。这是统一中文书写的好处，因为无论你说普通话、粤语还是台湾话，从偏旁部首猜字的意思和发音都是一样的。
我不同意你说错一笔就是错——这是你老师太严厉的后遗症。你可以写出很多笔画错误的汉字，但写作的意思仍然可以表达出来，就像拼写错误不会影响英语的理解一样。是的，你字写错了，但表达的意思是不变的。
Hi Steven, I am impressed comment from an American Chinese of this subject, you changed my perception of American Chinese interest for Chinese language..As you rightly said Chinese is a living language.What I mean if the stroke suppose to be stroke down from left to right and you strike it opposite down from right to left is consider wrong. That's how strict I've gone through in my Chinese class.Good Day
嗨，Steven，你这个华裔美国人对这个话题的评论给我留下了深刻的印象，你改变了我关于华裔对汉语兴趣的看法。我的意思是，如果一笔从左向右划，而你从右向左划，这样写是不对的。这就是我中文课上老师的要求。祝你有个美好的一天。
For westerners there is a significant learning curve in the beginning, but by the time you get to intermediate and advanced levels it is much easier than western languages. At least in my opinion.
对于西方人来说，在开始的时候很难，但当你达到中级和高级水平时，它比西方语言容易得多。至少在我看来是这样。
As with all languages, it is not a matter of where you are from. It’s a matter of how early you get started on learning the language. Kids are much better at learning new languages than adults.
就像所有的语言一样，这不是你来自哪里的问题。这取决于你多早开始学习这门语言。孩子比成年人更擅长学习新语言。