Learning Chinese Is Not So Tough

When I think about learning Chinese, I feel overwhelmed. I’m not able to pronounce all the variations “mā, má, mǎ and mà” and there are so many characters to memorize. But what if I told you that Chinese is actually much easier than I and many others think it is? And that this language is so widely spoken and growing so fast that it could open doors to new possibilities, careers, and a brighter future for you? Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Here are the top five reasons why you should learn Chinese.

It is spoken by more than 1.2 billion native speakers.

According to World o’ Meters, as I write this, the world’s population is 7.6 billion. Of those, 1.2 million speak Chinese as a native language. This means that one out of every six people on the planet speaks Chinese. And, let’s face it, being able to communicate with others in their native language can be beneficial from a personal and professional standpoint, and open up a whole new world of new perspectives and ideas.

It’s not as hard as you think

While “mastering” Chinese may take a while, getting to an intermediate level where you can hold a conversation is not as difficult as you think. As I mentioned before, Chinese is a very “tonal” language, but it is also a contextual language. If you can’t get the right tone for some words, it doesn’t matter too much, as you will be understood by the context of the sentence.

You also don’t need to know the spelling of the characters, as, thanks to technology, you can speak Chinese via email and text messaging using Pinyin; a standard romanized spelling system for transcribing Chinese. This is becoming increasingly important because writing Chinese characters takes too long and many native speakers are opting for Pinyin writing.

It can be quite complicated to memorize all the characters, but you only need to know between 2,000 and 3,000 characters to read a newspaper… Between 2,000 and 3,000?! Well, I know what you’re thinking: the idea of memorizing thousands of characters may seem intimidating, but it’s the same as memorizing any other language, and if you start with ten characters a day, you’ll get there without even realizing it.

Learning Chinese boosts your career in business and tourism

Chinese tourism is HUGE and growing. From Vancouver to Egypt, tour operators are hiring and training staff to cater to the growing Chinese market.

On the business side, China’s growing middle class is creating a wave of new consumers and a retail market that is poised for expansion. Will you have the language skills?

Experience the culture

The ancient Chinese culture is over 5,000 years old and Chinese is one of the oldest languages still in use. That said, this civilization had a great influence on the arts and science, and traditional Chinese architecture has been respected throughout the world. Even today, the Chinese language, literature, philosophy, and politics play an important role in dictating global trends. Don’t miss this opportunity to get to know legendary China whether it’s for a year or a short summer course, you will learn the most. Check out mandarin classes Singapore to learn more.