Is Chinese really difficult to learn, or do westerners go astray?

If a western young man who grew up in a non-Chinese environment wants to learn Chinese, the metropolis is told that Chinese is the most difficult language to learn in the world. The communication between the East and the West began in16th century. According to common sense, after more than 400 years of mutual communication, the other party should be able to master some basic laws, and the introductory skills should be well known and accepted by everyone. Today, in the 2 1 century, Chinese is still regarded by most westerners as the most difficult language to learn. Why on earth is this?

Myth 1: Investigating China people from a religious perspective.

From the16th century, a large number of European Jesuit missionaries, represented by Matteo Ricci, came to China. They introduced China's social system, moral concepts, historical geography and cultural traditions to Europe one by one, and some even wrote relevant books. So in the17th century, the first "China fever" rose in Europe, and Chinese naturally attracted the attention of Europeans. However, they are worried because they want to explore whether Chinese, a language completely different from western pinyin, was the first language in the world before Adam's descendants built the Tower of Babel. Looking at the Chinese language used by the Chinese nation for thousands of years from a religious point of view, while ignoring the essential attributes of the emergence and development of Chinese, is obviously a religious misunderstanding.

Myth 2: There are many "exceptions" to Chinese grammar rules.

Grammar is the basic law of word formation and sentence formation in language. The purpose of summarizing grammar is to help people master the language in a shorter time. English grammar, Spanish grammar and so on. But only China people, in the eyes of foreigners, seem formal, but there are many exceptions and exceptions. For example, when making words and sentences, foreigners can't understand why they can say "cup" and "chopsticks" and why they can't say "bowl". China people humbly claim that their hospitality to their guests is a "light meal". When foreigners praise the hospitality of China people, they can't help saying, "What a wonderful meal." They don't understand why adding the word "big" will cause laughter.

Myth 3: The defects of Chinese Pinyin

Up to now, there are many reference books for learning Chinese in the west, and there is not a single Chinese character in the whole article. Chinese sentences are written entirely in pinyin.

From the perspective of the history of Chinese Pinyin, first westerners look at Chinese from their own standpoint, first Spanish scheme, then Portuguese scheme, and finally Latin scheme, which finally influenced China people to read Chinese characters by themselves and unconsciously stood on the side of Spanish.

Spelling Chinese with 26 pinyin letters is for the convenience of learning Chinese characters, but it has not achieved the original intention of vigorously promoting Chinese pinyin in practice. The first problem encountered by Chinese Pinyin is that there are a large number of homophones and homophones in Chinese. Although there are four tones, it is difficult to distinguish them not only for westerners who have no knowledge of China cultural background, but also for China people to read them correctly. In addition, the Pinyin of Chinese has led to the complete use of Pinyin in learning Chinese in the West today. Although this method is easy to use, it is getting farther and farther away from the essence of Chinese as an ideographic language. For example, some jokes about learning Chinese in the west, such as reading "Mr." as "smoke" and "going downstairs" as "indecent", are all defects of Pinyin's method of learning Chinese. The author has noticed that in recent years, some books on learning Chinese published by westerners have no Chinese characters. Isn't that strange? Some simple and portable pocket books advertise under the slogans of "learn Chinese quickly" and "learn Chinese in one month". In fact, everyday words are marked with pinyin letters respectively. It can be seen that pinyin has a great influence in the western world, but it has also caused deep harm.

From the standpoint of the spread of China culture to the outside world, we can say that there have been many misunderstandings in these 400 years. Since17th century, Chinese, which is characterized by a large number of hieroglyphs, was initially regarded by western Christians as the original language of human beings for 100 years. Since then, Chinese radicals have been regarded as the letters of western languages, the key to mastering Chinese, and the tool to make a fortune, which has been delayed for 100 years; The final published Chinese grammar is still an imitation of western grammar, which can not fully conform to the characteristics of Chinese; Pinyin of Chinese completely lost the cultural characteristics of Chinese as an ideographic character.

Chinese has been misunderstood for too long, and it's time to get out.