Are you interesting in learning Chinese?

Question

Hello everybody, I'm a Chinese from Taiwan.
If you speak Chinese, could you answer me some questions about learning Chinese? I studied English in School, and I want to know people who are native English speakers think about Chinese, thanks a lot! ^_^

Q1：Why do you want to learn Chinese? Are you interesting in Chinese?
Q2：Do you think learning Chinese is difficult? Which part do you think that will make you confused, listening, speaking, reading or writing?
Q3：Do you know about “Chu-yin fu-hao”( ㄅㄆㄇㄈ)? Do you want to learn Chinese by that? Why?
Q4：Which do you like, Traditional Chinese or Simplified?

If I do mistakes in English, please tell me, thank for your help! : )
If you have Chinese questions want to dicuss with me, you can write e-mail or chat msn :[e-mail]

To perfectlybaked:
Thanks for your answer. Honestly, it's impossible to memorize all of Chinese word for Chinese, too, and we only use more eazy words in our usual life. Most of difficult words exist in literary works.

To sweetdivine:
I'll answer your questions by e-mail, and hope we could be good friends! ^_^

To Erik:
Thanks for your answers, they are useful for me.
"Chu-yin fu-hao" (ㄅㄆㄇㄈ) is just like a kind of phonetic alphabet. In Taiwan, we learned it before Chinese Words, and it also could teach us how to write Chinese because it more easier than a word.

Answer 1

Hi,I'm a Singaporean currently taking Chinese as a second language.You said to tell you mistakes in your English so... You should say 'Are you interested in Chinese?' or 'Do you find Chinese interesting?'.Just to let you know :)

Q1: I learned Chinese because my parents taught it to me since I was very young.I
Q2: Yes,Chinese is very difficult!I'm taking Higher Chinese (simplified Chinese),the fact that alot of words look alike confuses me...and I study it....
Q3: I don't know about it,I admit...and no,way too complex...
Q4: Simplified Chinese,please.Traditional is hard :)

You don't mind if I ever ask you for help,do you?Because I'm not very good in Chinese...Speaking about Chinese,have you ever read the book '城南旧事‘（cheng nan jiu shi)? You probably haven't....because the author is Singaporean :)
And my Chinese vocabulary isn't wonderful either........

Answer 2

I want to learn Chinese because there are over a billion people in China. Knowing a language that such a large chunk of the human population speaks would be useful. Also, I think China is a rising international power.

Learning how to speak Chinese is easy as long as you have someone cute to teach you.

The hardest part is reading and writing because there is no phonetic alphabet and you have to learn characters for each word which means there is too much memorization.

I don't know Chu-yin-fu-hao...

I don't know any simplified Chinese... traditional Mandarin is fine.

Yeah you make some mistakes, but your english seems pretty good.

Answer 3

Q1：Why do you want to learn Chinese? Are you interesting in Chinese?
A1= It is always useful to learn new languages,I am selling Prima LCD and therefore to speak to my suppliers I would like to learn Chinese and I am interested.
Q2：Do you think learning Chinese is difficult? Which part do you think that will make you confused, listening, speaking, reading or writing?
A2= I do not think so, no part should be difficult because I am good student of languages.
Q3：Do you know about “Chu-yin fu-hao”( ㄅㄆㄇㄈ)? Do you want to learn Chinese by that? Why?
A3=It means Symbols for Annotating Sounds, which I got it from yahoo search!! Don't think I am very intelligent man!! I would like to learn Chinese which ever way it suits you.

Q4：Which do you like, Traditional Chinese or Simplified?
A4= I would prefer both.

Answer 4

哈哈，Just saw your question. It's never too late to learn a foreign language. I think Chinese is a better choice.You know now China is the world's largest growing market, and China is full of opportunities. And Chinese is much more popular than Japanese, Singapore,Malaysia,Indonesiaand Thailand use Chinese a lot. by the way,I am a native Chinese. I will give a hand if u need. Good luck, and never give up!

Answer 5

Yes I am. I've been trying to find a Chinese who can teach me Chinese.
1. It's the most interesting language I've come across.
2. I doubt learning it is difficult, once you learn the alphabet of any language it's quite easy to learn the language. And I don't think I'll get confused maybe at the beginning the listening, the reading and writing but not the speaking.
3. I have no idea what it is.
4. Which is nicer, traditional or simplified? I don't mind which one as long as it is Chinese.

So will you teach me your interesting language?

Answer 6

A1, Yes. I'd like to learn Chinese.
A2,Indeed it is difficult to wrote Chinese characters for Westerners. However, learning Chinese becomes easy as the Internet provides a lot of information and tools to learn the language. You can find Chinese character animation with this link: http://www.bizchinatown.com/tools/animated_characters/index.html.
A3. No. I don't know Chu-yin fu-hao.
A4. I like Simplified Chinese as it is easier to learn.
Hope this information helps.

Answer 7

I am Chinese, so I don't really think I have a choice about learning it, my mom thinks so anyways. But I don't really think Chinese school is the greatest thing in the world.

I want to learn how to speak it so I can properly talk/argue with my grandparents. They speak only Chinese, though they know a little bit of English. I'm a bit interested, but after forgetting about all the things I learned in school, it'll be a challenge.

Yes, very. It was quite boring for me and I didn't take mostly anything from it. Reading and writing were tough. I can listen to people speaking Chinese and understand it, and can speak a little bit of it (though it's my second language), but my family just wants me to learn how to speak it, so that's covered.

Nope, sorry.

I dunno, I never really thought about it.

Answer 8

Hi, my name is Kami. it's a few month that I started to learn chinese with a private teacher( of course she is not chinese).
Actually, I am a lingumania and I love all the foreign languages.
my other motive of learning chinese, is that I'm a businessman and I travel to HK and china 2 or 3 times per year.
Chinese intonation is very difficult. I am learning it with Pin Yin alphabet now, but in the futute I intend to learn its writing too.
I have a Taiwanese friend in HK too.
I would be very glad, if we can correspond with each other through mail.
this is my mail address: [e-mail]
waiting for your reply.

Answer 9

Well, at one point I was interested in Chinese, but only Kanji in the Japanese language. I do have a question, though: If Chinese has 50,000 characters or so, is it essential to memorize all of these in order to become literate in the Chinese language? To me that seems impossible to do unless you are born in a Chinese-speaking country.

Answer 10

1.i want 2 learn chinese 'cause i'm interested how the words are written
2.learning any language is always difficult at first
3.no idea
4.i like both