Chinese: Hard Language to Learn or Hardest Language to Learn?

I would probably not have the authority to answer that question truthfully, but from my limited experience (SPANISH) I would have to say that Chinese is maybe the mother of all complex and difficult languages ever. It is in the upper tier of “holy fuck, my mind can’t even comprehend what is coming out of your moth right now” languages. Maybe I am being over dramatic; after 6 months, I am getting more comfortable with the language, but there are still times where I am not convinced people are saying actual words.

And the top it all off, there is the people’s common language, or putonghua, which is the national official dialect, but then from city to city, the local dialect is completely different. So I can learn how to say something in Wuhan, and say it in Shanghai, and it would be meaningless. The solution of course is to just speak putonghua, but you can’t pick that up so much from people around you, because they are all speaking Wuhanhua, which is maybe the ugliest hua out there.

For all my bitching, I have to give us at least a little credit. We had a conversation with a taxi driver about where we are from, how long we have been here, how long we will stay, what we do here, how much money we make, whether or not we miss our families, and little things like that. We are getting better with food orders, learning how to get our favorites without using a little piece of paper. We managed to have a discussion with the headmaster of our school over lunch, her using her minimal English and us our minimal Chinese. There is usually a lot of smiling, laughing, and long pauses of searching for words.

I have to give it to the Chinese, they have limitless patience when it comes to foreigners and language. In America, if someone got in a taxi and couldn’t tell the driver where he wanted to go exactly, it would probably be a problem. I think there is the assumption in America that if you don’t know English, you are probably not too bright. I now have a deep sympathy for such people, as I have been in frustrating situtations that have made me feel pretty useless and stupid. But really, the Chinese will sit there and use the little English they know to understand what you want, they will take a cell phone from you if you need someone else to tell them in Chinese what you need. There are of course people who don’t treat us as well, but they are outliers I would say. They compliment our pitiful Chinese, and then, in perfect English say “My English is very poor.” We’re like, you speak better English than we do. Oh, modesty.

Until next time,

zai jian!