A couple of questions 两个问题

[anonymoose]

A couple of unrelated questions:

1. How would you say this in Chinese: Cantonese should be easier for you to learn than for me (because you are a native Mandarin speaker, and I'm not)

I wasn't sure about a very direct translation, so I used something like 对于中国人来说，广东话应该比较容易学会. However, this doesn't express exactly what I wanted to say. There must be a better way.

2. I heard that if someone praises you for a skill you've learnt, a modest response could be 我是学着玩的 (for example if someone praises your Chinese), but how would this be modified if an object (here 中文) is added to the verb? 我是学中文学着玩的? This was just a guess, but I suspect it is incorrect.

Thanks for any help.

[chenpv]

Cantonese should be easier for you to learn than for me (because you are a native Mandarin speaker, and I'm not)

比起我这个老外，你这个中国人学广东话应该更容易些。 Anyway, your original sentence is OK to me.

how would this be modified if an object (here 中文) is added to the verb?

我学中文是闹着玩儿的。

It is an abbrevation form of 我学中文是(我)闹着玩儿的。(The fact that I am learning Chinese is the fact that I am doing it for fun.) As long as the sentence structure is balanced on both sides of 'is', I think you can add whatever you want to.

[goldie]

just another suggestion:

your first point, i might say it like this: 你学广冻话必定是比我学得容意吧

and as to your second point about saying 'modestly' that you are learning chinese for fun...i (if I were Chinese) might find that a bit insulting, to say your doing it for fun is like saying you don't really care if you learn it or not...what do you think? am i totally off track?

[anonymoose]

as to your second point about saying 'modestly' that you are learning chinese for fun...i (if I were Chinese) might find that a bit insulting, to say your doing it for fun is like saying you don't really care if you learn it or not...what do you think? am i totally off track?

No, I don't think it would be considered to be insulting. 我是V着玩的 as far as I'm aware is a fairly standard expression used in situations as I described, and wouldn't be interpreted literally on such occasions, just as when people respond 哪里 to compliments, it isn't literally taken to mean "where?".

Besides, I would hardly construe learning Chinese 'for fun' as insulting. People do things for fun because they enjoy them or find them interesting. Surely this is a more complimentary reason for doing something than purely as a means to some other end.