Is Chinese more difficult than European languages

[Don_Horhe]

I've been in China for more than an year now and, along with attending a full-time Chinese language bachelor's program, have been teaching English, mostly to kids. Based on my observations of foreigners studying Chinese and Chinese studying a foreign language (English, for example, it being the bandwagon everybody's jumped onto), it seems to me that most Chinese students, irrespective of age, generally have a harder time than foreigners in reaching a certain level of competence. All of my classmates, regardless of nationality, have been studying Chinese for 2-3 years, including back in their home countries and the time spent in China. The majority can speak, understand, read and write quite well, passive language skills generally being better developed than active ones. What strikes me as odd is the fact that I've met, not just once, Chinese primary school/high school/university students who have been studying English for well over 5 years and still have a hard time understanding anything that even slightly goes beyond elementary level English. Of course, there have been cases, mostly, but not limited to, kids around 11-12 years old, in which I've been amazed at the level of competency, but such people are the exception rather than the rule.

I am in no way trying to say that foreigners are intrinsically better at studying foreign languages, or that are smarter or more intelligent - that would be simply daft. What I'm trying to get at is the reasons behind the aforementioned phenomenon, assuming, of course, it is real and not something that exists only in my mind.

Undoubtedly, teaching methodology, on which I think traditional culture has left an obvious mark, has an enormous effect on how people learn a language. I won't go into detail here, assuming that everyone is more or less familiar with the test-orientated education and extensive rote learning prevalent in Chinese schools.

Even that does not suffice to explain the fact that if you compare a foreign university student of Chinese and a Chinese university student of English, who have both had 3 years of formal language education (and no previous contact with the target language), the foreign student is more likely to speak Chinese better than the Chinese student will speak English. Would a plausible explanation be that Chinese, despite its notoriously difficult writing system, peculiar pronunciation, tones, etc., is easier to learn, being grammatically simpler than European languages which, in contrast, have complicated patterns of declensions, inflections, grammatical gender, number, case and so on? Is it easier, if coming from a complex structure, to familiarize oneself with a simple one and more difficult to do the reverse?

Excuse my rambling, I think I'll go to bed now.

[valikor]

Dor Horhe:

Interesting point. Perhaps being the native speaker of a language with specific grammatical difficulties makes it easier to learn another one which is complicated in the same ways...

But,I would say that your comment about teaching methodologies might hold more weight than you give them. Every single foreign-language major that I knew back in the US was required to study abroad in a country speaking their target language, and this was always one of the most significant learning experiences for them. This is not the case in China. Plus, (based on what I've heard from Chinese students), their English classes are not conducted in English, and the emphasis is always on reading/writing for tests (as you said).

Plus, your comparison is probably skewed based on the fact that many, many more Chinese people study English than Westerners studying Chinese. In America, I know a tiny number of students who studied Chinese. They were the ones who were passionate about it, and had talent in languages. In China, just about all college students have been studying English for several years at least--not just the ones with a high language-learning aptitude.

If American students were required to study Chinese, I'm sure we would have millions of Americans stumbling over their words, saying 卫生巾在哪儿 instead of 卫生间在哪儿 . (I did this )

My $0.02.

David

EDIT: Looking back. I see that you did somewhat address my second point, specifying that you are comparing Chinese "students of English", which I must assume means someone specializing/majoring in English, not just a random person who took compulsory English classes. I think my point is still valid, since many Chinese students major in English for practical/utilitarian reasons, not because they love language, or are talented at learning them. (Personally, though, Chinese students majoring in English have seemed to speak quite well)

Edited January 5, 2010 at 11:11 AM by valikor

[zhxlier]

Regarding Dor Horhe's post, I agree with valikor: motivation is the key. Chinese students learn English because they have to. Foreign students learn Chinese because they are interested in the language. It makes big differences.

[Don_Horhe]

I wasn't exactly making a statement, it was more like a question-assumption based on subjective experience.

What both of you say about motivation is true - it is a key, but it is not the key. I'm sure we all know people who, despite the lack of interest, have attained high levels of competence, the only difference being that it probably took them more time and effort. In linguistics there is a classification of motivation, or affective factors, into two types: instrumental (practical/utilitarian reasons, learning because one has to, etc.) and integral (being passionate about it, loving and being interested in the language and culture, learning it as part of a romantic relationship, etc.).

For the sake of this discussion, let's divide factors which have impact on language learning into subjective and objective, or into things which one can control or affect and things which one cannot.

Motivation falls into both categories.

Instrumental factors are objective - the learners cannot change the fact that a certain level of competence in a foreign language is required for access to education. Of course, they can choose to drop out and go work in a bottle cap factory or something, but that is a totally different matter.

Integral factors are intrinsically objective - you either like something or you don't, and that's how you were born. However, interest can be fostered and affected to a certain extent - one can try to learn more about the culture/history of the country and its people, establish a romantic relationship with a native speaker of the target language and so on.

Methods of education are, in my opinion, subjective, although that might seem rather unintuitive at first. The way a language is learned is ultimately a choice the student makes. They can either go along with what is being offered, or they can look for and implement different, more fruitful approaches.

The last factor - the relative grammatical complexity of one's native tongue and the target language, the presence or lack of cognate words and the effects all this has on study - is as objective as they get. It is precisely this objectivity that leads me to assume that grammatical markedness plays the key role in determining the ease or difficulty of learning a language.

My opinion can be expressed with this improvised chart, where A is relative grammatical complexity and B is native speakers of different languages.:

http://photoload.ru/data/dd/9d/a8/dd9da8799c27e57fab37594ea082d65d.jpg

It is easier to go down or stay in the same area on line A than go up. Hypothetically, in terms of grammatical structure, native speakers of languages 1 and 2 will find it not too difficult to learn each other's language, and both will find it easy to learn language 3 (L1->L2 and L2->L1 being staying in the same area on line A while L1/L2->L3 is going down line A). On the other hand, native speakers of language 3 will find it much harder to go up line A to learn language 1 or 2, than if they were to learn another language, L4, which has a similar value on line A.

Things are not as simple as that. Motivation, cognates, educational methods, cultural similarity, or the lack thereof, and many other factors complicate matters further, but I think this is a possible general outline pertaining not only to English and Chinese, but to languages in general.

Of course, I might be wrong and I'd be glad to be corrected.

By the way, I am not asserting that languages with relatively simple grammatical structure are in some way inferior to those with a more complex structure. All languages are equal.

[anonymoose]

What both of you say about motivation is true - it is a key, but it is not the key.

I think motivation is absolutely the most significant factor, overriding all others. For most people, motivation is what makes someone decide to learn a language in the first place. Why can I speak Chinese? Because I was motivated enough to learn. Why can't I speak Swahili? Because I've never had the motivation to learn. Other factors, such as resources, obviously will influence how easy it is to learn a language, but if one is motivated enough, one can even move to the country of the language one is trying learn (as many of us have done moving to China).

As for Chinese students learning English, the situation is a little different, because most students have to do it. But why is it that some students graduate being able to speak excellent English (without even having had the luxury of travelling abroad), whereas others cannot even string a sentence together? Of course, to a certain extent, intelligence, resources, teaching quality and so on will all have an influence, but the most conspicuous factor is definitely the motivation and interest of the individual.

[chrix]

I'd like to back up Don Horhe on the complexity issue, I personally think this is key. If the language you want to learn is more complex/distant (=difficult wrt your mother tongue) you will need a higher motivation to overcome this distance. On the other hand, if your mother tongue is a closely related language, the threshold will be lower (I for instance, never particularly had a passion for learning English, but here I am). I think you could say complexity influences motivation.

anonymoose, Swahili won't be all that easy for you. It has quite complex grammar, and all the words have to be learnt from scratch. Surely, easier compared to Chinese, but still. The problem for English speakers is that due to the simplification of its grammar and the admixture of its vocabulary it's not that easy for English speakers either to learn the languages most closely related to English, i.e. Dutch and German. French will be easy vocabulary-wise, but it's a totally different beast from a grammar point of view. (Though learning German, Dutch or French will be easier for English speakers than Swahili).

[Artem]

I still don't really buy the argument that some languages will be easier than others based on what language you know. In my personal experience, I simply found some languages easier because of my interest for the languages (i.e. why Korean is 100 times easier to learn than Japanese for me, or why Chinese was 100 times easier than French).

I suppose if you study with a textbook, memorizing word lists and grammar rules, then maybe it would be easier if the language is similar to one of those that you already speak. However, I don't learn languages that way, so for me the difficulty stems simply from how much I care about the language. If I like it, I remember it easily, if I don't like it or care for it, I forget everything I learned by the next day.

[chrix]

well Artem, you might be an exception, who knows, but there are statistics for this kind of thing, and at least for English the statistics bear this out. Since L2 acquisition is not my specialty, I'll leave it at that.

[atitarev]

...but there are statistics for this kind of thing...

That's right. According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, it takes 1,320 academic hours for motivated learners (i.e. having a strong interest) to become functional in Chinese: How hard is Chinese?

I have posted this a while ago.

No doubt, interest in a language is very important. Perhaps, Artem can share how he can learn Chinese without textbooks.

[renzhe]

Besides, these things are highly subjective. I've met a number of Chinese people who have been learning German for a couple of years at best, who speak better German than I do Chinese.

I think that living in the country and motivation really make a big difference.

I suppose if you study with a textbook, memorizing word lists and grammar rules, then maybe it would be easier if the language is similar to one of those that you already speak.

It would also be easier if you could understand half of everything in a foreign language without having studied it.

You surely cannot be arguing that Chinese is just as difficult to learn as Italian, if you already speak Spanish?

I have certainly made the experience that the closer a language is to something I know, the easier it is to learn. And with so many advanced words in all European languages being derived from Latin and Greek, the similarities are overwhelming once you're past the beginner stage.

Edited January 11, 2010 at 01:56 AM by renzhe

[chrix]

renzhe, if you're referring to the link provided by atitarev, this is naturally from a perspective of a native speaker of the English language. As are the TOEFL statistics I keep referencing (EDIT: these take English as the frame of reference and then measure how native speakers of different languages are doing).

Though I think the proximity principle applies across all languages, you just have to compute it anew for each native language.

[renzhe]

I'm aware of that link, but I was speaking more generally. I'm just saying that I've made experiences where motivated Chinese people picked up European languages very quickly, and that such anecdotal evidence must not prove anything.

For example, many Slavic languages are rather tricky for native English speakers, but probably easier for me. Scandinavians learn both English and German very quickly compared to others, etc. etc.

[chrix]

yes, but aren't we kinda agreeing here?

[renzhe]

I'm agreeing with you and atitarev, yes

[atitarev]

Of course, it was from an English speaker's prospective. All the tricks of a language may be difficult or seem difficult, what matters is, how long it takes to overcome those difficulties.

Difficult tones (Chinese) or complex grammar (Slavic languages) are solved by a lot of exposure, good learning materials and exercises. Learning the writing system and build up your vocabulary quickly is what the most difficult of Chinese is.

Understudied tonal languages like Vietnamese, Thai and Lao take only half the time needed for Chinese (they all have more tones than Mandarin). Thai script is difficult but mainly phonetical. So do Russian and other Slavic languages (except for Bulgarian/Macedonian - no cases).

For me Hindi was a bit of surprise. Hindi writing system is very complicated, especially with letter conjunct but it's even easier according to statistics. The consonant system is quite big and all vowels have nasal equivalents (more than in French or Portuguese). It's phonetic though and the grammar is relatively easy (although it has grammatical gender distinction, conjugation and a simple case system).

To me, objectively (if I were not Russian), Russian grammar seems to be more complicated than Arabic but it's always written out and pronounced, so learners can learn the Russian grammar by lots of reading, which you can't do with Arabic (missing pronunciation info).

I don't understand why Korean is in group IV. It was probably done when Korean had to be learned with Hanja.

Edited January 11, 2010 at 02:35 AM by atitarev

[Artem]

When I first got interested in Chinese, I took some courses at college, using a couple of textbooks etc. That got me nowhere. Then, I spent a year in China, where I learned by bringing with me everywhere I go a small notebook, pen, and electronic dictionary. Whatever I wanted to learn, I pointed to and asked people. Whenever I wanted to say something but I didn't know how to, I would write down what I wanted to say in English, then try to figure it out at home. Next day, I would go try the phrase on whoever was willing to listen to me.

Everything I learned, I would add to Anki for review. Whatever I missed in Anki that day, I would write down in my notebook and take it with me to try on other people.

I can't learn a language from a textbook or from reading. I have to hear it, I have to interact with someone.

For example, every night I would go by fruits and talk to the owner of the stand for 10-15 minutes, asking whatever I wanted to know (with the use of my dictionary of course). Then I would take the said fruits and share them with the security guard of my building, and chat with him until I wanted to go to bed.

EDIT: That's my method, I'm sure it would take me about the same time to learn French or Spanish, if I was motivated. I don't think, I'd learn it any faster. I'm sure not everyone is like me, so maybe similarities in the language help someone else.

I'm no expert on other people's second languages acquisition, so I won't argue against any point. I just find that motivation is the most important key in learning, not other languages. What I meant before is that a motivated speaker of English will learn Chinese just as fast as a motivated speaker of Japanese, given that all the other variables are equal.

Edited January 11, 2010 at 04:26 AM by Artem

[atitarev]

Sure, sure. You must be in the country of the language you are learning, then you learn faster. Although you can find many Chinese people here in Australia, it's not the same as being in China.

[anonymoose]

What I meant before is that a motivated speaker of English will learn Chinese just as fast as a motivated speaker of Japanese, given that all the other variables are equal.

I agree with you about the motivation issue, but as for motivated speakers of English and Japanese learning Chinese equally as fast, given that all other variables are equal, I think the point that people are trying to make is that for English speakers, and Japanese speakers, the other variables are not equal. I would rather rephrase it and say, motivation is the key factor, but for equally motivated people, a Japanese speaker would find it easier to learn Chinese than an English speaker. This is borne out by common sense.

[Artem]

I'd say the only advantage a Japanese person would have is that it's easier to go to China then for an English speaker.

What I was saying is that knowing Japanese is not a sufficient enough of an advantage to make a difference for two motivated people, who are both in China, for example.

There could be other advantages, like location and such, sure. But let's say two people, one from England and one from Japan move to China and become roommates. Both actively study Chinese through emersion, and are of equal learning ability. I think they will advance at equal pace.

Like I said, if all the variables except the language were the same, I think two motivated people would advance at the same rate.

Of course, other variables might not be the same, but I don't think that would depend on what language you can speak fluently.

EDIT: I'll just leave it at that. I'm speaking on personal experience, so I have no data or statistics to support my opinion.

[anonymoose]

If we're talking about speaking only, then I agree. But if we're also including reading and writing, then how could that be, when Japanese people already have a 2000+ character headstart? Especially when the reading and writing is the most difficult (or let's say, most time-consuming) part for an English speaker.