Dear readers,
This following BBC article was written in 2006, but certain facts of learning Chinese still remain true.
Westerners have the reputation of using the fourth tone exclusively for all words. It is a sharp falling sound, a little like how the end of a sentence with an exclamation mark sounds.
Pinyin, a system of transliterating Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet, is used by Westerners to learn basic Mandarin. Things get tougher when students start learning characters, but language experts say a person only needs roughly 5,000 to be literate.
‘It’s like singing’
One thing that is easier in Mandarin is the grammar.
“The grammar is not nearly as complicated as many European languages,” says Dr Weightman. “For example there are no verb tenses, no relative clauses, no singular or plural.”
The number of people in the UK learning Mandarin has gone up considerably in recent years, she adds.
“It really appeals to kids, they find the different characters fun and grasp the different tones well, it’s like singing for them. The more we demystify the language, the more people will learn it. At the moment it is still seen as exotic and a bit strange, which can put people off. But that’s changing.”
Read the whole article at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4617646.stm