Thank you!

Are You ever read Bible?

If a Chinese toddler could speak the language reasonably well by the age of 3, how difficult can it be? Albert Einstein couldn't speak proper German by the age of 3. Isn't that more than sufficient proof that German is much harder to learn?

sou mocambicano, quero aprender mandarim , mas e muito dificil aqui... temos poucas pessoas que dao essa lingua ca.

Verdade kkkkkkkkkkkkkk as dificuldade são as pessoas que colocam 🎉🎉🎉

我也觉得，说得太好了😀

@@ChinesewithDrStella 嗯嗯！如果是学生的话，那A+没问题的啦！

I would expect no less from someone who started learning it half a century ago and has used it professionally while living in the country where it's spoken. What would really impress me if someone were to speak like that with only 3 months into the language from scratch. Still an accomplishment though! What really impresses me is that he's still studying new languages.

@@bhutchin1996 That's true! Exactly!

@@bhutchin1996that is simply not possible to speak like that within three months of learning Chinese from scratch (including his this level of pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary usage, not to mention learning of characters) It just doesn’t exist such kind of phenomenon So your expectations don’t go with reality Maybe you just have no idea of what the real process of learning Chinese language is

(｡･∀･)ﾉﾞ

你的中文真棒，我最近也在学习西班牙语，但说的比你差远了😄

加油，我是中国人，努力你就会掌握中文，你的中文很棒，我现在也想学英文😅

你好，我是湖南人，加油！

@@xiaozhi. 哥，我是山西的，你多会开始自学？

I don't understand the Nanjing accent 😂, especially when the local Nanjing people speak Nankinese. I feel it is really different from Mandarin 😂 BTW. I'm a Beijinger in the North of China. Beijing accent is very close to Mandarin. In other words, the only Chinese I can understand is Mandarin😂

take taxis rides all around the city? no, it wasn't cheap!🤔

@@alanlin4940 Nanjinese is also technically considered Mandarin, just a different flavor of Mandarin. As opposed to Shanghainese, which is usually considered Wu Chinese instead of Mandarin.

@@hrtz9796 I see. I just checked it on Wikipedia. Literally, Nanjinese is also named Lower Yangtze Mandarin. So maybe that's why you think it is one type of Mandarin. But if you ask Chinese people if 淮语 (南京方言 or Nanjinese) is 普通话 (Mandarin), how will they answer? LOL As a Chinese, I can guarantee Chinese people think Mandarin is based on the northern dialect, in fact mostly based on Chende, Hebei. Besides, on Wikipedia: The Nanjing dialect, also known as Nankinese, or Nanjing Mandarin, is a dialect of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Nanjing, China. It is part of the Jianghuai group of Chinese varieties.

@@hrtz9796 Also, you said, Nanjinese is just a different flavor of Mandarin. You're kidding, right? I don't know if you know Chinese. Honestly, some dialects of China are really hard to understand for other Chinese people who don't live there.

那是因为你习惯中文，你换成英国人土生土长完全没有中文环境，你看他会不会和你有一样的想法

Exactly! Chinese doesn’t have conjugation and grammar is straightforward. As a professor of linguistics and Chinese, I keep telling everyone to encourage them to take Chinese. I hope more students will take my classes as now after Covid I decide offer all my university courses to anyone anywhere.

@@tommyma941 我不是个中国人, 我母语是英文. 小时候没有什么中文经历. 我19岁才开始学中文. 学中文之我已经学过了西班牙语和法语. 对我来说那俩都比中文难多了!

@@multishowtimer i agree with you,i am chinese

@@multishowtimer 仔细审题，我没说你是中国人。

It is the same difficulty for everyone, all that matters is your EFFORT

I understand 6 foreign languages : English, German, French, Arabic, Russian, and Mandarin with different levels of abilities. I'm a 53 year-old Indonesian.. I speak German pretty well, and been to Munich to learn German. It was long time ago that I reached B2 level, nearly C1. But it seems that my German deteriorates. I also learned French and Russian, but I don't speak those languages very well like my German, and of course, my fluent English. Now I'm learning Mandarin, and I believe my Mandarin reached A2 or B1 level, because I got Hsk-3 in October 2019. The problem is maintaining the ability. Once you get the B level, you start to be fed up with the language you have learned, unless you have a very high motivation and specific purpose to learn the language. And after that the next question is whether you can maintain the level that has been attained. I reached B2 or even almost C1 in German long time ago, but now it seems that I can only answer relatively correct the B1 level. My German deteriorates...!! as for mr. Steve Kaufmann, not all of his 20 languages are B or C levels. He admitted once that he forgot Rumanian, one of his 20 languages of his list, but if he wants to refresh it, it's easier. now he's busy learning Arabic and Persian as his 19th and 20th languages.. that's also my French. I don't use French anymore, but once in my life I learned it long time ago, and had some opportunities to speak French and also Russian with native speakers. I had more opportunities to speak German, because most Dutch who came to Indonesia spoke German, and I often spoke German with them in the past, some 20 - 30 years ago.. language is a matter of habits and habituation ...

@@ayi3455 О, Вы достойны восхищения! Так много знаете языков.

@@user-fp7uc8ec6x da... izvinyite, ya nye download Cyrillic alphabet...

@@ayi3455 Ничего страшного! ))))

You are right ,sir.

I wouldn't agree with Hungarian and Finnish

Absolutely. Hungarians and Finnish created the hardest languages in the world so they could flex on everyone else who can't speak their language.

Native Finn who learns Chinese here. Yes Chinese is hard when you learn it but after that there isn't anything hard anymore. Speaking Finnish as a non native is a everyday struggle because it's almost impossible to never make case mistakes, and YES they have to be correct to be understood.

문법 文法

yes, his accent really talent and good.

Good job. Maybe at the beginning you can accumulate certain everyday phrases so you feel like you can use Chinese. And there is a systematic strategy to teach and learn Chinese characters rather than pure repetition of copying characters. I use Kungfu and zoomba methods to teach Chinese characters because emphasizing 11 basic stoke orders and repetitive components are critical in effective character teaching.

I'm native English speaker but am Chinese. Iast few years I started to relearn the language as I find I could barely speak it. Now I feel I am pretty good and have no problems understanding. It's possible with intense passion.

i can teach you chinese for free

Hows going now with your chinense?

谁让你翻墙的，来把你电话留一下

"At all" 代表毫无错误。。。His tones were wrong for many words though.. Still really impressive and much much better than other Mandarin learners. And his content was great as well

He still feels a bit off tone and you can tell his a foreigner if you listen carefully. But other than that he speaks well.

Steve's put in a lot of hours into Mandarin, but as he's no longer using it professionally or living in China, and he's also studying new languages, I would imagine his Mandarin to not be perfect. Still, it's very impressive!

@@bhutchin1996 ask him to study thai

nah, he's good but his tones are wrong a fifth of the time

It was also very difficult for me to get used to the fact that there are no spaces between words

您的汉字很不错。

可以使用给小孩子用的那种 “字帖”（淘宝上有卖） 来练习中文的书写，从 笔画（点横竖撇等等） 到偏旁（勹灬冫等等）然后到 汉字

你这中文写的也是顶呱呱呀

@@moranag209 actually there are no punctuation marks in ancient Chinese writings

Yes, when we talk, we don't care about grammar either. Languages are just tools of communication, and when you practice frequently, you will get used to it quickly:)

Hah, I was led into a false sense of security. They told me there was no gender, and then they introduced measure words, which effectively act like just about a hundred genders.

可以換成阻礙

不過，在佛教用語當中，障礙也相當程度被作為動詞使用。

不过可以听懂，看起来词汇量更关键

这你就「不懂」了，可以说你「着相」了。中文名词和动词的界限非常模糊，很多动词和名词可以相互使用，只不过看说起来是否习惯，因为汉语有个最大的区别在于，是否说的习惯，说不习惯就会逐渐放弃。比如「吃饭」，说「吃了」，其实老一辈会说「餐了」，餐本身是名词，这里名词作动词。成语「风餐露宿」，「餐」也是动词，可「餐」做动词说的很不习惯，就逐渐放弃了。还有很多地方，都是名词作动词，就是听着是不是习惯罢了。

@@keli4775 一本正經地胡說八道就是你了吧

你很厲害👍

会用如虎添翼👍

这如虎添翼用的很有灵魂😂

你的中文很棒！但是如虎添翼和似的这俩词不能一起连用，因为意思重复了，而且我们常常说，有你的帮助，他们做成这个事情简直如虎添翼。因为你的中文很好，所以我可能对你比较严苛了。

@@christinehunter7123 其实也可以用。比如：有你的帮助，我简直如虎添翼似的。我觉得问题出在“如虎添翼”与“比较快学会”放在一起有点怪，因为“如虎添翼”一般不作为某个动作的副词

phonetic character

I think why Chinese character hard to learn for the westerners is because the (Alphabet) of Chinese is so different from linear one dimension writing system like english or spanish.First Chinese writing system is not linear one.English writing system is like building one line of one layer houses.Chinese writing system is like building houses from 2 different spaces.thats why Westerners cant get used to it.

But you don't really, though. Firstly, most Chinese characters are pictophonetic anyway, which means that half the character tells you approximately how it's pronounced. But only approximately. However, although English has you write out the sounds, most of the time the way it is written is somewhat inaccurate to what it actually sounds like due to a whole slew of historical spellings and other influences. Like the example just above me. Dice does not at all resemble dais, and dais has a globbal stop so it's more like da'is, and the a in dice is different to the a in dais as well. Or things like cycle where the first c is pronounced s and the second one as k, and the infamous hidden a is here, too (saikle), and you just have to know this. Chinese seems to have been far more an exporter of words than an importer of them and that makes a huge difference.

Servus und viel Spaß beim Deutsch lernen!

I started with the "Remembering the Hanzi" book, but after a few hundred it got silly. I was learning a little story for each character (IN ENGLISH) but I wasn't learning Chinese. The language is sentences, not just words. I switched to a typical course (online) which worked well for me.

I feel like people don’t talk about this. Between my experience with Arabic, Korean, Chinese and Spanish. Chinese has the hardest listening comprehension by far and it’s not even close

@@aftersea2450 hardest

是的！我和你想的一样。 我是从三年学习汉语的， 可是我还不能听懂中文。好难过 。。。。。。 但我每天要练习练习 =）

@@sabrinabelarte1110 what about listening to something with a transcript ?

I am trying it... we'll see if it works 💪

What about arabic lang

Hi Alexander, it’s a good idea to make flash cards and keep practicing. You can use a free website, type MDBG in google. They list all radicals, along with characters that use those radicals. As a Chinese teacher, I designed Kongfu Character method in teaching Chinese characters. I also used Zumba dancing to help students learn 12 basic strokes first. When students fall in love with learning these, they keep practicing more characters. 😀

Difficult. In the end it's best to focus on one I find, but hard to resist dabbling in another. I think you need a major and a minor language and lots of self-control.

Lenka, just to give u a piturec of what i am doing. I am a chinese. I speak English at a native level. I also grew up speaking Mandarin chinese and have been exposed to Cantonese - however i have not been actively speaking these 2. What i am doing now is revising - ie i am not learning totally from scratch; i am just revisiting and getting better. I revise thru them by watching youtube videos. So it is not stressful, it is not a completely new . It's just like driving. If you haven't drive in a year, then you start driving again - you are just getting warmed up. Now currently, i am learning Hebrew & Spanish. Hebrew is totally new to me. and as for spanish, i am simply going through simple phrases. For Hebrew, it is really slow moving bec i am totally new. For spanish, there are cognates (words that sound similar to English); so i am going thru them at a fast rate. What Steve says make sense. If it is possible, simply focus on one and simply major in it until you get really good at it. I have noticed how some 'polyglots' who claim to be able to learn a few languages. While it is not impossible - i have noticed that their ability to use those languages are really poor and they are doing themselves a disservice. Unless u are already conversational in a language - try to avoid picking up a few languages. Hope this helps.

哪个国家？

I am currently learning and caught a couple of words.

There are CC in English.

@@markchavez738 I know but I still heard them

Ancestry doesn't provide any advantages when it comes to language learning unless it motivates you, which of course can be big.

@@Thelinguist you're exactly right! Every time when I attempt to speak the language, I can feel I'm causing native speakers to bleed through their ears. Lol! Mandarin is definitely in the checklist for me to acquire

你好棒呀！加油！

@@houniao123 谢谢..!!

加油！如果你想找个人一起说中文的话欢迎来找我！

你是那个地方的人?

@@sebastiand3472 我是印尼人 ...

你的目的是嫁给老外吗

Yes it is, also to get to a good level you will need to study literature because references to traditional stories are commonly used in the speech.

不会习语也能交流，但如果想深入交流，的确要学一些

yeah it's so weird that they are saying idioms like every few sentences, here in Serbian I rarely ever hear an idiom being said It's so much used in Chinese that natives probably forget that some of those words are idioms

文言文更地獄

@@a72546600 古汉文并不难😊 最常用的300个汉字的含义过去2000年基本没有什么变化！ 例如：土，火，木，人，等等