[aristoxenus]

It's really hard to get that kind of straight-talk from instructors or native speakers.

The best rationalization I can think of for someone learning this language, is that if you enjoyed the meditative focus of learning how to write cursive as a child, or you miss the wonder of constantly discovering new words as an adolescent, you can re-live that for the rest of your life with Chinese!

Fortunately for Chinese (Mandarin at least), it is a very beautiful language, and every dose of that beauty seems to make you want more.