[pspda5id]

At least Mandarin grammar is relatively simple, and it has only 4-5 tones compared to Cantonese or Minnanese. But don't get me started on the multitude of Chinese dialects.

The point about classical Chinese isn't fair, the language itself has evolved little in the past few thousand years. To achieve the same utility in English, you will have to learn Modern English, Middle English, Norman, Old Saxon, Latin etc.

[elblanco]

Having an interesting conversation with a Korean the other day. She mentioned that in Korean there are various word and conjugation choices you have to make based on honorifics. What she didn't realize is that English has something similar but we don't recognize it for indicating formality -- often as a class or education signal, or to use differently depending on audience.

I was confused but she explained...

Most English words of German origin are vulgar or informal, while most of Latin, Greek or French origin are formal. Like "shit" vs. "feces", "fight" vs. "quarrel", "drink" vs. "imbibe", etc. In general, where we have synonyms, and those synonyms can be ranked on a scale of informal to formal, German words are towards the informal end, and romantic origin words are towards the formal end.

She said it's been one of the hardest things to learn when learning English (and she's quite fluent), is this concept of "formal" English vs. "informal" that is separate from "colloquial", mainly because nobody recognizes it and nobody teaches it.

So apparently this is also something one has to learn in English - word origin, in order to gauge proper usage.

[wisty]

Good point, though considering how old Classical Chinese (let along Old Chinese) is, you might want to throw in Hebrew and Greek. Or maybe Proto-Germanic and a little PIE.