[graymatters]

Ability to learn new languages (as an adult) follows normal distribution. Moreover, the further the new language is from one’s mother tongue the more difficult it is. Furthermore, people who excel in mother tongue (with enhanced writing and expressive abilities) often fall on the lower end of the spectrum with the ability to learn new languages. Shaming people over that is quite … shameful.

[djtango]

Whenever I find a language hard to learn, I always remind myself that the vast majority of every population can speak their own language.

"Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out.

More recently, on observing my niece and nephew, something we take for granted is how exhausting it is being a child. You are learning 247 non stop for best part of 2 decades. Can't understate how hardcore it is. No wonder why we adults have less stomach to learn a new language. The kind of immersive learning required for language acquisition is all encompassing, and really kind of needs to take over your life - especially one distant from your mother tongue.

I say all this while figuring out how I personally muster the motivation, routine and immersion to gain fluency in Mandarin by the end of this decade (a personal goal).

[petodo]

> "Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out.

Yeah and at least 90% of them were immersed in it since birth at home. Learning mother language while growing is very different from learning foreign language as adult.

> Can't understate how hardcore it is.

No, it isn't for kids, my kids are trilingual without any issues and much effort, kids are like sponges absorbing new information/languages easily, if you start early.

Btw. you won't be fluent in Chinese without living in China.

[MagnumOpus]

> at least 90% of them were immersed in it since birth at home

Bullshit... Maybe at best half of Chinese have Mandarin as a home language - of which half again speak Xinan Mandarin at home which is barely intelligible to a Standard Mandarin (Beifanghua) speaker. So the majority of Chinese learned Mandarin as a second language.

And obviously the writing and ideograms is something that every one of them had to painstakingly memorise over 15 years of schooling...

> Btw. you won't be fluent in Chinese without living in China

I know plenty of people in Singapore and Taiwan who wouldn't even bother to make fun of your ignorance...

[petodo]

Mandarin is language taught in Chinese kindergartens/schools regardless of province, so yes while their parents may speak different dialect at home, they learn it from very early age.

And you know very well I meant that 90% of those Chinese language speakers are ethnic Chinese and not foreigners. So congrats you won Nitpicker of the month prize!

> I know plenty of people in Singapore and Taiwan who wouldn't even bother to make fun of your ignorance...

1. Maybe you should check on official name of "Taiwan". 2. I am talking to non-native Chinese speaker (not you), not sure how does that apply to ethnical Chinese wherever they live, whether it's Singapore, Taiwan or US. Even the person I addressed my message to agrees with me, so congrats once again on completely pointless nitpicking.

[djtango]

> And obviously the writing and ideograms is something that every one of them had to painstakingly memorise over 15 years of schooling...

Yeah I've always wondered what the implications of growing up learning an ideogram based language has on your development.

[djtango]

>No, it isn't for kids, my kids are trilingual without any issues and much effort, kids are like sponges absorbing new information/languages easily, if you start early.

My point isn't that it's hardcore for children to be trilingual. My point is that the way of life of a child is exhausting - learning 247. If you try it later in life, eg doing a masters/bootcamp/intensive hobbies you realise how hard work it is trying to learn.

Having met people who have replicated learning like a child in adulthood, I posit that some of it is that children don't have responsibilities and also don't have a choice in the matter. The upside is also considerably greater - learning to walk + communicate.

> Btw. you won't be fluent in Chinese without living in China

I have lived in China before so this is very apparent to me. When I was there, my brain was always processing the language in the background. Remembering new vocab, trying to recognise new characters. Thinking about how to express specific ideas. That is worth so much more than any class or course can teach - and time spend learning like that really compounds. A week in a country like china can be worth months of study for me. And that style of learning is also how I imagine children are - constantly processing consciously and unconsciously...

[ajsnigrutin]

> Yeah and at least 90% of them were immersed in it since birth at home

And the guy from the article has been immersed in it since ten years ago. Thats long enough to learn enough to be able to do day-to-day tasks and not expect every local there to adapt to your lazyness of not learning the language.