[barry-cotter]

>Since you already know the most popular language in the world, it doesn't seem like there's much point in learning either of them just to extend the number of people you can communicate with. For that reason it would make sense to learn Chinese or Spanish.

Unless you find Chinese or Chinese culture really interesting or have a more mercenary reason to learn Chinese I'd recommend Spanish. I've lived in China for three years and have been learning Mandarin in a half assed fashion since I got here. It's just ludicrously hard. For the same number of hours of work I'd be ahead in Spanish at this stage, easily, and if I'd been living in a Hispanophone country the whole time I'd be able to read and understand at a high level, and probably speak and be understood well.

Why Chinese Is So Damned Hard http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t10216.htm

[iakdnf]

Learning Chinese will often take up all your free time if you want to do it right. You cant pick it up half assed like other languages. Ive been learning it pretty hard the last 7 months and am pretty conversational but still get lost in conversations often, but can always clarify meaning by asking various questions, so I have attained an awkard level of fluency.

I recommend only speaking Chinese and forgoing English at all times, unless youre talking to someone who cant speak Chinese.

My friend has much better listening comprehension skills and has been here about 18 months, and Im on track to be on his level soon. We actually try, though. To be honest, most people hardly try.

[Jack000]

I think it's probably easier to learn the phonetics of Chinese than reading/writing at first and bootstrap from there. Most of the written information in Latin languages are contained in the first and last characters of each word, while in Chinese it's in the outer edges of each character. The tones are a bit tough for non-native speakers, but they're very consistent so once you "get it" it becomes much easier.

Also you need to actually visit China to take advantage of the "extending the number of people you can communicate with" benefit.