The hardest language is easy

 When we talk about languages, and we think about which is the hardest for us, the answer will vary depending on the person's perception. If a language has similarities to our native language, this will be easier to learn, whereas if it is completely different, it will be difficult. For that reason, many people give their opinion based on grammar or pronunciation, or even the written system. 

Considering the writing system, learners usually think of  Mandarin Chinese as the most difficult; the characters seem really difficult to learn and write, at least for Spanish and English speakers. However, despite the complexity of writing and the pronunciation of the vowels, this language is surprisingly easier than you think.

Why?

I'd heard that verbs are not conjugated in Chinese, and after quickly researching, I found that it is true and other interesting characteristics of the language. While in other languages the verb needs to change based on tense (in Spanish, we have a lot of conjugations), in Mandarin, verbs do not change based on tense, gender, or pronouns. For me, this sounds really good; I wouldn't be worried about what the correct form of the verb is in the different tenses. Additionally, Chinese follows an SVO pattern, which, as a Spanish speaker, I used to. Learning a language that uses the same sentence structure as your native language is easier than familiarize with a new structure.

I would like to learn Mandarin, but I'm still working on my English skills. If you want to learn Mandarin but think it's really hard, you can watch the next video from Quimei Mandarin. Maybe you will find motivation:

Perhaps in another post, I'll go into more detail about the reasons why Chinese is an easy language to learn. 😉

 What language is the most difficult for you?