In some foreigners eyes', the learning of Chinese has becomethe most difficult thing for them. The tones of Chinese and Chinesecharacters all seem to be a difficulty. Then what has made thelearning of Chinese difficult?
Top 1 Because the writing system isridiculous
The beauty of the characters is indisputable, but theseideograms weren't too practical for daily use. It is absolutelytrue that Chinese is hard because of the huge number of charactersone has to learn. And Chinese is not very phonetic, which meansthat often you just completely forget how to write a character, ifthere is no obvious semantic clue in the radical, and no helpfulphonetic component somewhere in the character。
Top 2 Because the language doesn't have the commonsense to use an alphabet
The English is so easy because of the skills needed to masterthe writing system are 26 letters and they are written from left toright ,horizontally, across the page, with spaces to indicate wordboundaries. In comparison, Chinese has nothing that corresponds toan alphabet, though there are recurring components that make up thecharacters. It can be said that the components of Chinesecharacters are arrayed in two dimensions, rather than in the neatone-dimensional rows of alphabetic writing。
Top 3 Because even looking up a word in the dictionaryis complicated
One of the most unreasonably difficult things about learningChinese is that merely learning how to look up a word in thedictionary is about the equivalent of an entire semester ofsecretarial school. Chinese must also be one of the mostdictionary-intensive languages on earth for there are variousdictionaries。
Top 4 Because there's classical Chinese(wenyanwen)
Whereas modern Mandarin is merely perversely hard, classicalChinese is deliberately impossible. Classical Chinese reallyconsists of tens of centuries of esoteric anecdotes and in-jokeswritten in a kind of terse, miserly code for dissemination among asmall, elite group of intellectually-inbred bookworms who alreadyknew the whole literature backwards and forwards。
Top 5 Because there are too many romanization methods and theyall suck
Perhaps that's too harsh, but it is true that there are toomany of them, and most of them were designed either by committee orby linguists, or -- even worse -- by a committee of linguists. Itis, of course, a very tricky task to devise a romanization method;some are better than others, but all involve plenty ofcounterintuitive spellings。
Top 6 Because tonal languages are weird
It's one of the most common complaints about learning Chinese,and it's also one of the aspects of the language that westernersare notoriously bad at. As non-native speakers, you must memorizealong with the vowels and consonants. The real difficulty comes inwhen you start to really use Chinese to express yourself.Intonation and stress habits are incredibly ingrained andsecond-nature。
Top 7 Because there is culture difference
One of the main reasons Chinese is so difficult for westernersis that the culture between the East and the West has been isolatedfor so long. China has had extensive contact with the West in thelast few decades, but there is still a vast sea of knowledge andideas that is not shared by both cultures. When westerners andChinese get together, there is often not just a language barrier,but an immense cultural barrier as well。
外国人惊叹中文难学的七大原因
在一些外国人看来，学习中文已成为他们最为头疼的事情。汉语的语调和汉字好像都是个难题。那么到底是什么原因使中文这么难学的呢？
原因一：书写方法简直是天方夜谭
汉字的美丽，无可争议。不过这种表意文字在日常生活中并不是很实用。汉语之所以难学，就是因为要学的汉字实在太多，这也是绝对的事实。还有，汉字的拼写方式也不是很规则，也就是说，如果从一个汉字的组合方式中得不到任何显而易见的语义提示，或者其中没有包含什么有用的偏旁部首，就会把一个汉字的写法忘得干干净净。
原因二：汉语是不能用通俗意义上的字母顺序来排列表意的
英语之所以好学，就是因为掌握英语书写方法所需要的技能也就是26个字母而已，而且只要沿水平方向、从左到右、从页面的一边写到另一边，词与词之间留个空格就可以了。相比之下，尽管中文也有组成汉字的那些共用的偏旁部首，却没有英文字母那样的顺序规则。可以说，汉字的偏旁部首是可以按两个方向来排列组合成汉字的，而不象字母那样只按一个方向排列，看起来很整洁。(原文作者如果看过中文古籍，就会更加惊叹汉字还有更牛的排列方式了——译者)
原因三：即使在字典中查汉字也是非常复杂
学习汉语最莫名其妙的困难之一，就是即使仅仅学会怎么查字典，也要耗费一个秘书学校整个学期的学习时间。汉语一定是地球上最精于运用字典的语言了，因为各种各样的字典实在太多。
原因四：中文里面还有古汉语(文言文)
如果说，现代汉语再难也不过是让你无所适从而已，那么古汉语就简直是故意让人永远也别学似的。古汉语确实含有数千年来积累起来的各种宫廷秘闻，用词简洁扼要，简直象某种密码，只适合那些天生的知识精英，他们不但懂得文学史的全部，还能预知文学的未来。(最后这一句很难懂，请高手指正——译者)
原因五：(罗马式)拼音方案太多且都让人精疲力尽
也许听起来有些刺耳，但汉语的拼音方案确实太多，而大多数的拼音方案不是什么文字委员会提倡的，就是语言学家提出来的，更糟糕的是由那些语言学家组成的文字委员会提出来的。当然，要发明一种罗马式拼音方案确是一项技巧性很强的高难度工程，尽管各种方案各有千秋，但任何方案都无法凭直觉来拼读。
原因六：汉语语调稀奇古怪
在学汉语过程中，最容易听到的抱怨正是这一点，西方人对汉语最害怕的也是这一点，简直是妇孺皆知。如果不是从小就会说汉语，那你就等着不停地去死记那些元音辅音吧。真正的难题还要等你真的要用汉语进行表达的时候才会出现。汉语的那些语调和强调习惯简直是与生俱来的，根深蒂固的，简直不可思议。
原因七：存在文化差异
东方、西方相互之间文化分隔的时间太长，这也是汉语对于西方人来说为何那么难学的主要原因。尽管在过去几十年里中国和西方之间有了广泛的接触，然而，中国人的知识和思想浩瀚如海，西方人却无缘享用。即使有朝一日西方人想和中国人融合成一体，其障碍往往也并非只是语言一个方面而已，最大的障碍是巨大的文化差异。
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