can you actually learn to speak Mandarin Chinese if you start as an adult?tones don't seem like a thing a normal person could ever master
preempting the monkey-zilian by saying that if he posts about black penis, it means hes gay
>>221426844what's the point in learning chinese genuinely it isn't a good place to live as a foreigner and chinese people are just rude and not worth talking to learn something else don't waste your time. i'm learning indonesiant. mandarin fluent second gen chinese american
Tones are overrated Grammar is a joke, it's basically a long list of IF X THEN Y patterns.The hard part is the writing system, which you basically have to grind for some time. However if you have learned like 1000 very common characters this already covers like 50% of all signs used in the average sentence and that's something you can work with.
>>221426844sex sex sex
>>221426923Why do no-sabo kids always have to spread their own insecurity when a white person is about to surpass their language skills. Aren't you supposed to have overcome your indentity crisis in puberty, buddy.
>>221426957sounds Herculian not only speaking in tones but listening and distinguishing between them
>>221426844sexoooooooooo
>>221426844You're better off not learning. Unless you can speak perfect mandarin, the mainlanders will mark you as a chump and circle you like sharks around a bleeding fish. You're better off hiring an interpreter if you're doing business with them. That way you can say outrageous things and chalk it up to being lost in translation. I was told this by a local chinaman.
Notice how the people here trying to discourage you are all overseas Chinese people. You have to understand that these people often have defective Mandarin skills and are often bullied for them by mainlanders and other fluent Chinese speakers. If you are Chinese and don't speak Mandarin these days you are viewed as a idiot basically. You have to understand that as a foreigner this standard doesn't apply to you. You will be celebrated and complimented for your shitty Chinese skills and asked to get adopted or married off if you have great Chinese skills.
>>221427459The chinaman might be trying to sell his translation and interpretation services.
>>221426844AI sloppa
>>221426923Because, and I mean this with full sincerity, in less than two generations the global lingua franca will switch from English to Mandarin and I would rather me and any offspring I have to know the language of the dominant world power.
>>221430971>in less than two generations the global lingua franca will switch from English to Mandarin and I would rather me and any offspring I have to know the language of the dominant world power.They can barely hold onto their naval front yard without ramming their own boats, let alone stopping a declining power in the Pacific from coming and going through their sea lanes. English being replaced by Mandarin is nothing but a delusion held on by retarded Chinese nationalists and the stupid foreigners who fell for their cheap tricks.
>>221426844AI SLOPPA
>>221427459Very true. At least I was told the same by a guy who had lived 10+ years in China, spoke fluently, yet always came back to English every time it was about business. Anyway, yes you can learn Mandarin once you're an adult, like every other language. The real challenging part, once you've become somewhat fluent, is that you will - most likely always - be missing all of the cultural references that you will be needing whenever you're interacting with Chinese people / content. At least that's what I'm struggling with to this day.
>>221431078t.CIA agent assigned in singapore
>>221426844kinda want to learn chinese first so i can learn japanese because of the retarded japanese writing system
>>221431309It's a hard pill to swallow, yes.
>>221426844I'm using the integrated Chinese textbook and it seems alright so far.They've got an English-like word order, and the tones seem like nothingburgers desu, the hard part is memorizing a gorillion scribbles.
>>221426844Tones aren't that bad. You sort of memorize them passively as you'd memorize weirdly accented words in normal languages.Grammar is easy.Writing isn't actually that hard to memorize once you get the building blocks down.What is however absolute niggershit is how everything sounds the same and every word is just 1-2 short syllables. Grinding spoken vocab is a pain.
>>221426844I just have my wife or daughter translate for me.
>>221426844wtf chinese women look like THAT!?
>>221426844Learning business Chinese is what made me truly understand that a Chinese dominated world will truly be hell.
>>221433953ni jiao shenme mingzi?
>>221431657English-like word order applies to the most common SVO sentences but lots of other grammar does not follow this. Even basic things like 把. Can you actually differentiate tones in regular speech, not exaggerated learning material? I was in China during the military parade (yue4bing1) and was initially wondering why people were planning on watching mooncakes (yue4bing3). I still rely totally on context.
>>221430971If China was interested in people learning Chinese they would adopt a Mandarin first policy in their exported media. Not use japanese dubs in videogames
>>221426844I couldn't learn a thing there god damn
>>221434655I'm still on chapter 4 of the textbook, which might explain it. The people in the audio tracks do speak very clearly and use very simple vocabulary.
>>221434655Tones are overrated. Context is what will make you understand 90% of the time.
>>221426844Only way you could likely get fluent is if you lived there for a long time and were forced to speak and read it full-time. If not then you won't since it would take way too long to do on your own for 0 benefit.
