Four reasons not to learn Mandarin Chinese
Let us dispel some reasons not to learn Mandarin Chinese language.
1 — Don’t need to learn new stuff
Perfectly valid reason! If someone’s life’s good enough, why bother! But, for many Mandarin learners, Mandarin has been incredibly meaningful; not just in that it opens many doors, but also in that it shows them that you can do anything. And it also made them meet new people, learn new ideas and cultures.
2 — Too old to learn new things
One of the most amazing stories we can think about is a couple in their late 80s, in which the wife wanted to learn Mandarin. Several times per week they’d hobble into the campus hand-in-hand, cane in the other, and he’d wait outside for her to finish class.
Anyone can always improve. And sometimes, to enjoy learning is good enough. To reach fluency isn’t a must — although we’ve met plenty of plus-40s who made themselves fluent in Mandarin in less than four years.
3 — China and the Chinese language aren’t going to be important
Well, chances are it already is. Even if you live in Western country, there’ll be plenty of places to speak Mandarin, and plenty of companies dealing with the largest economic country — in Chinese. Read our series ‘Chinese is a world language’ to read about Mandarin in the Netherlands, Canada, Chile and the US.
And if a person is ever going to move to China and he/she want to either work or study here, or not rely on second-hand observations, well, he or she better learns Chinese too.
4 — Learning Chinese is too difficult
Nobody’s going to blame anyone for this one. Yes, Mandarin is hard. But it’s not as hard as people often think. Anyone can reach full Chinese language fluency within 4 years.
There are some Chinese words you already know, and you don’t need to learn all 50.000 Chinese characters.
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Look here for the reasons our students gave us to learn the Chinese language.
Looking to learn Mandarin? Well, look here for GoEast Mandarin’s online Chinese courses, and here for learning Mandarin in Shanghai.
