What language choose like third language ,Russian or Mandarin Chinese?

[Dwatted Wabbit]

I would say Cherokee.

[Dwatted Wabbit]

Originally Posted by Mrs. Skeffington

My four-year-old grandson started both Spanish AND Chinese in Kindergarten this year. Heck, I didn't take German until seventh grade (but my family at home already spoke fluent PA Dutch, which is very similar, so it was a no brainer).

My father learned Latin and Greek in elementary school. There was not a lot of coddling in those days.

[lieqiang]

Originally Posted by Coney

Both Russian and Mandarin require learning a new alphabet

It's different. Russian, Korean, Thai, Arabic, etc. require learning a new alphabet but that is a relatively small set of something to memorize that is strung together as sounds to make words. Chinese is completely different, it has thousands of characters that aren't a letter in an alphabet but rather a word or part of a word.

Originally Posted by BusyMeAK

After proving myself incapable of mastering clear English pronunciation in 13 years, I have a serious fear of languages like Chinese where two-sound word can mean three different things depending on how you speak - up, down or flat.

Originally Posted by fluffypoopoo

And for those that think it's the writing portion that's hard, and while it is hard, I would argue that it's the pronunciation that many people would find more difficult. Considering that Chinese is a tonal language, a slight change in tones, despite the word sounding almost the same, can change the meaning. A popular example would be the different ways to pronounce "ma". 4 different ways to pronounce the word. 4 different meanings.

Writing in Chinese is much harder than speaking. While Chinese has tones and they are important, there are enough contextual clues and combinations of different characters string together to where one can understand what is being said despite lack of perfect tones. For example take Chinese pop music, they lose a lot of the conversational tone usage to keep aligned with the music, but it's still easy to understand for a native Chinese speaker. The cliche "ma ma ma ma" isn't really a good barometer because nobody is just going to say the word "ma" by itself. If I say "wo yao qi ma" you know I'm talking about a horse (despite no tones or not using characters) because "qi" means ride and that's what makes sense. If I say ni "wo deng wo ma ma jiao wo" you're talking about your mom because that's who you'd be waiting to call you. If you say "wo de nu peng you ma le wo" you'd know it means scold because the girlfriend would be scolding you, not horsing/hemping/moming you.

The characters though is just a grind with few shortcuts. There are sound hints and meaning hints in some characters, but to recognize those you would have needed to grind through the others that gave the hints. The hardest is some proper names since you don't see those characters much, it sucks because it isn't like with an alphabet where can still pronounce the name of that mountain the first time you see it written, with Chinese it's just a couple characters that you can't even say.

[M3 Mitch]

I have heard that learning to speak a bit in Chinese - Mandarin - is actually pretty easy, that the grammar is very simple, although, for a non-native speaker to speak it really well, to get all the tones right, and to read the written form is quite difficult.


It would help if a person has some musical skill. A good singer should be able to pick up the tones and reproduce them. Me, I can't carry a tune in a bucket, so would have a hard slog with learning to speak.

[Snort]

You should learn Boontling because it's easier than Mandarin Chinese:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/...e-in-the-boat/

Now, if your squirrel-ribby is not that impressive, you might go the Mandarin route.

[DanArt]

Very difficult.

I know a guy who rents to Germany tenants.
I know a guy who does travel and tourism with Spanish speaking nations.
I know a guy

Russian is far more easier to learn then Chinese. Chances are you will be partying with Russian people rather then doing business. Since their business is to fuel their own.

Chinese business partners are more realistic. I took up some Chinese. if you do learn then I suggest learning as many dialects of Chinese as possible. Mandarin is what is spoken by people in country side. Cantonese is what is spoken in Cities and used in most media works you see being exported. There is also other dialects as well.

Once you learn Chinese other languages should be simpler to follow.

Leaning Russian is like learning Spanish. Arabic is another good one to learn but again what business you will be doing with that specific person.

Spanish is very good but again their are different slang and dialects of Spanish. Like old-english and new-english. So you might sound uptight or like a nerd to some people. However you do not want to sound like a low-life as well. Portuguese can be beneficial.

Recently I have seen a big influx of Spanish ( Mexican Latin etc ) vendors in my city. I mean expensive night life kind of stuff. IDK why?

So again IDK it really depends. Spanish, Russian, Germany, Arabic, Bengali ( Indian speak but again note their are over ten different languages from India ). It is very hard to be honest.

Even Italian and African languages ( like ones spoken at hotels ) could be helpful.