The Surprising Reason Mandarin is Easier to Speak Than Spanish
When I talk to people who are interested in having their kids learn a new language, the usual options tend to surface. They want to learn Latin because of its connection to law and medicine, Spanish because of its prevalence in the United States, or French because it is beautiful.
Not many people mention Mandarin, but I often recommend it, and my reason surprises most people: it is incredibly easy to start. This is not an exaggeration; it is the truth.
The problem is that most language classes focus on the wrong things. At Eulexia Tutoring, we believe that a logical, principled approach can unlock a student's ability to communicate fluently in weeks, not years—especially with a language like Mandarin.
The Myth of Grammar: What Mandarin Doesn't Have
The reason Mandarin is so accessible for English speakers is because of everything it doesn't have. Consider the hurdles that make learning languages like Spanish or French so challenging:
No Verb Tenses: You don't have to memorize past, present, future, conditional, etc.
No Verb Conjugations: The verb doesn't change at all. There are no irregular verbs because there are no conjugations.
No Grammatical Gender: Words are not masculine or feminine.
No Grammatical Number: Nouns do not have plural forms.
No Declensions: Nouns and pronouns don't change form if they are the subject, object, etc.
No Verbal Moods: You don't have to worry about the subjunctive or the imperative.
All of the grammatical aspects that cause headaches for students of Romance languages simply do not exist in Mandarin.
A Tale of Two Verbs: "to eat" in Spanish vs. Mandarin
To illustrate this point, let's compare the verb "to eat" in Spanish and Mandarin. To be able to speak Spanish with even minimal fluency, you need to master an enormous number of forms for every verb. For just a single regular verb like "comer" (to eat), a student must be able to fluently navigate all of the following forms:
Indicative Mood
Presente: como, comes, come, comemos, coméis, comen.
Imperfecto: comía, comías, comía, comíamos, comíais, comían.
Pretérito: comí, comiste,comió, comimos, comisteis, comieron.
Futuro: comeré, comerás, comerá, comeremos, comeréis, comerán.
Condicional: comería, comerías, comería, comeríamos, comeríais, comerían.
Subjunctive Mood
Presente: yo coma, tú comas, él/ella/usted coma, nosotros/as comamos, vosotros/as comáis, ellos/ellas/ustedes coman.
Imperfecto (forma -ra): yo comiera, tú comieras, él/ella/usted comiera, nosotros/as comiéramos, vosotros/as comierais, ellos/ellas/ustedes comieran.
Imperfecto (forma -se): yo comiese, tú comieses, él/ella/usted comiese, nosotros/as comiésemos, vosotros/as comieseis, ellos/ellas/ustedes comiesen.
Futuro: yo comiere, tú comieres, él/ella/usted comiere, nosotros/as comiéremos, vosotros/as comiereis, ellos/ellas/ustedes comieren.
Imperative Mood
Afirmativo: tú come, usted coma, nosotros/as comamos, vosotros/as comed, ustedes coman.
Negativo: tú no comas, usted no coma, nosotros/as no comamos, vosotros/as no comáis, ustedes no coman.
Other Forms
Infinitive: comer
Participle: comido
Gerund: comiendo
The verb "to eat" in Chinese has only one form, no matter who is doing it, no matter when they did it, or will do it—or if it would happen, or would have happened, or ought to have been happening. The verb "to eat" in Chinese is "chī". There are no past participles, present participles, gerunds, or infinitive forms of it.
While you work on learning the conjugations of one regular verb in Spanish, I will have already learned about 250 Mandarin words that I can use immediately and in a wide range of environments.
The Catch: What About the Writing?
The only real catch is that, yes, learning to read and write Chinese characters is hard. But the truth is, you don't need to learn the writing system to learn how to speak. There are more people in China who cannot read or write proficiently than there are people in the entire United States, and they all speak the language perfectly well.
For the beginner focused on conversation, the writing system can be set aside. That's what pinyin is for—the Romanized script that allows you to take intelligible notes on how words are pronounced. It’s a tool for mastering the sounds, not a substitute for reading characters.
Learning to read and write Chinese is a pretty cool skill, and it certainly will make it easier to become GREAT at speaking Chinese. But it is not a prerequisite to communication. As the famous polyglot Kato Lomb once said, "Learning a language is the only thing worth doing badly." You don't have to learn a language perfectly before you start using it. The initial goal is to ensure that what you are in the habit of saying is intelligible, and with Mandarin, that goal is closer than you think.
My Final Claim
To be clear, to master any language is a life's work. I'm still improving my English. But, to develop an ability to converse and actually speak a language quickly, in two weeks you can do more in Mandarin than you could do in two months in Spanish.
With effective, efficient study, I think that pretty much anybody could do the same. And there is another benefit: if you learn some Chinese, everybody will think you are a genius! Even native Chinese speakers, who often assume that Chinese is the hardest language in the world.
