Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard
pinyin.info
pinyin.info
1. the writing system
2. the lack of cognates
3. tones
Comments:
(1) could be argued applies to all learners of Chinese, regardless of background or age, but it should be obvious that a Japanese student would not find characters so daunting--in fact, they would probably find some comfort relative to western alphabets. Characters do form a system--highly irregular yes--but there are definite systematic qualities that can be leveraged once you reach a certain level.
(2)&(3) are relative to your linguistic background, obviously. Mandarin Chinese phonology and grammar is much simpler for children to learn than English or many other languages. It's the end product of centuries of simplification.
If one were to postulate a universal budget for linguistic complexity, the Chinese skimp on phonology and grammar, and splurge on orthography, while most other cultures do the opposite. Note the Japanese have an even simpler phonology, a moderately complex grammar, and an even more complex orthography.
I would add, Chinese is So Damn Hard because the pedagogy sucks, but that's a separate issue!
Additionally, I find that most learners have a much harder time with Chinese phonetics. I've known many, many Taiwanese people who have studied Japanese and many Japanese who have moved here to learn Mandarin and there is no comparison between their abilities. In general, the Taiwanese learners of Japanese do pretty well albeit with a few grammar hang-ups. The vast majority of the Japanese learners of Mandarin I've known have had great difficulties communicating and had to put in much more time to reach similar levels of competence.
I can guess how a character I don't know might be pronounced in Mandarin or other dialects, with fairly good accuracy. Even tone! But Japanese? Maybe an On reading or two. But kun'yomi? Forget about it.
And yes, Chinese phonology is more complex than Japanese, but the grammar is simpler. A wash, perhaps?
It's also possible that the very different experiences of Japanese and Chinese learners learning to read are due to the expectations the locals place on themselves. In Japan, once you know the Joyo Kanji, you can be pretty confident that you'll have furigana to help you when tougher words show up in newspapers, in video games or even on TV. In Taiwan, on the other hand, the only place you'll find significant help from zhuyin is in materials made for children. China has a bit more pinyin for the illiterate population, but it is still nothing compared to the furigana in Japanese media.
some spoken languages are known to be simpler than others, as measured through their phonology, morphology and syntax. trade languages, creoles, pidgins, etc.
mandarin is a trade language/pidgin of sorts, with resulting simplification of its phonology relative to other dialects. bahasa indonesian is another well-known example.
fun factoid: while the number of Chinese characters throughout history number in the hundreds of thousands, the working set for any one writer at any time has been shown through textual analysis to be ~8000 for a well-educated person, with an upper bounds under 20K.