How different is it to teach Mandarin, rather than a second European
language, to a Westerner?
Rachel Kenney
finds out.
W
hen something is almost impossible
to understand, the French use the
phrase, “
C’est du Chinois pour moi
”
(
It’s all Chinese to me). Many
other countries have their own
versions of this saying. And when
the untrained eye sees a passage of Chinese characters, or
the unpractised ear hears a string of unfamiliar sing-song
syllables, it is not hard to see why, for many Westerners,
Chinese appears to be a tough linguistic nut to crack. With
its complex characters, tricky tones and mouth-stretching
sounds, Mandarin can be as baffling as it is beautiful. But,
if you are an English- (or other mainstream European
language-) speaker, just how different is it to learn
Mandarin than to learn a second European language? And
how different is it to teach?
First things first
“
When you set out to learn Mandarin, you have some
decisions to make that you wouldn’t encounter if you
were learning a second European language,” says
languages teacher Rhian Harley. “The first thing
to think about is whether you want to just speak
Mandarin, or if you want to read and write Chinese
characters as well.” If a Spanish speaker wanted to learn
Italian, or an English speaker wanted to learn German,
they could sign up for a course and get speaking, reading
and writing immediately – the alphabet is the same, and
many of the words share common roots. If the same learner
decided to study Mandarin, they would have to consider
the character issue before they could get started. Alongside
characters, Pinyin is used – a standardised version of
Chinese words written in the Roman alphabet, complete
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