CDZ Happiest countries in world

[Unkotare]

... It's a super easy language to speak. ...
The reason Mandarin is easy for Americans to speak is ....

No, it's not. That is a ridiculously ignorant claim. People sometimes make absurd generalizations about languages until they actually learn more about them.

That's not at all ignorant. I began working in the PRC in 2008 and taught myself how to speak it then. ...

No, it's not and no you didn't. When people know only a tiny and/or superficial amount of something they can convince themselves they are more expert than they really are.


You have taken the fact that Chinese people are generally kind and generous to foreigners as a real indicator of proficiency, which is embarrassingly naive. Its sort of like a child who scrawls a simple picture and is overly praised by some kind adults and then truly believes he's a great artist. If you bother to really learn more, you'll understand what I mean sooner or later.

 

[320 Years of History]

... It's a super easy language to speak. ...
The reason Mandarin is easy for Americans to speak is ....

No, it's not. That is a ridiculously ignorant claim. People sometimes make absurd generalizations about languages until they actually learn more about them.

That's not at all ignorant. I began working in the PRC in 2008 and taught myself how to speak it then. I don't ever have to speak it at work because I have a translator, but I practice here and there and I have learned to understand more and more of it. Mine (in this post and the prior one) are assertions based on the comparative ease with which I learned to speak Mandarin vs. that for learning French, Japanese Spanish, German and Dutch. I'm not the only one who thinks so. Just thinking one way or another isn't the only reason.

It may have escaped your purview, but over half the Chinese population is functionally illiterate, yet they can all speak Mandarin just fine. That alone suggests the language cannot be that difficult to learn to speak. I cannot say the same of functionally illiterate native speakers of English. Heck, I can't even say that of folks who presumably have learned to read and write English, so much of accurately communicating one's fully in English being dependent on correctly using tense, mood, case, connotation, person, punctuation (which doesn't always effectively convey the meaning carried by vocal intonation) etc. One need only look around on USMB to find ample evidence of that.

Additionally, there are scores of objective reasons why Chinese is friggin' easy to learn to speak.

1. Chinese, like any other language, is just made up of repeated patterns, which can be practised and learnt.
2. Verbs don’t conjugate in Chinese.
3. There are no noun cases in Chinese.
4. There are no ‘irregular’ nouns/verbs in Chinese
5. If you can learn whether a noun is masculine, feminine or neuter in another language, then why should remembering the tones for a word in Mandarin be any more difficult?
6. You don’t need to be able to sing to pronounce Chinese tones. (But being a good singer will help you meet people because karaoke is very popular in China, and lots of Chinese people can sing pretty well, especially considering that they are amateurs.)
7. All languages have intonation, you use it when you raise your voice to ask a question, therefore tones are not that difficult for anybody to use.
8. Even if you make mistakes with tones, people can generally still understand.
9. Like most other places on the planet, it is still perfectly possible to communicate even if your pronunciation is not completely right.
10. China has set down a standard for the language and pronunciation – Putonghua – which makes a learner’s life easier.
11. Tones are not hard if you copy native speakers and recordings as closely as you can, and build good habits.
12. Cantonese also has tones, but people just learn them by repeating and ‘getting used to them’. If you ask somebody from Hong Kong which tone a character is, they often don’t know.
13. Tones are actually very familiar things; it's just that in the West, we think of them as inflections and stress instead of as tones. Their actual implementation to convey meaning is no different than what we use in the West to say things like Polish and polish, or to convert a statement into a question by raising the tone of our voice at the end of the sentence.
14. Chinese teachers and broadcasters are tested for perfect pronunciation, so you have good models to learn from.
15. There is a standard system of Romanisation for Mandarin, Pinyin, used in all new dictionaries and courses. Pronunciation is easier to learn from the Roman alphabet.
16. There are many websites and apps with pronunciation audio, which makes it easy to practice problem syllables.
17. Pinyin follows a logical system, once you know it, you can pronounce any character.
18. There are fewer phonemes in Mandarin than in other languages.
19. Mandarin only has 4 tone contours, some languages have more.
20. Chinese people are very willing to speak Mandarin to foreigners (this is my experience), and are also very patient with learners. Tons of Chinese folks below the age of 35 know English too, but they are often not confident in their speaking skills when one is a stranger to them. With someone whom they know, they are more than happy to give it a shot, especially if one tries to use one's Chinese with them. Without exception, my Chinese colleagues and clients speak better English, by far, than I speak Mandarin.
21. The Chinese will encourage learners by complimenting even the most simple efforts to say things in Mandarin. I heard, "Oh, your Chinese very good" tons of times when all I said was "thank you." Interestingly, now that my Chinese is passable for basic daily life situations, I don't hear that so much. LOL Folks just talk to me like I'm Chinese now.
22. Even if you just know some basic phrases, numbers and vocabulary, it will get you a long way in China.
23. Once you start opening your mouth and practising Chinese, you will actually find that you progress in it very quickly.

The stuff above is just what I can think of quickly.

As I said before. To just learn to speak Mandarin well enough to do basic stuff -- shop, chat in bars, go out to eat, etc. -- it's very easy. If you feel compelled to have a discussion about art, religion and politics, well, that's going to take a larger vocabulary. If you want to read it, there's more to learn, and writing it will require learning to read plus learning to write it and practicing doing so.

??? Have nothing else to say?

 

[Skull Pilot]

News from CNN:

Fans of Denmark must be even happier than usual: Denmark has retaken the title of "world's happiest country," knocking Switzerland into second place.

Denmark and Switzerland were closely followed by Iceland, Norway and Finland, according to the World Happiness Report Update 2016, released Wednesday in Rome by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations.

Denmark won the title three of the four times the report has been issued, losing to Switzerland only once.

People in Burundi are the least satisfied with their lives, according to the survey of 156 countries, but residents of Benin (153rd place), Afghanistan (154), Togo (155) and Syria (156) aren't doing much better.

The United States ranked 13th in overall happiness, lagging behind Canada (6), the Netherlands (7), New Zealand (8), Australia (9), Sweden (10), Israel (11) and Austria (12). Germany came in 16th place, while other superpowers -- the United Kingdom (23), Japan (53), Russia (56) and China (83) -- were markedly lower.

Some countries that saw drops suffered economic and political turmoil -- including Greece, Italy and Spain -- while Ukraine's political trouble and violence likely caused a significant drop in happiness there.

World's happiest countries named - CNN.com

There really is no objective standard by which to measure happiness

 

[Unkotare]

.....

It may have escaped your purview, but over half the Chinese population is functionally illiterate, yet they can all speak Mandarin just fine.....

That rate is not correct (not even close) and illiterate people in all language groups learn to speak their first language "just fine." That's how language acquisition works.

 

[Unkotare]

...

As I said before. To just learn to speak Mandarin well enough to do basic stuff -- shop, chat in bars, go out to eat, etc. -- it's very easy. .....

No, what is "very easy" is to fool yourself about your real proficiency. If you bother to really learn more, you'll understand what the hell I'm talking about in time.

 

[320 Years of History]

.....

It may have escaped your purview, but over half the Chinese population is functionally illiterate, yet they can all speak Mandarin just fine.....

That rate is not correct (not even close) and illiterate people in all language groups learn to speak their first language "just fine." That's how language acquisition works.

That may be, and even accepting that to be so, none of it has to do with whether it is easy to learn to speak Chinese. You are correct in that I should not have presented the literacy rate of native Chinese speakers as an indicator of whether their language is easy for non-native speakers to learn. On the other hand, the list of objective details I provided is germane to my point about the ease of learning Chinese.

Red:
You are correct. I misread the chart I looked at most recently.

Blue:
Seemingly 62% of American adults in 2002 were illiterate and lack a "just fine" (my term, and admittedly not a precise one) command of English. I don't know how that's changed in the intervening years. What I do know is that 21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can’t read. Maybe some folks consider speaking at a 5th grade level to be "just fine" for an adult, someone who's presumably finished the 12th grade, but I'm not among them.

The group that performed the study linked above defined illiterate as "using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential." They expound on that definition by providing three dimensions of literacy:

• Prose literacy — the knowledge and skills needed to understand and use information from texts that include editorials, news stories, poems, and fiction; for example, finding a piece of information in a newspaper article, interpreting instructions from a warranty, inferring a theme from a poem, or contrasting views expressed in an editorial.
• Document literacy — the knowledge and skills required to locate and use information contained in materials that include job applications, payroll forms, transportation schedules, maps, tables, and graphs; for example, locating a particular intersection on a street map, using a schedule to choose the appropriate bus, or entering information on an application form.
• Quantitative literacy — the knowledge and skills required to apply arithmetic operations, either alone or sequentially, using numbers embedded in printed materials; for example, balancing a checkbook, figuring out a tip, completing an order form, or determining the amount of interest from a loan advertisement.

 

[Elvis Obama]

It is no coincidence that these are the most socialized nations among the advanced democracies. It is also worth noting that quite a few of them have kings or queens as head of state, hereditary aristocracies, and a significant millionaire/billionaire class. They are also far better adjusted to modern environmental concers, have tiny murder and gun violence rates, no slum cities and no children with inadequate food. Their kids also get better educations. They all have universal, government regulated heal insurance as well.

With the exception of Norway and Canada, these successful nations do not have significant petroleum reserves. They are quite successful in export trade. Their government debt and taxes as a percent of GDP are in roughly the same brackets as ours. There is really only one conclusion: these countries are much better run.

I think most Americans would be shocked to learn how much better things are managed outside of God's Country. A few reality TV shows about the life of working class families in these countries would be a real eye-opener for most of us.

These countries are relatively heterogeneous. They also have cultures which are the result of very lengthy periods of internal stability. If countries are embroiled in internal conflict it's hard to top out the "happiness" meter.

 

[Unkotare]

... On the other hand, the list of objective details I provided is germane to my point about the ease of learning Chinese....

No, it's not. Also, Copying and pasting unrelated material from others does nothing to bolster your point.

 

[320 Years of History]

... On the other hand, the list of objective details I provided is germane to my point about the ease of learning Chinese....

No, it's not.

Well, you'll need to demonstrate why not.

What Makes a Language "Difficult"? - Linguisticator
What Makes a Language Difficult?
Why native English speakers can learn Mandarin easily | British Council

Bear in mind that very few discussions of what makes a language hard or easy to learn segregate speaking it from reading and writing it.

 

[Unkotare]

It's a false issue in any case, but your claims are baseless, subjective delusions.

 

[Unkotare]

The question of "easier" or "harder" is a false one in any case.

 

[320 Years of History]

It's a false issue in any case, but your claims are baseless, subjective delusions.

Well, I bid you show that statement to be true as well. I suspect you'll not just as you didn't do so for the one you made in post #28.

 

[Unkotare]

It's a false issue in any case, but your claims are baseless, subjective delusions.

Well, I bid you show that statement to be true as well. I suspect you'll not just as you didn't do so for the one you made in post #28.

The onus is on you to prove your claims correct, which you cannot.

 

[320 Years of History]

It's a false issue in any case, but your claims are baseless, subjective delusions.

Well, I bid you show that statement to be true as well. I suspect you'll not just as you didn't do so for the one you made in post #28.

The onus is on you to prove your claims correct, which you cannot.

The fact that one would honestly believe I have not shown Chinese is easy to speak is a function of one's unfamiliarity with linguistics and the various components of language that make it harder or easier to learn. I listed a lot of them several posts back. In fact, the major reasons were among the first dozen features I mentioned that make Mandarin easy to learn to speak. Seeing as you've refrained from refuting any of them and their role in complicating or ameliorating the task of learning language, I presume you don't understand their role, that or you didn't read them all.

One need only look at what elements make English hard to learn and observe that all those same elements do not exist in Mandarin to see that it is an easier language to learn in comparison to English. It stands then to reason that if one has learned English, one will find it easier to learn Chinese. Insofar as it's easier to learn Mandarin than it is to learn English, a speaker of English will find Mandarin easy to learn.

• Why Is English So Hard to Learn?

What Mandarin is is a language that approaches communication differently than does English. That one may find it hard to do that is a function of the person trying to learn the language not the language itself.

 

[Unkotare]

You very clearly don't understand what you are trying to talk about. It's almost comical.

 

[Fishlore]

It is no coincidence that these are the most socialized nations among the advanced democracies. It is also worth noting that quite a few of them have kings or queens as head of state, hereditary aristocracies, and a significant millionaire/billionaire class. They are also far better adjusted to modern environmental concers, have tiny murder and gun violence rates, no slum cities and no children with inadequate food. Their kids also get better educations. They all have universal, government regulated heal insurance as well.

With the exception of Norway and Canada, these successful nations do not have significant petroleum reserves. They are quite successful in export trade. Their government debt and taxes as a percent of GDP are in roughly the same brackets as ours. There is really only one conclusion: these countries are much better run.

I think most Americans would be shocked to learn how much better things are managed outside of God's Country. A few reality TV shows about the life of working class families in these countries would be a real eye-opener for most of us.

These countries are relatively heterogeneous. They also have cultures which are the result of very lengthy periods of internal stability. If countries are embroiled in internal conflict it's hard to top out the "happiness" meter.

You might want to check out the current statistics for Scandinavian population. About one Swede in five is a foreigner. Australia has big immigrant numbers from all over the world. Canada is teeming with Muslims.

I agree with you about the internal conflict. America has been in internal conflict sincel 1860. I don't think that America has ever been a very happy place.

 

[Fishlore]

Jews are good people

So are black folk. That was my point. BTW red, brown and yellow are nice folks too. Bringing skin color into the discussion is not helpful.

 

[320 Years of History]

You very clearly don't understand what you are trying to talk about. It's almost comical.

Have you learned to speak Mandarin? I have. I think that more than adequately qualifies me as knowing what I'm talking about, above and beyond the objective and inductive content to which I've referred.

The above is now at least your third successive unsubstantiated assertion. I'm done with you.

 

[Unkotare]

The fact is that the entire notion of a language being "easier" or "more difficult" is a myth. When people learn enough of a language to communicate to a minimal degree, it is very common that they overestimate their fluency - sometimes to a ridiculous extent. Different languages will be simpler in some respects and more complex in others, such that the kind of comparison people often want to make doesn't hold. However complex or simple someone may want to imagine a language, any child of normal intelligence born into that language environment will master his or her first language completely (which means descriptively, not prescriptively or for a specific academic use).

Regarding the misconception a poster here has, Mandarin is certainly not particularly "easy" for a native speaker of English to pronounce accurately, as any honest Mandarin teacher can attest.

 

[Unkotare]

You very clearly don't understand what you are trying to talk about. It's almost comical.

Have you learned to speak Mandarin? I have. ....

You clearly have not, or you would not be making such silly assertions.