

The Chinese language and the grass mud horse - dreddit
http://irgendwasmitcomputern.de/1/post/2009/03/i-accidentally-the-whole-grass-mud-horse.html

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kyochan
Oh 哪个 please!

I disagree with Chinese characters being difficult, at least the part about
learning all the characters. There is a methodical approach to learning all
the character (there are up to 3000 needed as the article states). I've been
using <http://smart.fm/> because they took this approach and wrapped it up in
a neat flash app.

So while it takes years to master all the nuances of writing and speaking
Chinese, I find that reading and understanding it takes less time.

~~~
xiaoma
I can read over 3,000 characters and still struggle with reading authentic
texts written for adults. Obviously, the language is learnable but the writing
system is a lot more work than most languages.

David Moser's essay _Why Chinese is so damn hard_ goes into more detail as to
how it is one natural language can be more difficult for foreign students than
another.

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tokenadult
There is incorrect information in the submitted article. It bugs me to read
wrong information about Chinese on the Internets because Chinese was my
undergraduate field of study.

