Wow, isn't Mandarin a horribly difficult language?

Oh I'm sure learning Mandarin makes perfect sense - but if Scottish children cope even halfways they can't be as lazy as you wrote before ;) (I went to the presentation of a Mandarin course and decided I'm not musical enough to learn).

Well excuse you, all you doubting Thomases!
The kids are doing really well and answer the teacher in sentences...which is more than I can do!
They are even writing in characters, now.
Then again, we are a top school, with our inspirational head.

I'm not doubting anything either, I know that children pick up on languages instantly. It's just that there's no low-maintanence languages. You need to have a reason to use even the easiest languages frequently or they'll wither and die in your head.

Both my daughter and I speak three languages, none of them as sophisticated as Mandarin, and I notice all the time that the day on this planet is way too short to flex all three of them properly on any kind of a regular basis. But I do try. It's more difficult with my kid because it's hard to find a legit (in the eyes of a 9 yo) reason to pick up a book in the least favorite language when there are so many others available.

Multilingual people say you need three good reasons to learn a language and keep it. Like living in its country, having a loved one who speaks it, or becoming fascinated with the associated culture. I just don't see what reasons Scottish children have to keep investing time in Mandarin when they are a little older.

When I was a kid I found that learning it in school kept me going, and my dad made sure we read in French together every week, which probably made a difference and was pretty fun. As I got better, I enjoyed being able to appreciate more books, movies, and songs in French. Now in university I get to take French courses alongside both anglophone students and francophone students about literature and culture and get along fine.
I suppose I checked off some of the reasons to keep a language mentioned in an earlier post, but I wasn't really thinking about it at the time in that way. I suppose if you're a kid who just likes learning, you don't necessarily need a reason to do it. There were kids in my class who weren't as into it as I was, and was made apparent by their capabilities in the language.

Reading that back, I realize that might sound like I'm bragging, but I don't mean it to. Mandarin must be difficult to learn since it's not from the same base at all as any European language, but that's cool to hear that the kids seem to be doing well! 

Last edited by Yitzock (December 25, 2017 8:45 pm)