As our motherland increasingly showcases its international charm, more and more foreign friends are starting to learn Chinese, whether for work needs or personal interests. According to statistics, there are over 400 million foreign learners worldwide, including numerous learners from Germany. However, for these foreign friends, Chinese is truly a very challenging language! So, may I ask everyone: What are the difficulties with Chinese?
Chinese, known as one of the most challenging languages in the world, truly deserves its name. However, for us learners, learning Chinese is not that difficult. So why is it so difficult for Germans to learn Chinese? After summary, there are several main reasons:
1. The world languages of different language families are mainly divided into four categories: Indo European language family, Sino Tibetan language family, Semitic language family, and Altaic language family. Among them, German, English, French, Italian, and Spanish all belong to the Indo European language family, and these languages have similarities in grammar and verb conjugation, while Chinese belongs to the Sino Tibetan language family. Simply put, we have different language logics.
2. Changes in Tones: A pinyin has four tones, and different tones with the same pronunciation can lead to completely different meanings. For example, the popular online saying "riding a bicycle and holding it in place" requires a Chinese proficiency level to be correct! There are also the same Chinese characters, and without mentioning the tone and pronunciation, they will also be different, such as "business trip" and "mistake".
3. There are many crooked ways to write Chinese characters. At the beginning of learning Chinese characters, Guoren believed that writing was like drawing, thinking it was different symbols. He couldn't understand why letters couldn't represent everything, and there were different stroke structures, which was a double burden. He not only had to learn pinyin, but also to learn writing.
Although learning Chinese is difficult and tortuous, there are also many German language experts who can proficiently master Chinese and effortlessly speak dialects such as Northeastern and Shanghai dialects. Next, I will introduce several German Chinese geniuses who have excellent Chinese expression.
阿福Thomas
He is a beloved Chinese genius who gives the impression of being a true Chinese rather than a German. He holds a degree in Chinese from Fudan University and also married a Shanghai lady. He gets along well with his parents in law and can fluently speak Shanghainese, successfully integrating into Chinese culture and becoming an outstanding Chinese son-in-law. His videos cover a lot of content about cultural differences between China and Germany, as well as his interesting stories between China and Germany. Not long ago, he was fortunate enough to accompany German President Steinmeier on his visit to China, and the related videos were very interesting. Therefore, Alfred Thomas is really popular among people, giving the impression of being a true Chinese rather than a German.
吴雨翔
Everyone must be very familiar with this charming German learner! Wu Yuxiang participated in the 2014 "Chinese Bridge" Global Foreigner Chinese Competition and successfully entered the third round of the semi-finals. Afterwards, with his handsome appearance and muscular physique, he became widely popular on programs such as "Informal Talks" and "World Youth Talk". He once served as an honor guard in the German Berlin Guard Squadron and attempted the profession of a model. Later, he was transferred from Magdeburg University to Xiamen University for exchange studies. He is not only able to express his views fluently, but also knows how to tell some Chinese jokes, which can be said to be very familiar with Chinese culture.
奥熙Scor Aoxi is a passionate young man from Bremen, Germany who is learning Chinese. Due to his strong interest in Chinese, he made many Chinese friends. During his university years, he was given the opportunity to exchange and learn Chinese in Shanghai. After graduation, he chose to go to Shenzhen, China and work in marketing at SF Express. His biggest hobbies are rap and Chinese. Now, he has started producing works of Chinese rap and often releases videos. His performance is really outstanding, leaving a deep impression on people.
Do we feel the need to work harder by observing these German people with excellent Chinese expression? Although German may not be as simple as Chinese, there is no doubt that Chinese is not an insurmountable challenge. Let's maintain confidence, continue to work hard and move forward, come on, come on!
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