Learning Chinese, what is the biggest difficulty? For this problem, I used to think there are 100, 100 foreigners answer. But, I asked a number of different nationalities, different levels of foreigners, the answer was strikingly similar, namely the pronunciation.
Foreigners 1:
Nationality: Japan
Level: primary
This is a around the age of 30 students. Company set him to work in China, came to a bit of Chinese also won't he, after 2 months of learning, can understand some simple daily Chinese now. I asked the question, suspected his answer the grammar, after all, he is still in the learning stage of primary grammar, but his answer is pronunciation. He said, now he is still very low, only a few words of Chinese sometimes also can't communicate well to others, because the pronunciation and intonation.
Foreigners 2:
Nationality: Russia
Level: intermediate
The student age above 40 years old, she has been to China for a long time. Currently living in Beijing with her Chinese husband. She can more fluently in daily life conversation. But because of her pronunciation problems, often happen some misunderstanding. She is also very trouble. Her teacher often stressed the importance of pronunciation during class, the good news is that she is aware of this problem and correct his pronunciation.
Foreigners 3
Nationality: Canada
Senior level:
The student age over 60 years old, is a Canadian citizen of Chinese origin. Learning Chinese more than three years, due to the very serious, so the Chinese level is very good. Can cope with the difficult Chinese dialogue. But, when having a class, he often put the pronunciation of "practice" and "contact" confused, and two sound pronunciation is very not in place. So to answer this question, he said without hesitation: "pronunciation".
In conclusion, to say the pronunciation is the biggest difficulty in learning Chinese, especially the tone. Want to learn Chinese foreign friends in the accumulation of vocabulary and learning grammar, spend more time on the practice of pronunciation!