Ask HN: Is it possible to become fluent in Mandarin

2 points by offtop5 5y ago ↗ HN

I've always struggled with languages, but Chinese is rather captivating. Has anyone started late, say 30s and become fluent. I actually find it much easier than Korean or Japanese ( mainly owing to Chinese having an easier grammar).

3 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 15.4 ms ] thread

garmaine 5y ago ↗

Yes. There are many people who have done this. It just takes a LOT of time and effort.

pasttense01 5y ago ↗

"It takes a learner with average aptitude only 15 weeks to reach level 2 for Spanish or French, but about 50 weeks to reach a similar level of the Chinese language. If you want to be fully fluent in Mandarin, you’d better plan to spend about 230 weeks, which is about 4 years."

https://goeastmandarin.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-learn-ch...

the_resistence 5y ago ↗

Get a Chinese romantic partner I am told (I went with SE Asian by chance and pushed back by learning a few years. ;-) )