Bilingual Q & A 20: Why is Chinese more difficult than English?
I am not a linguist and cannot provide professional research to compare the difficulty of English and Chinese. I only have the following understanding and experience based on many years of teaching children whose native language is English to learn Chinese, and teaching children whose native language is Chinese to learn English. Understood, for your reference.
For children, listening and speaking any language are the same, and there is no difference in difficulty. As long as they are placed in that language environment and let them hear that language, they will be able to acquire listening and speaking in that language effortlessly. ability, but the speed at which each child learns to listen and speak may be slightly different.
But the reading and writing skills of learning Chinese are different:
(This refers to two different language families, Chinese and English, not the same language family such as English and French).
Reading:
There are only 26 letters in English, and each letter has a voice prompt, making it easy to read aloud. However, the pronunciation of Chinese characters only depends on memory. Some words rely on reciting while speaking, so the accuracy is only half. Therefore, it is not easy for children to remember the pronunciation of each word. They must spend time reading more and recognizing more words. In addition, in terms of semantics, the meaning of Chinese words often changes when combined into words, for example: the commonly used word "in", where are you/now/what are you doing; these three meanings of "in" All are different, which adds to the challenge of reading. Fortunately, children have the innate advantage of "good memory". They will quickly remember the combination of word shapes and pronunciations, and master the semantics. In the case of repeated reading, children's natural instincts can also help them understand. They often don't know how to understand. It requires too much adult explanation and may not even be correct.
Writing aspects (including writing words and using words to express meaning)
The combination of English words only uses 26 letters. Although each English word is different, as long as you can speak the English word, the pronunciation of the letters can give you hints on how to spell the English word. In comparison, each Chinese character not only has many strokes, but how the strokes are combined to form a character can hardly be improved by pronunciation. How to write the character requires continuous practice to remember the character. In writing form, there is no other shortcut. Nowadays, thanks to the advancement of technology, itโs no problem if you canโt write. As long as you use a computer and use the phonetic symbols or pinyin input method, Chinese character groups with the same sound and tone appear. Of course, the prerequisite is to "know the characters". When the word group appears, select the word you need.
remind:
Children learn bilingualism simultaneously, and the reading ability in two languages โโwill create competitive challenges (this will of course not happen to children learning monolinguals). If a child has better English reading ability but poorer Chinese reading ability, and the child is very smart, he or she will start to "choose English storybooks instead of Chinese storybooks". Once this happens, it will be difficult to read Chinese storybooks. After catching up, children will become more and more inclined to "not read" Chinese books. So parents need to be vigilant.
---ใAs much as possible, let your children learn to read Chinese books first, and then develop their English reading ability.
---ใAvoid the synchronization of reading and writing. Writing will slow down reading (except for children who particularly like writing). Reading and literacy will only occur if you only read without writing.
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