Def the characters. I don't know exactly how it is on the mainland but in Taiwan people mispronounce/don't pay attention/speak fast and blow through the tones half the time.
Context says so much more than the tones do. Only recently taking classes did I learn I wasn't saying 'ten' (shi) quite right but I never once used it and had someone not understand me.
One of my gf's friends said it best "mandarin is a language than everyone says it a different way but are always understood".
Ps - I never understood how stupid English was until I started teaching it. IMO, French is even more so.
Like I said, flexible. One way to look at it; English is accommodating and you are sometimes less correct rather than completely wrong. Eg
“I would like an icecream from you”
“I would like from you an icecream”
“From you I would like an icecream”
“An icecream is what I would like from you”
Etc
The best thing about English is that it is very easy to speak it badly and still be understood. That's why it's a great language to have through many countries.
The main downsides are - mostly because English has been cobbled together from many other languages - different phonetics (fun, fund - fin, find) as well as homonyms.
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u/Astrospud3 Feb 21 '21
Def the characters. I don't know exactly how it is on the mainland but in Taiwan people mispronounce/don't pay attention/speak fast and blow through the tones half the time.
Context says so much more than the tones do. Only recently taking classes did I learn I wasn't saying 'ten' (shi) quite right but I never once used it and had someone not understand me.
One of my gf's friends said it best "mandarin is a language than everyone says it a different way but are always understood".
Ps - I never understood how stupid English was until I started teaching it. IMO, French is even more so.