I often have students ask me: ‘Is Chinese the hardest language to learn?’, ‘do you need to spend a long time studying before you can How long does it take to learn Chinese well?’ These questions are very hard to answer. In fact all languages have aspects that are easy, and also aspects that are hard to get a grasp of every language has its part that is easy to learn, and also part that is hard to master. The learner’s mother tongue, learning environment and methods, as well as their motivation for studying all have an effect on the results of studying.

 American linguists carried out an interesting piece of research;   they looked at studied 70 world language’s grammar and calculated how long it would take learners whose mother tongue is English to grasp a foreign language. The results are used to train diplomats and military personnel.

 Specialists divided the foreign languages into 4 categories.  The amount of time needed to reach a the same proficient level in each category is different.

  The first category of languages are very similar to English, learners whose mother tongue is English only need to spend 575 to 600 hours studying them before they can reach quite a proficient level. This group of languages includes French, Spanish, Italian,  Portuguese,  and also includes Danish, Norwegian,  Swedish and Dutch.

The second category is German and Indonesian, the amount of time needed respectively is 750 and 900 hours.

The third category’s languages are very different to English in both grammar and vocabulary, learners need to spend 1100 hours studying before they can reach a certain degree of fluency. This group includes Russian, Polish, Turkish and Hebrew.

  The forth category are the most difficult languages, because they are extremely different to English, they have completely different writing systems and require huge amounts of memory memorization and practise, learners need to spend at least 2500 hours studying before they can reach a certain level of proficiency. These languages include Chinese, Japanese and Arabic.

The difficulties with Chinese lie not in its grammar but in Chinese characters, because Chinese characters represent meaning not sounds. In the initial stages of studying students not only need to remember every how every character is written, but they also need to remember the characters pronunciation and meaning, students need to spend a lot of time repeatedly studying, writing and remembering characters. In this situation this will get better after remembering 300 characters have been (learned and) remembered there will be improvement, because at this time stage you can rely on radicals when studying. Now, the development of the internet has also provided a lot of convenience when for those learning Chinese.

如有错误，多多指正：）

/*

Hello Beth! I am surprised that you made this many obvious mistakes since English is your first language, isn't it. You must have been hastening, very much hastening this translation article or otherwise you made them purposefully which I think unlikely since even 2200 would mistakenly make 2500--that was going too far :-(

*/

/*

Well then to your translation skills, you don't absobloodylutely need to translate word by word. For instance, '第一类语言和...', '第三类的语言和...' and '第四类是...' more or less act the same when 'the languages belonging to certain classification' work as the subject in the sentence. Mandarin has its way(s) to express things and so does English. Just write English and think 'English-ly'! By the way, this is quite an ill-organised article--a loose article?--can I say so? I made pauses on and off, pondering, as I translated.
*/

... 美国的语言学家进行了一项 /* I suppose that the writer used cangjie input method (仓颉输入法) or whatnot to make such 'unique' mistake */ 有趣的研究 ...

I often have students asking /* or '... students that come to me and ask:' sounds more natural to me */ me ...

The learners' /* plural, for 'their' in the latter part of the sentence */ ... as well as their ...

... 70 world languages' grammar ... /* 世界 in the text says 'the mundane world'; another term '世界语' which might be misleading refers to 'Esperanto', the noted constructed language by a Polish ophthalmologist */

The results were /* from the context, the past tense 'were' seems nicer to me */ used to train ...

The lanaguages belonging to the first category /* in my ken, a category and a language are incomparable to each other */ are very similar to English. Learners ...

The second category is German and Indonesian ... /* I can't make it since I am not informed of the source text in this part. This sentence is incorrect or, say, very Chinglish--as I mentioned from the very start: you don't need to translate word by word */

The third category's ... and vocabulary. Learners need to ...

Those in the fourth category are ... 2200 hours ...

... of memory and practice /* noun */, ...

... meaning, not sounds.

... to remember every how every character is written ... the character's pronunciation and ...

/*
I learnt something from you after I finished my translation and compared ours--the way how this word 'research' can be used, for example. You will do vice versa, maybe? I don't know. Anyway, hope it helps.
*/

I have been frequently asked by (my) students, 'is (Mandarin) Chinese the most difficult language to learn?', 'how long does it take to have a good command of it?'

These questions are hard to answer. In fact, to learn a language can be easy and not so easy regarding every aspect of it.

One's mother tongue(s), the environment, the method, and the motive are all catalysts, resulting in a pleasant outcome or not when learning.

Some linguists from the States started out an interesting research that they, after an investigation of grammar amongst 70 languages worldwide, estimated the necessary time for a native English speaker to master any foreign one. It was taken
as a benchmark for diplomatic and military training onwards.

The specialists made four categories by gradation of time an Anglophone needs in mastering foreign languages.

The languages in the first category resemble English, counting French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and also Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Dutch. It takes one merely 575 to 600 hours to get some high level.

/* The second category is omitted in the source text */

The languages categorised to the third class share little in common with English, grammatically and lexically. They necessitate 1100 hours to make possible a certain degree of fluency; they are Russian, Polish, Turkish and Hebrew.

The fourth ones are of the greatest complexity. Due to their substantial unlikeness to English and their completely different writing systems, it requires a good deal of memory and practice with a minimum of 2200 hours before a proficiency level is
reached.

The difficulty in learning (Mandarin) Chinese lies not in its grammar, but in its writing system--every bit works meaningfully but not phonetically.

Besides memorising the stroke order in every single character, a student at a beginner level has to memorise the pronunciation as well as the meaning one after another. It is considerably time-consuming to brush up, to write characters and
thereby recognise them.

Such awkward situation will be overcome thanks to a capacity of up to 300 characters memorised, when one can optimise his studies by radicals.
 
Nowadays the developement of the Internet as well helps facilitate (Mandarin) Chinese learning.