No language is easy to learn at first. But don't worry, Mandarin is not as hard as you think it is. Don't be scared of the tone marks. I know they seem weird at first, but after 4 years of learning Mandarin, I don't have to think about which tone to use, it just comes naturally. Its all about practice and being motivated to learn another language. To be honest, Mandarin is actually a lot easier to learn than English. Its like broken English. There's no tense and verb conjugations. i.e.她穿红衬衫 tā chuān hóng chénshān can mean "She wore a red blouse" or "she is wearing a red blouse" No matter if the blouse is 'being worn now' or 'was already worn' you will stay be using the same verb 'chuan' (to wear) It all depends on context. There are no plural nouns. 香蕉 can refer to 'a banana' or bananas'. The way you make it plural is by adding the number, i,e,一个香蕉 means 'one banana'一串香蕉means 'a bunch of bananas" The sentence structure generally follows the same as English, which is: Subject - Verb - Object. i.e."I want to drink coffee" would be the same sentence order: 我要喝咖啡wǒ yào hē kāfēi. Literally: I want [to] drink coffee. For questions, the question word is not placed in the beginning, e.g. in English you would say 'where is lan lan?" but in Mandarin you would say 兰兰在哪里? which literally means 'Lan lan is where?" another example: "what Chinese food do you like" would be 你喜欢什么中国菜 nǐ xǐhuan shénme zhōngguócài?('what' is placed in the middle of the sentence) Also, there isn't any universal 'yes' or 'no', so if someone asked you 要不要吃西瓜？-do you want to have watermelon? You would saying '要"（want) as answer meaning 'yes' or 不要 (don't want) meaning "no" in this context" The only hard parts I can think of are the many measure words. In Englsh, you can say "I want one!" but in Mandarin, you'd be using a specific word for the noun you're talking about. So if you want one apple, you would be saying: 我要一个！ but if you wanted a book, then you would be saying 我要一本。 I think the longer you learn a language, the less difficult you find it to be. For grammar, I would suggest a book on it. I used 'the ni hao series' and they are VERY helpful. But as for as speaking the language, you will have to find people to practice with. You can also watch movies or dramas to get used to sentence patterns.

find a tutor and get professsional help. it's hard to learn Chinese by your own. And more oral practise and the most important thing-------------------------------------------------is----------------persistence !:) haha

You can begin with simple sentences.I'm a Chinese and I'm learning English, I think sentence struture of both Chinese and English is quite the same, except for the prepositional phrase. Here is an example: I have breakfast at home. 我在家里吃早餐。 (at home=在家里) In Chinese, the prepositional phrase is often put in front of the verb, while in English, the prepositional phrase is often put at the end of the sentence. As for the grammar, English has something like -ing, -ed, have done for the tense. But in Chinese, every word is single, we can't make it another form, so we use some phrase to make it. Here is the example: I'm reading. 我正在读书。 （ing=正在） I will go to a party tomorrow. 我明天将要去一个派对。 （will=将要） I have finished my homework. 我已经做完作业了。 （have done=完） I hope all these above can help. : )

practice is more important than learn, read and speak or wirte, it will be ok. http://www.italki.com/notebook/entry/115449.htm i think he is right, a baby never mind what is the grammar or what is the sentence structure, just listen, just speak, more.

Chinese grammar is not very regular. You'd better talk with Chinese. It will work. And you will catch the sense of Chinese.