What language is easier: Mandarin or Latin?

Hi everyone. I would love to study either of the two languages. Which one is easier to learn? I want to study it as an enrichment course at sixth form. Thanks for all the replies in advance.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 1

SilverstarDJ

18

If you know any romance languages (french, spanish), then latin will be easier since you'll find similar words. How you pronounce it doesn't matter.

Mandarin uses symbols for all of their letters, unlit latin which uses the normal alphabet.

Reply 2

ElectronicPanda

2

i think mandarin has straightforward grammar, while latin has so many word endings....

but it's also easy to pick up if you have a good teacher. writing mandarin is also (i'd imagine) quite difficult.

Reply 3

Vanny17

OP

19

Original post by ElectronicPanda

i think mandarin has straightforward grammar, while latin has so many word endings....

but it's also easy to pick up if you have a good teacher. writing mandarin is also (i'd imagine) quite difficult.

I just want to learn how to speak it though, i dodn't want to spend a huge amount of time studying it because i am in the last year of studying A level. I think latin is a safe choice as someone just said that if you know a romance language, latin would be easier. I learnt french to GCSE level, so i think it might be easier. :smile:

Reply 4

Vanny17

OP

19

Original post by SilverstarDJ

If you know any romance languages (french, spanish), then latin will be easier since you'll find similar words. How you pronounce it doesn't matter.

Mandarin uses symbols for all of their letters, unlit latin which uses the normal alphabet.

I studied french to GCSE level. :smile:

Reply 5

Jellybean91

12

i studied latin in school and am now studying mandarin as my uni free elective... latin is muuuuch easier, but mandarin is a lot more useful!! :smile:

Reply 6

tom181

If you can deal with mandarin not being like anything you have even come across before, then Mandarin is for you!

Reply 7

EcstaticMuse

10

I'm biased because I love Latin. :biggrin:

So I would go with Latin, regardless of ease.

Reply 8

purplesky

2

Original post by Vanny17

Hi everyone. I would love to study either of the two languages. Which one is easier to learn? I want to study it as an enrichment course at sixth form. Thanks for all the replies in advance.

I do Latin at AS level and it isn't really hard. The grammar is really straightforward and logical without lots of irregularities and exceptions. People always ask me why I bother with it and say it's "useless" but I've probably used it in everyday life more than any of my other subjects. There are so, so many words in English which are derived from Latin and often I'm able to tell the meaning of words I've never seen before through their Latin counterpart and it's really interesting knowing where lots of simple, every day words got their root. It's also helped me immensely in French where I'm often able to guess the meaning of a word from Latin and I imagine this is true of all romance languages. So, to be honest people will say Mandarin is more useful but I think unless you plan to go to live in China or do a degree in it, you will use Latin a lot more and also have a much better level in a shorter time :smile:

Reply 9

hothedgehog

16

Haven't studied Mandarin but I did learn a bit of Bulgarian and because it was a different alphabet it was much harder to learn than something which uses your normal alphabet because you've got to start with the whole needing to learn the alphabet which isn't something you'll have a problem with in Latin. I've learnt Latin before and you'll find that the grammar's very easy to pick up, even though there is a lot to learn and you'll also be able to guess the meanings of words if you've ever studied French/German/Spanish (and probably others) before. Saying that, I would imagine that Mandarin would be more use for you to use in the current world and you could take your studies further too, the only use I've ever had from Latin was knowing what some words in the English language meant because of their Latin roots and being able to understand Spanish grammar a bit better. I would probably choose Mandarin to be honest.

Edit: Sorry, that post could do with loads more punctuation but I really need to get on with writing my dissertation!

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 10

Panda Bear

17

I know nothing about either language, but I'd guess Latin because it uses the Roman alphabet.

Reply 11

Cuckoo91

11

Mandarin also has about 5 different tones, with each tone giving a different meaning to certain words. If you're quite a tonal or musical person then it shouldn't be too much of an obstacle, but it does take awhile to get the hang of. As someone else mentioned there are many sounds used in mandarin that aren't commonly used in English, so compared to Latin which has many similar sounds, with mandarin you will have to start learning a relatively new phonetic alphabet.

Reply 12

Skogstokig

Original post by Vanny17

Hi everyone. I would love to study either of the two languages. Which one is easier to learn? I want to study it as an enrichment course at sixth form. Thanks for all the replies in advance.

If you only want to learn how to speak mandarin, then it's not that difficult apart from the tones (I study it in school), since the structure of the language is really easy. If you're going to China it's also great to be able to speak a bit; since it's not too common that 'westerners' speak mandarin, they get really surprised and happy if you speak to them in their own language :smile:

However, I do have to say that Latin is a lovely language as well. I'm studying Latin in school along with French and Spanish, and studying those languages together is a great combination. It's also, as purplesky said, very useful for English, especially if you're interested in the history of European languages.

In short, I'd say go for whichever language you like the most. Trust your intuition :biggrin:

I think you're going to love it anyway, because they're both wonderful!

Reply 13

faber niger

17

Knowing a Romance language doesn't make learning Latin much easier (but the reverse is true), because the Romance languages have lost so much of the grammatical sophistication that Latin has.

Anyway, Latin is probably harder to learn than Mandarin in terms of its aforementioned grammatical complexity (whereas Chinese is very simplistic in its grammar, I believe), but Mandarin is probably harder to learn in terms of the memorisation of logograms and their pronunciation (since the latter can't be picked up from the former, as with alphabetic languages). Ultimately, all such judgements of difficulty are subjective, but I'm sure that neither language is particularly easy to master.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 14

Vanny17

OP

19

Original post by Skogstokig

If you only want to learn how to speak mandarin, then it's not that difficult apart from the tones (I study it in school), since the structure of the language is really easy. If you're going to China it's also great to be able to speak a bit; since it's not too common that 'westerners' speak mandarin, they get really surprised and happy if you speak to them in their own language :smile:

However, I do have to say that Latin is a lovely language as well. I'm studying Latin in school along with French and Spanish, and studying those languages together is a great combination. It's also, as purplesky said, very useful for English, especially if you're interested in the history of European languages.

In short, I'd say go for whichever language you like the most. Trust your intuition :biggrin:

I think you're going to love it anyway, because they're both wonderful!

Thanks for the reply. I think i would learn latin instead because i might find it easier as i already studied french. :smile:

Reply 15

Skogstokig

Original post by Vanny17

Thanks for the reply. I think i would learn latin instead because i might find it easier as i already studied french. :smile:

Excellent choice! Though I probably would have said either way...

Reply 16

Vanny17

OP

19

Original post by purplesky

I do Latin at AS level and it isn't really hard. The grammar is really straightforward and logical without lots of irregularities and exceptions. People always ask me why I bother with it and say it's "useless" but I've probably used it in everyday life more than any of my other subjects. There are so, so many words in English which are derived from Latin and often I'm able to tell the meaning of words I've never seen before through their Latin counterpart and it's really interesting knowing where lots of simple, every day words got their root. It's also helped me immensely in French where I'm often able to guess the meaning of a word from Latin and I imagine this is true of all romance languages. So, to be honest people will say Mandarin is more useful but I think unless you plan to go to live in China or do a degree in it, you will use Latin a lot more and also have a much better level in a shorter time :smile:

Thanks. I have finally decided to learn Latin. :smile:

Reply 17

zanahoria

I grantee that Madrian is much harder, trust me.

Reply 18

Vanny17

OP

19

Original post by zanahoria

I grantee that Madrian is much harder, trust me.

Thanks. I have already decided to study latin.

Reply 19

Kalliope

17

Latin and I are having a battle. Latin hates me. It is not fair. I love Latin. I love the sound of it, I love its history, I love its literature. Yet, for some reason some crazy deity with a weird master plan has decided to make it impossible for me to advance my knowledge of it in any way. I try, god know I try. I try to understand Latin, I try to see its side. Yet, for some reason Latin is determined to elude me in a rather mean way. I practically learnt all 3 tenses endings in French overnight, yet Latin? Latin has made sure I am still struggling to remember the 1st declension endings. I'm beginning to get sick of Latin, but I will not give in. I will not let Latin win! But I'm not doing very well at beating it... Every other subject I can get As without trying and A*s with minimal effort - Latin, which I seem to spend double the time on, only very reluctantly gave me a B. I swear, Latin will drive me demented. Latin is the bane of my life. But then I read Catallus 101 again and I love it just as much.

*I am aware that post made me sound like a freak with a weird habit of personification of subjects. I must plead guilty to that, but I hope you will see past my oddness and realise that Latin is hard. Goddamn hard. However, it still rocks! If you manage not to have it wage war on your sanity and academic record, I'm sure you will have a brilliant time learning it.

:h:

What language is easier: Mandarin or Latin?

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