this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Keep it simple (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Lt_Worf@lemmy.ca to c/memes@lemmy.ml
 
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[–] uberrice@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

Were you though, or did you just think you were?

It's also 'easy' to communicate in English. 'I want eat' 'where go this place' and so on. People understand, and probably will answer you. It's easier for something like that in Chinese to be grammatically correct - but did you master pitch accents and never mixed them up after 'a few weeks'? We're you able to read hanzi?

The thing is that with European languages, it's easy to fall into the trap of trying to express ideas that are too complex for your language ability if you are native in an European language. I don't remember French for shit anymore, but say I were to ask some French guy that doesn't speak English for a good restaurant to eat in, I'd probably go something like 'je veux mange, tu sais un bon Restaurant ici?' I doubt that's grammatically correct whatsoever, and sounds weird as fuck, but you'd probably get my point. It's probable you sound similar when speaking Chinese only for a few weeks.