>>157
No, I'm learning because I fucking study it in the evenings. If I lived in motherfucking Italy I'm sure I'd just "pick up some of the colloquial language" given the similarity to English, but there is no common ground between English and Mandarin. The "colloquial language" around here is in Cantonese.
All I said was that the difficulty is overrated. You're reading shit into what I said because you wrote something stupid and now feel the need to defend it by twisting my post, so I'll restate my point for the dumbfucks in the audience:
3. Apart from the time it takes to learn to differentiate tones, the language itself is simple. Almost everything about it is easy for a native English speaker.
>Naturally, your rate of learning will be rapid because you're forced to use it to communicate daily.
You're clueless. I went months here without speaking a word of Chinese. Not exactly "forced". My average daily usage is now saying "thanks" to the supermarket chick when she's watching me bag my own beer, and maybe giving directions to a taxi driver on weekends. I set aside time to practice with a Chinese friend at least once a week, just as I would learning a language back home.