SoCan wrote:
I'll be applying to INSEAD's January intake and I'm trying to decide what to do about my 3rd language. I speak a little German and Spanish and I am confident I could polish either up to an A2 prior to January. This would be the easy option. However, I'm intrigued by Mandarin and am considering learning it from scratch. I realize this means taking classes while in school, which adds to the workload, but I'm not sure when else I'll have the opportunity and time to learn Mandarin.
Is it realistic for someone with no experience with tonal languages to get to an A2 level within a year? I picked up German and Spanish relatively quickly, but I speak English and French, so Romance and Germanic languages are obviously a whole different ballgame. Does anyone have any experiences with learning Mandarin they can share?
The short answer is no, it's not realistic. If you were only learning spoken Mandarin it would be feasible (although very difficult to pick up satisfactorily without language immersion) but the character system makes written Mandarin too burdensome to 'pick up' in a year. I'm basing this answer off of this description of the A2 level exam:
https://www.thechinesestaffroom.com/arti ... -17-apr-11For reference: I am American, have previously studied French (5 years), Spanish (7 years), Italian (only 1 year, but while living in Italy) and I have been living in Taiwan for the past 18 months. I have had a private tutor for 2-4 hours a week the entire time, work ~65 hours/week with all Mandarin speakers, and have not been learning the character system because it is too burdensome. The tones and structural differences of the language make Mandarin very, very challenging.