With Merna: Arabic vs. Mandarin: Which is harder?

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Arabic and Mandarin are widely considered two of the hardest languages in the world. Growing up speaking both, which one does Merna think is harder? From pronunciation, reading and grammar, Merna will share with you her feelings about these two languages.

Merna is a Chinese-Jordanian girl who grew up in a very diverse cultural environment. Passionate about law, music and classic movies, she believes languages allow anyone willing to learn the chance to thrive in the richness of various cultures.

[Orwellian-Purple-Grapes-]

Chinese is easier if you have a knack for music (all those tones) and memorization (all those characters). Arab is easier if you're into learning grammar rules.

[Hhhh-w]

Chinese is more difficult in written form, Arabic is more difficult orally but both are difficult languages for english speakers, how hard it is for someone to learn either, depends on their mother tongue.

[discoverchina]

Arabic is harder
I tried to learn it but gave up eventually

[RedheadedBohemian]

Agreed.
Speaking Chinese is so much easier (if you are musical and clearly hear tones). The grammar is not terribly complex, and pinyin is easy. But actual Chinese characters are a ton of work. Reading is hard work because in a language with an alphabet or syllabary I can sound words out, but in Chinese I have to look everything up.

Arabic thankfully actually follows the spelling rules, because the grammar is 😅. It’s so completely different than other languages I’ve studied (Germanic, Latin-based, and Mandarin). I am still very dependent on having the subscript and superscript vowel symbols there as well. (Like with Hebrew, once you can read at a certain level, these vowel symbols go away, so you just have to know the vowels from context.)

[_Traditional_man]

I love you in Arabic its not بحبك, Its أنا احبك
بحبك It is not an eloquent Arabic word, but rather an eloquent word from the Egyptian Arabic dialect.

[pbworld]

I thought the words for "you" were anta and anti. As a beginner, what I find difficult about reading Arabic is that the signs for the vowels are usually not written out, unless it's for beginners. Also, the ayn sound!

[jackjohnson]

But harakaat are just basic vowels, it's not comparable to tones in Chinese. Like ُ means u, and ِ means i and َ means a.

[SonicBoom]

Hardest languages in the "world" where "world = USA and Europe. As always the westcentric terms get imposed

[Captaincapi]

Let me make it simple Arabic 1 Chinese 2

[Squatrix]

I need to correct something,

[12345] is actually Arabic number system,
Created by Alkhawarizmi

[AetosGuardi]

The only difficult thing with Chinese is the writing system the tones aren’t difficult specially since they are only 4.

If Chinese have a simple writing system it would be a simple if not the simplest language.

But Arabic on the is another whole story, its grammar is one of the hardest and pronunciation is almost impossible, even though its writing system is one of the easiest, it is indeed one of the most 5 difficult languages on this planet.

[demonLaplace]

i speak arabic already, i would like to learn chinese or japanese

[Squatrix]

But hey,
At least you could define the gender in Arabic,
Like... How should I know what's the gender if there is just "you"
Regards from 🇩🇿,

[irritatedanglosaxon]

Let me put it simple, Chinese #1 hardest, 2nd Arabic

[suhailmanzoorofficialeducation]

Chinese 🇨🇳 Cutie 😍😻❤
Love from India 🇮🇳😂
@ 25 November 2023 @ 5:52 PM

[CHAIMAJIMIN]

انا بتابع القناه الان و بحضر برنامج رحلات في الصين فيه البنت ذي و راحت مدرسه تعلم الاطفال الارقام العربيه ، راحت كتبت لهم الارقام العربيه 12345 و حكت لهم انها ارقام هنديه و انه العربيه هي ١٢٣٤٥ و هي طبعا العكس ، جلطتني و الصراحه حسيت بالغضب ، ما تعرف و تعلم الاطفال الغلط ، ياخي على الاقل ابحثي بالموضوع حياتك كامله بدوله عربيه و تكتبي عربي و ما تعرفي اش تكتبي !!!! عييب ، حسيت بالفشله

[darnneljones]

Yeah....That tends to happen when you are a Dragon society. They have long... often boring conversations that goes on for long periods of time. Sometimes for millenniums. They often forget they spoke characters and invent new ones. 😂