Chinese language

The first thing that hits me was the mass of squiggles and strokes that make up written Chinese. Its definitely
one of the hardest language I ever learned. I made it sound like I had learned a lot of languages but the main point is, its difficult. Even till now, I can proudly say

"Wo bu hui Jiǎng Huáyǔ"

I think I am beginning to understand what my Chinese friends meant when they said
"Chinese characters are like alien language "

You are like mindlessly remembering characters which pretty much looks like a toddler's scribblings and the more you know them, the better your vocabulary becomes! There are about 50,000 characters or pictograms in Chinese. Learning so many characters is a daunting prospect.
Boy and I am glad my mother tongue is Malay. At least, I can still pronounce the word I don't understand.

And that is not it yet, the tone of voice you use to say a syllable alters its meaning. Even if the word is spelt exactly the same, the tones may differentiate them apart. To illustrate, The syllable ma for instance could mean horse mǎ (third tone), or mother mā (first tone) or scold mà (fourth tone) and even as a question ma (neutral tone). All are spelt exactly the same way but the meaning they carry are totally different.

I have not been writing much in my blog because the thoughts in my head simply refuse to be put on paper or otherwise. And even if I could, I’m not sure if I should or even want to because I will have to take into account that people, my friends, family members and etc are reading this so it must not be deemed insulting for anyone of them.