son going to learn a language...

[carole]

My son scott is a regular visitor to China as many of you know, he goes there at least twice a year on business and will probably be going again in September,so he has decided to learn the language, he starts his course next week, twice weekly, he has never learn't a language before, so wondering if anyone can enlighten me, is Chinese,not sure what else to call it, excuse my ignorance, very hard to learn, he will be doing the level one at this stage.

I think it will be a great asset to him,and i hope he can manage to pick it up reasonably well,i am glad to see him pursuing some more education, he is hoping to do a business course online as well, Scott left school at 17 with minimum qualifications,(he hated School) but of course now wiser and older wishes he had stayed on,however he has worked hard and his way up the ladder to management, so now he is keen just to further his education and work his way even further up,or to owning his own business one day soon.

[Karen]

If he has any innate musical ability or training, it will help, as Mandarin and Cantonese - the two most commonly spoken Chinese languages are both tonally based. It is not "easy" to learn, but not impossible!

[carole]

He did a bit of music at high school and is quite a good drummer, but he never pursued it really, so hopefully he will be able to learn, yes i had heard it was not any easy language to learn, still i guess he can but only try,he is intelligent enough i think, and very determined young man when he sets his mind to it, so time will tell.

[karyn674]

It is a very different situation, when you're at school and when you study to further your carrier. At school you're too young to understand how important it is and also, you don't have a target. But when you're working! oh that is a totally different situation, apart from being more mature, you know where you wanna get!

Once I knew a Maltese guy who was so fixated with chinese culture, he learned the language and actually moved to china. And believe me, between Maltese and Chinese there is no connection what-so-ever.

In life its how bad you want to achieve something, if you do, learning it is just fun!

I wish him luck!!

[carole]

You are so right and raise some very good points, yes he is 27 now, has a good job with excellent prospects, a lovely partner who he plans to marry and have children with one day, (wish they would hurry up lol,)and your priorities are different to when you are young,he wants to be financially secure with a home before they have children, but seriously yes i think he will make a good effort, he will be learning mandarin.