While I was in Taiwan, I would meet with Taiwanese students to exchange language. I'd help them with their English for an hour, then they would help me with their Chinese for an hour. It was a lot of fun.
Before doing it, I didn't fully realize how difficult a language English was. The grammar has so many special cases and confusing rules. Just being able to read a word doesn't necessarily help you with its pronunciation, there is a lot of memorization. Case in point, try reading this poem named Chaos: http://www.hep.wisc.edu/~jnb/charivarius.html
I still think English is easier to communicate in than Chinese. Even if you mangle the sounds up or use very messy grammar, you're still understandable... you just sound like a foreign speaker. If you mangle Chinese sounds or grammar, there's a good chance you won't be understood.
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