I was born in Hong Kong and copied Chinese characters until I was in grade 4 when I moved to Australia. My parents recognised the importance of practice in learning Chinese so had me join a weekly 3 hour class to learn Chinese characters until the second year of university.
I am now 22 and I can understand 95% of the individual words in a Chinese newspaper. I don't claim to be able to read the newspaper, however, because the 5% of the words I can't read are the ones that actually matter. Also, for the phrase "學而時習之 不亦說乎", I know what each individual word means but when it is put together like that, it makes no sense to me. (I know ancient phrases are hard to understand in any language, but it's easier for me to point to this phrase in the parent post than searching for a random chinese multiple word-term that I actually don't know on the internet.) I'll have to sit here for 5 minutes to figure it out. My reading speed is also horribly slow. Imagine if you can only read English words at one word per second. Yes, like that.
Here I am, a Chinese born in China (technically an English colony at the time...), more fluent at my second language English than my native tongue. Sad as it may be, when I speak English I have a slight Chinese accent and when I speak Chinese I have a slight English accent so I don't sound native in either.
I hope that can attest to you how much practice learning Chinese takes.
I am now 22 and I can understand 95% of the individual words in a Chinese newspaper. I don't claim to be able to read the newspaper, however, because the 5% of the words I can't read are the ones that actually matter. Also, for the phrase "學而時習之 不亦說乎", I know what each individual word means but when it is put together like that, it makes no sense to me. (I know ancient phrases are hard to understand in any language, but it's easier for me to point to this phrase in the parent post than searching for a random chinese multiple word-term that I actually don't know on the internet.) I'll have to sit here for 5 minutes to figure it out. My reading speed is also horribly slow. Imagine if you can only read English words at one word per second. Yes, like that.
Here I am, a Chinese born in China (technically an English colony at the time...), more fluent at my second language English than my native tongue. Sad as it may be, when I speak English I have a slight Chinese accent and when I speak Chinese I have a slight English accent so I don't sound native in either.
I hope that can attest to you how much practice learning Chinese takes.