thevagrant88 wrote:Steve never lived with native mandarin speakers to the best of my knowledge. He learned Mandarin in Hong Kong where Cantonese dominates, far more so back in the 60’s.
And while I always appreciate some healthy skepticism, I wouldn’t go about making such claims. Having said that, Luca has definitely filmed himself speaking Japanese, misrepresenting his abilities by quite a lot so who knows.
Iirc Steve said he was paid to learn the language full time, so he was able to spend all day making flashcards and listening to Mandarin audiobooks. I don't know all the details of his work, but I assume if he was paid to learn it he was also required to use it too.
I've also heard criticisms, of Xiaoma's Mandarin, that he spent a lot of time practicing basic sentences and pronunciation so he sounds accurate in simple conversations but otherwise he still makes mistakes and his level isn't super high.
A lot of people mean different things when they say a language is "hard", usually its more do with if their learning materials are appropriately teaching things, and if they feel overwhelmed and stressed or making good progress. As I mentioned before I think its as simple as the fact that Mandarin grammar is less complicated that people commonly report it as being not as hard as they expect, but they mean "I was able to say stuff without feeling stressed" not "I learned it to a high level as quickly as other more closely related languages".
Its pretty common sense that any language without a lot of shared vocabulary is going to take a long time to absorb, and all the hard numbers seem to show this, and tones and characters are obviously going to be extra challenges. Some anecdotes from people who haven't demonstrated a high level aren't a strong reason to disbelieve this, unless people can consistently learn it as quickly as other related languages, its not easy.