[TheCrusader]

"As I understand it, English is pretty high on the list of Most Difficult Languages To Learn."

Not for Europeans, because English has so many commonalities in words and grammar. But if you want to know how difficult it is to understand Chinese, read on.

According to the University of Michigan, the person with average lauguage abilities takes about 480 hours to become a level-2 proficiency in Swahili, Spanish or Dutch. It takes that same student about 720 hours for Farsi, Indonesian, Hebrew and Thai. However, it takes about 1,320 hours to to become level-2 proficienty in Chinese.

So the Chicagoan students are wasting their precious time on a language that is about useful to Westerners as pig-latin.

[VadeRetro]

You have documented that Chinese is harder for English speakers than Swahili, not that it is less useful.

[Future Snake Eater]

However, it takes about 1,320 hours to to become level-2 proficienty in Chinese. So the Chicagoan students are wasting their precious time on a language that is about useful to Westerners as pig-latin.

Owway.