SOME English-educated Chinese Singaporeans think and say that Chinese is difficult to learn. That is why their children find it hard to pick up Chinese, they say.

Is this really the case? I have found the answer is an emphatic 'No!'

Vili Maunula, a theoretical linguist, writes: 'All languages are, to the best of our current understanding of human languages, equally suitable for conversation. No language is more expressive or less expressive than the other, neither is one language easier or more difficult.'

My own language-learning experience from childhood supports this view. I grew up in a dialect-speaking home. My mother had never been to school. My father had learnt some Chinese in the Hokkien dialect in an old-style village school in China before coming to Singapore at the age of 13. In my childhood days, Mandarin and English were hardly spoken among the Chinese community.

When I first went to a Chinese school, I could speak neither Mandarin nor English. I did not even know how to write my name in Chinese or English.

But I started learning Chinese and English. I was interested and had an open mind. I worked hard. I finished the six-year Chinese primary school in five years. I graduated as the top boy of my year in 1950.

Then I decided to switch from the Chinese stream to the English stream. My oral English was not good then. I had had no chance to speak English other than reading aloud in class. So, in the English school, my classmates called me 'Chinaman' because of my poor spoken English.

I listened to BBC broadcasts, read English books, attended public lectures in English and also made it a point to ask questions and make comments. I also had pen pals with whom I corresponded in English.

I even learnt the international phonetic system, as I had done the old Chinese phonetic symbols (now replaced by the hanyu pinyin).

With an open mind and effort, my English improved by leaps and bounds. I topped the school in English. Much to my surprise and pleasure, I even scored a distinction in English in my Senior Cambridge School Certificate examination in the mid-1950s.

All this while, I never stopped learning Chinese. I continued to improve my Chinese by listening to local and Peking Mandarin broadcasts.

When I sat for the Chinese Senior Middle III Government examination as a private candidate, I scored distinctions for both Chinese and English. And when I took the Higher School Certificate (HSC, now A-level), again as a private candidate, I received distinctions for the general paper and Chinese.

I later signed up as an external student for a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in Chinese and passed with a good grade from the School of Oriental and African Studies, which required, and still does, answers for examination papers in both Chinese and English.

Based on the misconception that Chinese is a difficult language for those from an English-

speaking background - and that English too is difficult for those from a dialect-speaking environment - I should not have done so well in these two languages.

A closed mind is a blocked mind. Things are shut out and you lose out. The best way to learn Chinese is to keep an open mind, do away with prejudice and be passionate about learning the language and culture.

The rise of China in recent years has created a global wave of interest in learning Chinese. In the United States and Europe, there are now Caucasians who are professional English-Chinese translators.

Even Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has picked up so much Chinese that he won applause for his fluent Mandarin when he spoke at Beijing University in April.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced last year a list of 1,600 to 1,700 Chinese characters for CL (Chinese language) pupils, and 1,800 to 1,900 characters for HCL (higher Chinese language) pupils in primary school.

There are 52 weeks in a year and 312 weeks in six years. If one divided 1,700 and 1,900 respectively by 312 multiplied by seven days, CL students would have to learn 0.78 character a day, while HCL students would have to learn 0.87 character.

Of the two Chinese character lists, 600 to 700 characters in CL and 400 to 500 in HCL are for word recognition only, not for writing.

The revised list of Chinese characters for secondary school students is not available yet. Based on the MOE announcement in 2002, the list for CL students was 3,000 characters, of which 300 are for word recognition only.

For HCL students, the list contains 3,500 characters for word recognition and writing. Both lists include characters from primary school.

In effect, CL secondary students need learn only an additional 1,400 characters at most and HCL students an additional 1,700 new characters. This is quite manageable, even if school holidays are not counted.

It is a question of mindset. Have the right mindset and you will succeed.

I once saw a poster of seagulls flying over a stormy sea. The caption read: 'They can because they think they can.'

That gets to the heart of the matter.

The writer is a veteran English-Chinese simultaneous interpreter and book translator.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND

A closed mind is a blocked mind. Things are shut out and you lose out. The best way to learn Chinese is to keep an open mind, do away with prejudice and be passionate about learning the language and culture.