Re: Your vote on a common global language

From: André Keshav (andre_dumarc_at_hhotmaill.com)
Date: 12/12/04 

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 21:43:42 +0100

"Lee Sau Dan" <danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>

| Maybe, it was "ma?" -- the question particle and you misheard it as
| "men". A big mistake. Ask your friends at the party to correct you.
| It's not easy, as you have to learn to pay attention to some phonetic
| features (e.g. tones, syllable-timed rhythm) that have been
| insensitive to your English ears.

Apart from tones, what makes spoken Mandrin difficult to understand for
e.g. a European is to differentiate between some of the consonants, because
you don't have the distinction between aspirated and unaspirated consonants
in European languages.
Is "syllable-timed rhythm" something that would make comprehension more
difficult for learners?