I attended two semesters of mandarin lessons(4 hours, mon - fri, of lessons with short breaks) at a university in Beijing. Started from essentially nothing; recognising 20-30 characters (Hanzi), 9 of which were numbers. I still haven't taken any HSK (Chinese language competency test) exams but looking at example papers and study material I'm above HSK 3 but I wouldn't pass HSK 4 without a month dedicated review.<p>However, near the end I had learned enough to through the first few minutes of most conversations with not just ease but joy. I can text in Chinese for most everyday conversations, can't read a newspaper pretty much at all, poems are impossible even the ones that look deceptively simple by Li Bai, but I can follow all spoken words by Mandarin speaking characters in movies produced in the West.<p>My two cents is this. Anyone can learn Chinese. But it takes time and effort. Really, you have to persist for while before breakthroughs happen. I couldn't differentiate between tones for the first few months unless a native speaker spoke one syllable at a time very slowly. Now I can pick out tones at normal speed. However, still doesn't mean I understand.<p>A Japanese friend I made in my first semester found the characters easy but pronunciation was still very tough for him. But having one less obstacle is important. I can know also watch anime and recognise plenty of characters (Kanji) in the backgrounds but this is still eons from knowing Japanese.<p>If you want to learn, adopt a growth mindset and don't give up. Like most things you read on the internet, they are neither as hard as everyone says (you can learn to read, write, listen, and speak Chinese) nor as easy (actually the grammar is far from simple. 了 (le) alone causes headaches. And let's not forget all the references to 4000+ years of Chinese history expressed in everyday idioms (成语) and so on).<p>If you want to learn, go to China if you can and try. That year was the most difficult and rewarding (Do they always come in pairs?) of my short life thus far.