Chinese is often referred to as one of the hardest languages to learn for Westerners. S-Chino. S-Chino. It is Chinese for me. The expression, that's like Chinese to me, exemplifies this idea. But is this really the case? Let's have a closer look at what the Chinese language really looks like. Looks pretty complicated, doesn't it? But what if we convert all those characters to their sounds first? Right. That already looks more familiar. This system of converting characters into alphabetical spelling is called opinion. And it tells how to pronounce each character. Now, what about all these accents on the symbols? They're called tone marks, and there are four different tones in total. Compared to thousands of syllables in Western languages, the Chinese language only has about 400 possible syllables. To compensate for the lack of different sounds, the Chinese came up with four different ways to pronounce each syllable. The four tones. Now, what does that mean? Changing the tone magically changes the meaning. Let's have a look at the example Ma and how it's pronounced using the four different tones. Ma. Ma. Ma. Ma. Ma. Usually doubled to make the word Ma Ma means mother. Ma. In the second tone refers to the plant hemp, of which a common combination would be Dama, literally big hemp, meaning marijuana. Ma. Means horse. It's also a common family name. Finally, the last one, Ma. Most commonly refers to the verb to swear or to insult someone. Now, don't start freaking out about Chinese tones just yet. For now, seeing these tones right definitely does matter, but at the end of the day, it is the overall context and the grammatical function of the word that reduces the scope for confusion. After all, it should be clear from the context whether you are talking about your mother or your horse, right? Unless you've been smoking Dama, maybe. Thanks for watching. Stay tuned for more Chinese's easy videos. Up next, Chinese grammar, Chinese characters, and Chinese vocabulary. Check out our website for more Chinese language-related news.