那么，既然13亿中国人在学汉语时没有什么问题，为什么像我这样的笨老外会觉得汉语这么难学呢？
首先，学习几千个汉字就是一件苦差事，除了把它们牢记在心之外，没有别的办法。甚至在查字典的时候也会碰到一堆问题。比如说，你怎么才能在字典里查到一个字的意思呢？为此我曾经花了很多时间。首先我要确定这个字的偏旁部首，然后在我的汉英词典中的部首表里找到这个部首，然后再按照偏旁部首找到标有拼音（罗马字母）的这个字，然后再查找字典的词条找那个字，把那些意思不对的统统排除，直到找到那个正确的字为止。这个过程需要很大的耐心，会让人灰心丧气。说起来很丢人，我自己查汉字的速度每小时还不到20个字。 语言专家估计，你―只‖需要掌握5,000个汉字就能读写汉语了。（我太喜欢这个―只‖字了！）他们还说要记住一个字并且能够灵活运用，最好要在不同的语境下看到并温习这个字大概7次。
要花多少时间，你自己算吧。
2. 近20年来，一直有人认为简体字是激进的汉语改革的产物，不能保留传统文化的精华。在他们看来，那么多中国人读不懂繁体字是一件可耻的事。有些人甚至认为简体字是一个有缺陷的语言系统，用简体字使中国人变笨了，中华文明已经到了紧要关头，必须用繁体字才能拯救我们的民族文化。
但是这些提倡恢复繁体字的人并不能提出足够的理由来支持他们的观点。他们还忘记了重要的一点：繁体字太复杂，在中国古代，这在受过良好教育和没受过教育的人之间造成了巨大的鸿沟，而简体字则让上亿的中国人识了字，并在一定程度上模糊了受过教育的精英和普通大众之间的界限。如果我们重新启用繁体字，可能会侵害到大多数人受教育的权利，破坏中国社会的团结。（retain ; disgraceful l; defective ; reach a/the stage where ; rift ;literate ; blur ;elite ; infringe on）
In the last couple of decades, there have always been people who believe that simplified characters are a product of the radical reform of Chinese language, and fail to retain the essence of our traditional culture. From their point of view, it's disgraceful that so many Chinese cannot read traditional characters. Some even argue that simplified characters are a defective system of language and using them makes Chinese people dumb, and that our civilization has reached a critical stage where we have to go back to traditional Chinese characters to save our national culture.
But those in favour of traditional characters are unable to provide sufficient evidence for their assertions. They also forget an important point: In ancient China the complexity of traditional characters created a rift between the educated and the uneducated, while the simplified characters had helped hundreds of millions of people become literate, and to a certain extent blurred the boundaries between the educated elite and the ordinary public. If we went back to traditional characters, it would be very likely to infringe on the majority's right to education and damage the unity of Chinese society.