Irrelevant

I have been learning Mandarin at home for the better part of a year now (on/off- taking breaks as is necessary as my family situation dictates) All and all, I have to say that whilst it is a challenging language for native english speakers to learn, I don't believe it to be the insurmountable barricade that most people claim that it is. In Australia, roughly 94% of students drop out of learning Mandarin before the completion of their course. Of those who choose to stay on as students, the majority were found to have asian or han ethnicity. I have heard a litany of excuses as to why one shouldn't attempt to learn the language or why the language is too hard for most people to grasp. To give a more recent example, one woman (who claimed to know Arabic and various other languages) made the claim that if one doesn't have a musical background or hasn't learned Mandarin since early childhood, they probably won't be able to tackle the language (or words to a simil