Language learning

 I like Chinese grammar. So far, I know some basic word order, three ways of asking questions. 

Putting ma as particle at the end. Using haishi to ask about alternatives. Putting another particle at the end to ask "what."

I know how to make a progressive: the zai  before a word. 

Plural pronouns:

Wo / women

Ni / nimen 

Ta / tamen 

I know how to express possession with de. 

Putting ba at the end makes it into "let's do something" 

There's a lot of reduplication for family members, mama, baba, yeye... 

So a basic sentence:

Now / yesterday / In the summer 

Pronoun or noun 

There are demonstrative pronouns / this / these / those 

An adverb of intensity, like "very." 

Verb 

Verb can be preceded by an auxiliary, like to, is able to, etc...  

In the summer, people extremely like to go the Korean bookstore. 

There are several elements, and a particular order they have to follow. 

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It looks like vocabulary is the big challenge. Learning thousands of anything is difficult. There are 88 notes on the piano, so we aren't learning thousands of musical notes. Dozens of ingredients will make a lot of different culinary combinations. We don't need thousands. Syntax is more conceptually abstract than vocab, but I have no problem with abstract thought. The lexicon, with each lexical item being written in a unique and unpredictable symbol, and also difficult to hear / pronounce, is difficult.