What makes learning Chinese hard

• Tones. You need to be able to both speak and understand words using the correct tones for each word.
  
• Characters. Learning the characters is a lot harder than learning an alphabet.
  
• Pronunciation. Several groups of sounds have subtle pronunciation differences that require mouth diagrams and words like hard palate and blade of the tongue to understand how to pronounce.
  
• Grammar. Beyond basic sentences, Chinese grammar gets complex.
  
• Way of speaking. Often the problem when translating English to Chinese isn't grammar, but rather rephrasing the sentence into the way the Chinese speak. With its own rich history and idioms often things are just said differently.