Is it hard for an English-speaking person to learn Chinese?

Mandarin is not a hard language for English speakers to learn, according to Weicong Liang writing for the British Council. This is because its grammar is similar to that of English, and none of the sounds are difficult for English speakers to pronounce.

While speakers of romance languages, such as French and Italian, have difficulty with Chinese sounds, English speakers can manage all of the necessary pronunciations once they have learned to differentiate between the four tones required. It may be harder for English speakers to learn to read Chinese because of the use of ideograms instead of an alphabet-based writing system.