That's awesome that you've taken up Mandarin. I've been living in South Korea for a few years and know a little bit of Korean. Even when I say something with perfect pronunciation (at least I think so) Korean Native speakers sometimes have no clue what I'm saying. frustrating to say the least.
How are you learning Mandarin if you don't mind me asking?
Wow I've listened to Korean and it sounds very difficult :-).
To learn Mandarin I am using an app on my phone called; Hello Chinese. It is absolutely brilliant; it teaches you to write and within a few lessons you are saying some useful things. Plus it connects with your mic and gives you some speech practice as well, which is awesome.
Thanks for your comments by the way, I've been trying to answer all day, but Steemit has been down!
Cg
good to know, will have to check out that app. I've been using memrise as a way to brush up on languages, also a decent app. and yeah, steemit has been funky the last few days to say the least