> Native English speakers are either overestimating the difficulty of memorizing Chinese characters, or underestimating how comparably opaque English spellings are, or maybe a bit of both.
You seem to be implying that you've provided evidence that Chinese is not, in fact, more difficult than English. Or at least that you have reason to believe that. What is that reason? Is it so hard to believe that maybe Chinese is objectively more difficult to learn?
Well, as I said, I personally found remembering Chinese characters about as difficult as remembering English spellings. Of course, either comprises a very small part of the difficulty of learning either language (and I don't speak Chinese so I can't really say anything about it), but since everybody seemed to be fixating on Chinese characters... (shrug)
I am ready to be persuaded if there's a convincing argument that Chinese is objectively more difficult. What I was trying to say is that asking Chinese people how hard it is proves nothing. And (I presume) a native English speaker comparing Chinese and European languages doesn't instill a lot of confidence, either. Of course Chinese is harder than French... to an average English speaker.
It seems like the more apt comparison would be between Chinese and Russian or Arabic. New alphabet, little-to-no cognates, but still phonetic. In an all-languages-are-equal world, an English speaker would have equally difficult times learning any of those; I wonder how it goes in practice.
You seem to be implying that you've provided evidence that Chinese is not, in fact, more difficult than English. Or at least that you have reason to believe that. What is that reason? Is it so hard to believe that maybe Chinese is objectively more difficult to learn?