Written by Teacher Jenny!
One of my students started Mandarin study two to three years ago, but he stopped learning and pending for two years. When we restarted the Mandarin lessons, it was a bit challenging for him to pick up the lesson quickly. But comparing to a beginner without the language basis in Chinese, he has good basics in Chinese Pinyin and pronunciation. So the initial stage would be the most difficult stage for a language learner, once pass through this, it will be much easier to pick up the language.
Many people are afraid that they may forget everything about Mandarin Chinese after they stop learning for some years.
Will that happen?
The answer is no. You may forget most if you really pending so long in studying Mandarin. However, when you restart to study Mandarin it would be very fast to pick up and get it back if you have Chinese basis. That’s why some people they learn the basics of a language, even though they stop learning or not using it many years but they still can pick up the language very fast when they want to continue the language study.