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For an English speaker, Cantonese, which is one of the most if not the spoken commonly spoken dialect in the Chinese languages can be extremely difficult to master and is actually labelled as Level 3 by many language schools, up with other African dialects with no known written forms. Below is a simple illustration:

One= Yat
Two= Yee
Three= Sam
Four= Sei
Five= Ng

Six= Luk
Seven= Chaat
Eight= Paat
Nine= Kau
Ten= Sap

Once the above has been memorised by rote, the rest becomes exceedingly simple.

Eleven= Sap(ten) Yat (one)
Twelve Sap (ten) Yee (two)
Thirteen = Sap (ten) Sam (three)

Chinese speakers consider the Chinese language as one of the most logical in the world. The ancient Chinese embodied observable phenomena INTO the language instead of describing the phenomena WITH language. For instance, the word 'mouth' is depicted as a square whereas the word 'garden' is a square divided into 4 quadrants. The word to describe 'a couple' is the word 'man' and 'woman' joined together. This pictograph concept is similiar to other ancient lost languages, ie the Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Therefore, it is not surprising to note the framework of Chinese martial arts lies in the language itself.

The various moves and styles reflecting the elements (wind, water) or animals (crane, tiger) is easily taught and passed from generation to generation via the written language in the most comprehensible pictorial form.

The pictograph, whose ancient counterpart was Sumerian cuneiform (which leads to the Latin-derived languages), beautiful and mysterious, despite its complexity and the high demand of discipline from its learner.
Recently, in Australia and South East Asia, studies are being conducted to determine the root of why students whose primary language is Chinese are superior to their peers in Mathematics.

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