conjugation based languages versus Chinese

Among those forum members who study Spanish/French/etc, where the verbs are heavily conjugated, is there anyone who also studies Chinese, where there is no conjugation? I studied Spanish back in the day to a reasonable level of proficiency but I now study Chinese in uni and have been to China. To me Chinese is infinitely easier to speak as one is not encumbered by constantly being required to conjugate verbs. Keeping in mind I'm only referring to the spoken language, what are your thoughts on this?

my husband and i have been studying chinese, we noticed the difference that chinese IS much easier since there are no verb conjugations. However, we have yet to begin writing pinyin.......we'll see how it goes.

I have been studying Mandarin for three years and I must say that it is easier than conjugation languages. The writing is, however, much more difficult!

I learned Spanish in high school and am relearning it now. I have also been studying Mandarin Chinese for the past two years. While I find conjugating to be a bit of a pain to learn, I do appreciate not having to deal with that in Chinese. That said, you do have to deal with getting the tones right. If you don't, your Chinese does not sound like Chinese (which is something my Chinese wife often says about me). Also, there are many words that are quite similar in Spanish to English. There are very few words in Chinese that are similar to English. English and Spanish have very similar grammars and sentence structure. Both languages inflect questions the same way. In Mandarin, the grammar is very different. After two years, this is still a constant struggle. That is probably the hardest thing about the language. One basic rule is never translate literally, word for word. Also, if you try to use Google Translate to translate a sentence from English to Chinese, you are likely to get something that sounds strange to Chinese speakers.

"One basic rule is never translate literally, word for word." After studying Spanish for a little over one year, I would have to say that this statement is true for Spanish and English as well. Perhaps for all languages? Awhile back I read a helpful statement that encouraged learners to translate phrases rather than word for word. Languages are arts, not sciences. They have guidelines not rules. We need to be able to accept some ambiguities, to accept that some things are the way they are just because they are.

Maybe I will try to learn Chinese next. My trip to the Philippines last week with a layover in Taipei exposed me to a lot of Chinese. Even the hotel that I stayed in the Philippines is populated with lots Chinese speaking people. You can hear people speaking Chinese all over the place. Even the funeral that I attended was heavily influenced with Chinese culture.

I'm surprised about considering Chinese easier than other languages. I might give it a try later.