Bobcat

英文是靠读的，中文是靠看的。所以说字母文字是表音的，汉字是表意的。This is so true. Chinese is a picture, describe the feelings.
Tone is hard for non-Chinese speakers. It is true for ABC as well. They are not used to it. Even for Mandarin speakers, it is hard to use the dialect if they don't have the sound. For example, my husband could never say "six" right in my dialect.