<p>Our kids found Mandarin VERY difficult. S said it was harder than all 14 of his APs put together and D found German MUCH easier than Mandarin. The kids had excellent pronunciation, but found it just very tough since it involves so much memorization–the written caligraphy, the romanization, and the tones for pronunciation. Of course, YMMV. My niece has taken to it and likes French and Mandarin.</p>