Hi Sam, I've been learning Mandarin for just over two years now and have got to a B2/possible C1 level. Based on my experience, I'd answer your questions as such: 1) Yes, characters might look daunting at first, but you get used to them surprisingly quickly. I dare say they even start to make sense on some level. You will find reading slow going to begin with, but your speed will pick up with practice. I know many people say that it's the characters that make Mandarin a hard language. I've not found that to be true - to me, that just seems to be an assumption the Chinese have made themselves when trying to put themselves in the shoes of a Westerner learning their language. A character based writing system is just different, as opposed to hard. The human brain does actually respond and take to pictures quite well, which is why the Chinese writing system is actually quite efficient when you think about it. Don't get me wrong - Mandarin is absolutely a difficult language for Westerners to learn (probably the *most* difficult), but it's not because of the characters. 2) Young people and (probably) people generally in major Chinese cities will almost certainly be able to understand and help you in English. I have found that taxi drivers seldom speak English, though. 3) Yes again - I work full time and have been able to make decent progress with learning Mandarin 'on the side'. Some student friends of mine have done the same outside of their core studies. Hope that helps, Tim

It all depends on how much time you'd like to invest in it. It's a useful language to learn due to the many speakers but it does require a lot of patience and dedication. Ive been learning Russian for a while and Mandarin for almost 2 years. Russian is way easier and requires less commitment. If you're ready to do that, then go ahead.

"Also I feel like most Chinese native speakers will speak English anyway, is this true?" it should be a reason to not learn Arabic, since every Arabic speaks English or French, so why to learn Arabic? Just a reason, passion! Do you like Chinese? And so is there really need of Others reasons?