Chinese is easy to speak, but when it comes to writing / reading it's insanely hard. Just one simple tiny dot and the word is completely different. I'm clumsy with pen in hand and I've seen many friends of mine practising writing in Chinese for days and months - still they haven't had the slightest idea of writing a whole sentence on their own; and from that perspective I admire Chinese children.
Somehow I have advantage in learning Chinese, cause Vietnam (as well as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia... any country that lies near China) is affected by China in many ways, including many elements in language - China has always been a vast civilization. Vietnamese sounds 80-90% alike Chinese. Oh and Vietnamese has 5 tones by the way
Listening to foreigners speaking Vietnamese is almost irresistible to us