"Mandarin, despite being excruciatingly hard to learn for most Westerners..." Mandarin is hard to learn, period. Even if you're born and raised in China and it

"Mandarin, despite being excruciatingly hard to learn for most Westerners..." Mandarin is hard to learn, period. Even if you're born and raised in China and it's the only language you know, it still takes a long time to learn. No need to single out the Westerners :)