That could be because Mandarin grammar is actually relatively simple, the difficulty is in “naturally” expanding your vocabulary (since characters take an order

That could be because Mandarin grammar is actually relatively simple, the difficulty is in “naturally” expanding your vocabulary (since characters take an order of magnitude longer to learn). It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of it feels like brute forcing syntax and keywords - there’s no way of reasoning through it, you just have to knuckle down and learn it. It’s also part of the driving force behind my app (link in bio) - it can take a long time (i.e. years) to get comfortable carrying on a conversation, so I want to help people practise in a less intimidating environment.