Originally Posted by
jiejie
I agree with you that characters are more difficult to learn than the spoken language, but strongly disagree with you on the particular point I bolded. I know many people who have learned to speak quite good Chinese but still can't read worth a d@mn much less write. You learn the important characters you need as you go (men, women, entry, exit, restaurant, etc.) even if you never get to being able to write coherent sentences.
"Good" Chinese is subjective. I guess it's all about the level you're trying to achieve. I know lots of people (HK immigrant children) who can speak Chinese but can't write. However, the polish and complexity doesn't get much further than an elementary school education (at best). I guess it's the same for every language, including English.
Yes, the OP won't need to worry about this on a 1 month course.