Sorry, my message was not very clear. I've studied Chinese in the past, and I'm using it daily. I already know a bunch of written characters, it's just that reading articles seems really out of reach...
And yes, I know what you mean with English... and yet, I'm lucky enough that my mother tongue (French) actually shares a lot of vocabulary with English!
I have learnt English for at least 10 years, still take some efforts to read a novel, specially in a fantasy setting...