I don't know what linquists would say, but for my money Chinese has to be one of the most inaccessable languages on the planet.
When we travelled to Europe last year, there were at least clues in the words that could relate to the English language.
For instance, in Germany, the request for uncarbonated water is "still vasser" (still water).
But with people here it is a completely foreign alphabet, read right to left, with four vocal inflections that can change the meaning of words.

We would be completely lost without Linda, who is our interpreter, our guide and our mother hen.
We're kept on a very tight schedule, and Linda keeps us always moving forward.
Linda's not her name by the way, but she says it's easier to call her that than her real name.
From what I've seen so far, I'm betting she's right.

Depsite the language barrier, the Chinese people usually go out of their way to be helpful.
News Director John Christianson went inside a tiny store to ask directions and learned quickly through some meaningless hand gestures that no one spoke English.
When he finally made his request known, one of the young workers not only walked us outside, but walked several blocks with us to take us exactly to the store she was describing.
Now that's service.