Disagree on Mandarin lacking lyricism or it being a choppy language. Chinese is a tonal language, which IMHO lends itself to being a better lyrical language. The rich history behind the written language itself, and how poems are written with hidden meanings lends Chinese to rich lyricism.
As far as learning Chinese, I'd pick something a lot simpler than Carl Sagan's Cosmos.
If you're really serious about it, listen to some songs, and watch some Chinese language TV series, or dive into simple readers.
There are plenty of beginner level Chinese reading books online. Just do a quick Google search.
Pick some songs on YouTube. Watch and listen to the music videos where the words are at the bottom, and follow along. Some easy suggestions are Teresa Teng or Faye Wong to get you started. Absolutely beautiful voices.
Once you get your feet wet, you can watch TV shows. The goal being to try to pick up words and whole sentences as the language is used in a realistic conversational setting. Plenty of free Chinese TV shows and movies on Viki (
https://www.viki.com/), which is owned by Japanese company Rakuten. English subs available as well on these TV shows. Netflix and Amazon also has a limited selection of Chinese TV shows.
The tones in Mandarin are simple and rudimentary. That outsiders struggle with it...well I don't feel sorry and I mockingly laugh inside because it's
easy as fuck to me. Conversational Mandarin is best described as copious usage of "sets of two characters" in sequence. Sometimes there are 1(prounoun I/[he/she]/you)+2 or 2+1. The language is so basic...those rules can basically generalize ALL conversational Mandarin sentences. Once someone understands the "2 characters equals one concept, noun or verb" principle, then the code to Mandarin is cracked. Despite having a "chinese" mother, Mandarin was the prudent language for the Chinese who could not speak Shanghainese while Shanghainese was default. My talks in Shanghainese, I respond in English. Neither of us even ever think in Mandarin.
Probably the difficultly of English speakers is that lay, non-lawyer English speakers think in terms of nouns and presume actions based on said things without articulating the related verbs(i.e progress, freedom, love). English also doesn't codify enunciation rigidly. Verbs in Chinese are always articulated or else there is no sensible sentence. Modern English "talking" also has no "melismatic" syllables, thus making the second and third tones of Mandarin a huge stumbling block.
The reality is that most of the Chinese "languages" are on the way to being "dodo'd", a gradual extinction event where some semblance of older "features" in pronunciation, enunciation, etc are going to be lost for the much simplified "universal tongue" called Standard Mandarin. I identify more with Shanghainese than Mandarin. These vernacular languages flow better because they weren't borne out of practicality and the need to simplify for the masses. It's precisely the four tones of Manadrin abd the discrete syllables that make it choppy. It is fairly easy to follow every syllable and every two-three syllable phrase has those syllables "laid out to bare" when dealing with a Mandarin speaker. Every syllable is also, for all practical pruposes, spoken with "sostenuto". It's not a language conducive to "staccato" talking. The inflection of 我沒有 demands a smooth legato and no "shortening" last character even in the most emphatic situations, making it sound like someone talking with paste in their mouths when they're angry or fired up.
About Teng, let's just show her most notable hit
Yes, she definitely is a good singer, but the song also highlights the strict properties I mentioned above about Mandarin. Think in sets of two, and that's basically the language as spoken. My mom loves the singer, mind you, but the "flaws" of Mandarin are still there even if the singer is greater and the song is lyrical by virtue of the songwriter doing his/her best within such constraints.
"Chinese" is something best described as "some unifying principles but greatly independently developed". Because you have a giant-ass piece of space ruled by a boss everyone subscribes to, but because it's such a big place, the locals talk in their "own way" due to mere geographic isolation. The problem always existed, for all practical purposes. People come from all over the lands to work in the central government, and then they have difficulty understanding each other...forcing the need to develop some common tongue.
It's not exactly something an American can grasp right away, but a French speaker in Quebec/Northern Ontario could more readily relate to.
As for lyrical...that goes to the Italian language.
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