Just starting to learn Chinese?
Many of you have asked “Where should I start?”, “Do you have any tips?”
To answer these questions, here comes a Q&A. You’ll find a lot of practical tips and encouragement there🌟
P.S. The list is not full – please feel free to add your ideas!
Q: Is it difficult to learn Chinese?
A: Yeah, they say Chinese is among the most difficult languages to learn (in terms of effort vs. results).
Q: What is so difficult about it?
A: Two key areas: the tones and the characters.
Q: Is it hard all the way?
A: Well… no. The beginning will be the hardest. The first year will be very hard. But you should always remember that the learning curve is huge, and it will get better with time. That’s why many advanced learners might tell you “Chinese isn’t hard to learn!” – they just forgot how painful it was in the beginning. 😉
Q: What should I start with?
A: Two things: Master the sounds and tones, and master some character-learning strategies.
Q: How should I learn the sounds and tones?
A: There are great free resources to help you “set” your pronunciation right. A free pinyin course by ChinesePod, or apps like PinYin chart.
Practice, practice and practice. Till you get it right. If you’re shy to ask Chinese friends to practice with you – practice with technology, it will never judge you. (Native speakers won’t judge you either, so maybe you should ask for their feedback once you get confident. To make sure you get it right).
Q: How important are the tones, really?
A: They are really important. Good news for you: no Western learner I know of, including myself, has ever paid any real attention to the tones in the beginning. It takes time to realize that Chinese really do speak with tones.
Q: How should I learn the characters?
A: It’s too difficult to learn each of the 5000+ characters you need from scratch. But there is good news – most of them contain some common parts called radicals. And there are just over 200 of them. So focus on learning the radicals first – it will help you a great deal later.
(To quote Lincoln here, “If I had one hour to chop off a tree, I would spend 45 minutes sharpening the ax.”)
Q: How important are the characters, really?
First of all, and many scholars will disagree, but the role of characters is changing. Even David Moser (a foreigner who’d mastered Chinese before I was even born), says that “the crucial skill for the 21st century learner is recognizing characters, not writing them.”
(Personal note: I have HSK6, and I completed my MA degree thesis in Chinese. But we went to the bank with a friend – and I couldn’t remember how to write the full name of the university! Because I didn’t write much over the past two years. It’s all about typing now. So I remember the shape of the characters and I can read them, but I won’t be able to write a lot of them on the spot. And my Chinese friends have shared that have similar problems with less common characters.)
Q: What if I’m bad at learning languages?
A: Here’s a quote for you from a famous language enthusiast Khatzumoto:
“You don’t learn a language, you get used to it.
You don’t get good at a language, you get used to it.
You’re not bad at a language, you’re just not used to it.”
Q: What should be my learning strategy?
A: Everyone today talks about immersion, surrounding yourself with what is relevant to you.
(Personal note: I’ve had a very different experience learning Chinese. I had boring textbooks and word lists, detached from real life. Learning could’ve been so much easier, faster, and more pleasurable. And with @YourMandarin, I’m trying to make it possible for you.)
When we start to learn a language as adults, it’s important to embrace the fact that we will always remain foreigners. Don’t mix it with fluency. We can become perfectly fluent foreigners.
It’s just that we just grew up with our own beliefs, culture, our own humour.
Humour is the best part.
And it’s so often left out!
WHY?? It helps us learn! And stay sane!
(That’s why you’ll always find memes and fun images on the background of YourMandarin posts. And that’s why there are so many western jokes and allusions in the captions.)
Because we do not learn another language to become a native of that country. We learn another language to connect with others. And the best way to learn is to understand and really relate to something foreign. To make it yours!
So the best strategy is to make your learning relevant.
One word at a time, one phrase at a time. Create meaningful connections between every new word or phrase in your mind, and your prior experiences.
Slowly translate your life into Chinese.
Q: What if I’m not sure which words to choose?
A: “Exposure to real, authentic language is important”, they say.
But what if we just don’t have the time to watch TV shows, don’t have native speakers around, and it’s so hard to understand authentic materials that we give up in 5 minutes?
One great tool I’ve recently discovered is flashcard apps with space repetition, with various sets of “most common words” or “most common words related to …”.
(And I hope you’ve heard of them already. I’m a “dinosaur” in that sense – discovering so many tools so late. I did use flashcards to prepare for HSK five years ago, just not as efficiently, and without space repetition)
Q: What’s good about flashcards with space repetition?
A: Two things.
One – they REALLY make you remember words.
Like, for real. You see the word/phrase for the first time, then it shows up a few minutes later, then the next day, then four days later – and you remember it. Turns out it’s not a new science, but it’s real magic.
Two – they make sure you learn good stuff in the first place.
It means you can download their modern, crowd-picked lists of words – and then decide, within the course of your learning, on the words that are relevant to you. So it’s like “the relevant of the relevant”.
Q: Any names?
A: Anki. Quizlet. Memrise.
(Anki has lists of words with sound, and lists of sentences with sound.)
(Memrise is great fun, but you’ll have to pay to unlock the best features.)
Q: Is that enough?
Nope. This was all about the knowledge you get (language people call it input). Now you need to make sure there is some knowledge you produce (language people call it output).
In other words, practice.
Q: Do I really need to practice?
A: Yes. That’s what brings joy to your learning. Nothing is more empowering than the sense of your own progress.
If that sounds poetic but not convincing – practice makes your brain digest the info you get. It’s long journey to turn the words you know into the words you can use. So make a habit of doing it, and try to have fun doing it as frequently as you can.
Q: What are the good ways to practice?
A: To produce something new. Once you feel you’ve learned enough to have a conversation – it can be 2 sentences long or 2 hours long – speak it out. Write it out. Say it out loud to youself, if you’re not in the mood for socializing.
Q: Any tools to help me find people to talk to?
A: Yep. Hello Talk, for example. Or @YourMandarin group on Wechat.
(I don’t have much experience here, because I was lucky to find real-life language partners – maybe modern learners will give more advice in comments)
Q: What are the best ways to learn a language?
A: *sighs and smiles*
(Personal note: Within the course of 20 years of learning foreign languages (I grew up as a monolingual Russian speaker), 5 years of teaching English, and 5 years of living abroad, I’ve had plenty of time to test various learning strategies. As a learner, I can tell you what really worked for me in real life. And as a teacher, I can only see what worked for my students.)
Short answer: the way that works for YOU!
Do you learn best when you see things?
Do you learn best when you hear things?
Do you prefer to have some quiet learning time? Enjoy getting down to the nuts & bolts of grammar?
Or you hate it, and prefer to learn by jumping right into practice?
Any choice is great. Just figure out what’s yours, and make it work for you.
If you’re quiet and love the rules, I’m with you. Just don’t rely on the rules too much.
If you love practice, I’m with you too. Just remember to push yourself a little further each time, and really learn new things (don’t resort to the topics you’re too comfortable with).
Q: Omg, YourMandarin! So many words, what’s my take-away from this?
Pronunciation-wise: Get your sounds and tones right.
Vocabulary-wise: Try out flashcards. You can do it the old pen-and-paper way, but I really love the technology tools – for giving us the sound.
(For example, I still regularly pick up new words – from conversations with friends, from podcasts. And there’re no way I’ll remember them right away. So to make sure they stick in memory, I make quick notes in Evernote or Pleco, and then turn them into flashcards.)
Practice-wise: If you are a beginner, grab language partners and TALK to them. Then talk to them again. Then talk to them again. If you can’t grab a real one, grab one online, for example at HelloTalk.
(If you are a more advanced learner, a warning for you: talking to language partners can get boring. At this stage try to find people you really enjoy being around, people who share common interests with you in the first place. Online or offline, it doesn’t matter. Otherwise your motivation might fade away really quick.)
Things-you-don’t-know-but-should-wise: Follow @YourMandarin on Instagram where I got you on the most relevant, culture-specific words and give a chance to practice them.
(Follow it also to see how you can create stories around words that are relevant to you.).
Follow other accounts for that matter, too!
More-practice-wise: Join the YourMandarin free practice group on Wechat – a new initiative with @bamboohee where we discuss the new words, then shut up and let you go crazy practicing them. It’s an unpredictable messy space, just like our life!
This list is by no means exhaustive.
Your questions, tips and resources are very, very welcome.
What was a game changer for you?
