As if learning Mandarin isn’t difficult enough, many distractions creep into our lives and keep us from advancing towards our goals. Here are five things to downscale in order to become a more effective learner.
1. Reduce your time on social media (unless you’re on Chinese social media)
It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time.
I don’t know what happened to us humans in the past 10 years. For many people social media have become an addiction that consumes so much time that could have been spent productively (and happier). We’re out of control and we’re not even aware of it. Just today I saw a father with his two young daughters in the playground staring at his phone for hours, while his children were playing. He didn’t even look at them! No matter if it’s Facebook, Twitter or TikTok, these apps are fighting for our attention and obstruct us from being real people who live in the real world.
According to Statista the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 145 minutes per day in 2020. That’s almost 2.5 hours that could have been used for learning Mandarin! 18 hours per week! 72 hours each month!
I’m not saying people should delete all their social media accounts immediately, but awareness is the first step to take back control. Drastically reducing our time on social media does have many upsides. Firstly, we don’t completely forget what we’re doing. Secondly, we’re not confronted with posts and ads we don’t want to see. And last but not least: imagine all the things we can do with the time we gain.
Or give this experiment a go: spend as much time as possible on CHINESE social media like Sina Weibo, WeChat, Douban and the like. Utilize them as a learning tool, “exploit” them like they “exploit” us.
2. Reduce your consumption of news (unless it’s Chinese news)
Bad news travels at the speed of light; good news travels like molasses.
It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.
Reading the news is another thing to get rid of if you have this daily habit. It’s not that “news” per se is bad, but the triggering way it’s presented to us. According to experts the human brain is attracted to troubling information because it’s programmed to detect threats, not to overlook them. Our brain is predisposed to focus on the negative unfortunately and this causes anxiety and depression. In my experience – I definitely check the news more often than is good for me – consuming the news is like a drug. It’s addictive. Especially Twitter. Even though it makes us feel bad, we keep coming back for more. We feel “informed”, although in most cases we only see what big media corporations want us to see.
Not reading or watching the news does have an immediate effect. Every time I didn’t consume the news for some days – especially the past one and a half year where every second sentence contains the word “Covid” – I felt less stressed and anxious and I had more time for productive things like writing this blog. The only exception I’d make is reading the news in Chinese. Reading the news in Chinese is a brain exercise:
3. Put that phone away – (unless you’re learning Chinese)
放下手机，立地成佛 – put your phone away and “become a Buddha on the spot” (Chinese idiom).
The cell phone has become the adult’s transitional object, replacing the toddler’s teddy bear for comfort and a sense of belonging.
Constantly looking on your phone waiting for messages and other updates, is also not helpful when learning Chinese. I sometimes ask myself: am I using the phone or is the phone using me? Why do I keep this thing around me almost all the time? Mute those messenger apps or tell people you’re busy learning Chinese. Too radical? A first step could be to log how much time you use your phone and which apps in particular. If it’s mostly Pleco, Skritter or other apps for learning Chinese you’re doing extremely well.
4. Reduce Netflix & YouTube (unless you’re watching Chinese content)
Netflix and YouTube can be major time consumers if you let them. The reason I don’t have Netflix is the high probability to get addicted. I already spend enough time online, mostly sitting, and would rather do something productive and healthy. YouTube actually has the same addictive quality, so we have to be careful. But both Netflix and YouTube have a lot to offer to Mandarin learners too. You can watch interesting Chinese Series on Netflix. There are many great YT-channels which share first-class Chinese content for beginners, intermediate and more advanced learners.
5. No excuses (unless they’re excuses to learn Chinese)
The final thing to delete from your life are excuses. In particular things we tell ourselves to rationalize why now isn’t a good time to be learning Mandarin. Again, this is easier said than done. But think about this way: every time we give in to an excuse, we feel dissatisfied about ourselves, because we’re not doing what we ought to be doing. This is damaging to our self-esteem and our goals seem further away than before. But if we actually start the task, we’ll get a sense of achievement. We did it. And if we can do it this time, we can do it next time.
Instead of setting lofty goals like studying 80 hours of Mandarin this month, opt for Mandarin whenever you have to choose between several activities. This strategy focuses on the present and really helps.
Conclusion – taking back control
I didn’t intend to write such a preachy article, but then again, these things I summed up here we all seem to be struggling with. Long story short, this all boils down to getting rid of stuff we don’t need in our lives and taking back control. Claiming back lost territory from things that unfolded their negative influence so gradually that we didn’t notice. And if “getting rid” doesn’t work or isn’t the right answer, turning an unhealthy habit into a positive and productive one is probably the next best thing we can do.
What do you think? Feel free to leave a comment down below!
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Are you considering to learn Chinese? What speaks in favor, what speaks against learning one of the most difficult languages in the world?This is what the Mandarin learning community has to say about it.
The pros of learning Chinese
Cultural reasons
Learning Chinese will allow you to communicate with about a billion native speakers and other learners all around the world.
Learning Chinese opens doors to an ancient history and culture that are fascinating.
Learning Chinese is the key to understand present-day China and the Chinese people.
Learning Chinese makes traveling through China even more valuable as it allows you to connect with the locals.
Learning Chinese helps you enter the world of Chinese painting, film, literature, calligraphy and music and see the world through different eyes.
Career opportunities
Learning Chinese is an investment for your future and career that acknowledges the economic shift towards East-Asia. China is on its way to become the largest economy in the world and expected to surpass the US around 2030. This means that there are more and more opportunities for foreigners working in China or dealing with Chinese companies allover the world.
More and more businesses prefer to hire multilingual employees with Mandarin skills as marketers, communication experts and other positions.
When working in China, having at least a basic understanding of Chinese shows that you are committed to doing business and that you’re taking your Chinese partners seriously.
Before Covid tourism from China was on the rise. In the future, hotels, restaurants, bars, museums will want staff that can speak Chinese to cater to the growing number of Chinese tourists.
When working for big international organizations Chinese is a big plus. Chinese is one of the official languages at the U.N. and becoming increasingly important in international negotiations.
Stand out of the crowd with Chinese on your CV: It shows you’re not afraid of challenging tasks and possess long-term commitment.
Mental health & personal development
Learning Chinese exercises your brain in a unique way. Mastering Chinese characters and the four tones trains your cognitive abilities and benefits your mental health.
Learning Chinese will change you and your view on the world. You’ll learn to think in a different language and see things from a new perspective. You’ll become more open-minded and understanding towards different cultures and mentalities. You’ll start to question your own background and cultural habits (in a positive way).
Learning a new language like Chinese is the perfect opportunity for self-improvement and cultivating healthy life and study habits. It’s also the perfect time to rethink how you learn and what truly motivates you (on the long term).
The cons of learning Chinese
Linguistic reasons
Chinese is one of the most difficult and time-consuming languages to learn, especially when your own language(s) is completely unrelated to Chinese; meaning there’s no linguistic overlap to profit from like between Italian, French and Spanish for instance.
The writing system is highly complex. To be able to fluently read a news article you’ll have to learn at least 2000 characters, but in most cases a lot more. Knowing the words more often than not doesn’t cut it: understanding texts written for adults also requires developing reading comprehension through experience. This mean practice and practice means time.
Writing characters is another major obstacle. Every word has its own unique graphic representation. I can’t give a solid estimation of how much time it takes to master writing the first 1000 basic Chinese characters. But imagine studying (and reviewing) the stroke order, components and meaning for each character and writing each one at least 40 times. Then multiply that by a thousand. Isn’t mastering Pinyin, the romanization system for Chinese, sufficient? Well, not in the long run. Pinyin transfers the pronunciation, but not the meaning in most cases. This is because Chinese is a tonal language with a relatively small number of basic syllables. Many words sound similar but are represented by (completely) different characters. This means that for serious learners learning Chinese characters is mandatory.
The Chinese tones are both hard to differentiate and to reproduce correctly in active communication.
Career opportunities?
For a career-oriented person learning Mandarin might seem like an inefficient use of resources. Mastering the Chinese language or even learning it to a useful level takes years, whereas learning a programming language like Python can be done in months. Studying Mandarin in many cases means taking yourself of the job market for some years. The pay-off at the end is by no means set in stone.
The Chinese economy is not as booming and dynamic as before and China’s general outlook is bleaker than previously expected: “Our longer term outlook remains that economic growth will slow significantly in China (to 4% by 2025). As we recently argued (here), China is facing an ageing population (which is actually projected to start shrinking from 2030 onwards, according to US Census data), a very high debt load (335% of GDP), increasing tensions with several countries (which will hurt exports as well as limit needed imports) and weak productivity growth.” (Source: Rabobank April 2021)
Conclusion
It’s reasonable to consider the pros and the cons before you’re starting a big project and investing your time and money into it, although I’m pretty sure this is not how must people start learning Mandarin! In the end, it really boils down to the question if the glass is half empty or half full. And that’s up to you, my friends!
Personal note: the author of this article never thought about all of this when I started learning Chinese. My main motivation to learn Chinese was to be able to speak with my Chinese family and improve my opportunities for the future in a general sense. For me learning Chinese had not automatically lead to finding the best job ever, though it would have been nice. I look at it this way: Sometimes we’re drawn to do certain things. Some things have uncertain outcomes. I don’t use my Chinese skills in my present job. Can this change in the future? Sure, why not?
In the end, learning Chinese is an adventure. You can’t be fully sure where the journey leads, nor should you want to be. But you definitely should invest in yourself and learning new skills for the future! Nobody but you can decide if Mandarin is going to be included in that skill package.
What are your thoughts about the pros and cons of learning Chinese? Did I miss any major points that you’d like me to include? Please feel free to leave a comment down below! : )
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Once you’ve reached a certain level, listening to Chinese audiobooks helps to get the more advanced language input you need to keep upgrading your Chinese skills. But where do you find Chinese audiobooks that are interesting, high quality and not hidden behind a paywall?
Why listen to Chinese audiobooks?
Once you’ve reached a certain level, making significant progress becomes harder and slower. The good news: you’re finally ready to listen more advanced stuff, especially audiobooks. Listening to Chinese audiobooks can be an attractive option, for instance if:
You love books, but lack the time to sit down and read
You’d like to study more actively, but somehow can’t or don’t
You’re not in a Chinese speaking environment (anymore), but want to get as much Chinese input as possible
You want to expand your active and passive vocabulary and improve your overall listening comprehension
Tips for listening
If you’re serious about this, why not set a goal (15 hours a month for example) and share it with people who care about your progress
Spend some time listening everyday – this can in between activities, while commuting, running, eating, before going to sleep – whatever you like
If you have some free time during the day opt for listening Chinese
If the choice is between Netflix (or a non-Chinese podcast) and listening Chinese, opt for listening Chinese
Where can you find Chinese audiobooks?
Well, there’s a number of mostly Mainland Chinese websites where you can find loads of Chinese audiobooks. You should definitely have a look:
10 Chinese audiobooks for advanced Mandarin learners
The main challenge is finding something that suits your level and is exciting enough to keep listening to. That’s also the reason for this post: making this process a little easier by giving some suggestions. The Chinese audiobooks I want to share with you are mostly classics or international bestsellers. For each I provided a short introduction with a link (in the picture) to the recording. Enjoy!
The Little Prince (1943) – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The fantasy tale follows a young prince who visits various planets in space, including Earth. Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince is usually seen as a children’s book but that’s somewhat shortsighted. One of the main themes is the narrow-mindedness of adults compared to the curiosity and open world view of children: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2014) – Yuval Noah Harari
This is one of the most popular books in the category of universal (or pop) history. It’s not filled with minor details about rulers and kings, but draws the bigger picture about how we humans started out in this world and which ideas powered human development. Harari’s history of humankind is thought-provoking, but also highly speculative. That being said, Sapiens is a great book that will probably change the way you think about humankind.
The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European (1943) – Stefan Zweig
This autobiography by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig is one of the best books about European history I’ve read. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was one of the most widely translated and most popular writers in the world. In 1934, seeing the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, Zweig emigrated to England and then, in 1940, moved briefly to New York and eventually ended up in Brazil. There he committed suicide shortly after ending this book. One of the questions Zweig keeps asking himself is how the civilized nation of Germany could fall into the abyss of Nazi barbarism.
To Live (1993) – Yu Hua
The famous movie To Live by Zhang Yimou was based on this novel by Yu Hua who grew up during China’s cultural revolution. To Live is a dramatic story about peasant life and the struggle for daily survival in the days of Mao.
To Live describes the struggles endured by the son of a wealthy land-owner, Fugui, while the Chinese Communist Revolution is deeply changing the nature of Chinese society. Fugui, once a selfish, rich idler, looses everything through gambling. When Mao’s forces takes over, this loss of his family estate proves lifesaving. His troubles are far from over however.
Yu Hua grew up in a small village in Shandong province. What makes his writing stand out is that it’s very close to how the village people described by him actually speak and think. This not only makes the novel very authentic but also more accessible for Chinese learners.
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (1995) – Yu Hua
Another novel by Yu Hua. This one is about the practice of donating blood in exchange for money which has led to horrible scandals in China. Chronicle of a Blood Merchant is the story of a silk factory worker, Xu Sanguan, who sells his blood to overcome poverty and family crises. The story is set in the late 1940s until the 1980s, from the early years of the People’s Republic of China until after the Cultural Revolution.
Brothers (2005–06) – Yu Hua
Whereas To Live and Chronicle of a Blood Merchant don’t cover present-day China, Brothers by Yu Hua sets out to tell the story of China’s transformation from Maoism to all-out capitalism.
How to Win Friends & Influence People (1936) – Dale Carnegie
How to Win Friends and Influence People is a self-help book written by the American writer Dale Carnegie and what you call a longtime bestseller. Carnegie is best known for developing and teaching business courses in self-improvement, public speaking and interpersonal skills. One his core ideas is that it is possible to change other people’s behavior by changing one’s behavior towards them. Starting point for this particular book is Carnegie’s personal observation that the leading business people in any given industry are not those with the most technical know-how, but rather those with the best people skills.
How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes (2010) – Peter Schiff and Andrew Schiff
How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes (2010) is an international bestseller explaining the basics of (macro)economics in a way that people like me can understand. It addresses such questions as:
Why can governments spend without ever seeming to run out of money?
Why are some countries rich while others are poor?
Is spending or saving the best cure for a bad economy?
Where does inflation come from?
The Story of Mankind (1921) – Hendrik van Loon
The Story of Mankind tells the history of western civilization in short chapters. It begins with primitive man, and then covers the development of writing, art, and architecture, the rise of major religions, and the formation of the modern nation-state. The Dutch-American journalist, professor, and author Van Loon wrote the book for his grandchildren.
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist (2008) – Roger Lowenstein
This is a biography about Warren Buffett, one of the world’s most successful investors and number 4 richest person walking this earth. It is said that he first bought stock at age 11 and first filed taxes at age 13. Even if you’re not particularly interested in the stock market, Buffett is a legend and a genius worth studying.
Thanks for dropping by on Kaohongshu. Hope you enjoyed this article about Chinese audiobooks for more advanced learners. If you have any thoughts or comments for me, feel to write them down below.
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We sent people to the moon. We created touchscreens and video streaming. We discovered water on Mars. We developed robotic body parts. We can clone humans and grow new organs.
We excel in innovation.
What strikes me as odd though, WHY – at the same time – it’s so hard to get OUT of our COMFORT ZONE and take things to the next level.
This post is dedicated to this underrated capability of ours to come up with reasons that justify staying in our comfort zone just a little longer…
Many people worry about missing the mysterious language gene or think they generally lack the talent to learn a new language, especially a “hard language” like Mandarin. The idea that they could reach a certain level of proficiency in Chinese seems as likely to them as climbing Mount Everest without oxygen.
Language learning, however, is a skill that can be learned like so many things in life. If you weren’t particularly good at it at school, doesn’t mean you lack talent. It probably just means at that time and place, in that particular setting, you couldn’t perform at the best of your ability.
Nr. 2. “Chinese is too difficult for me”
Is Chinese harder than Arabic, Icelandic or Spanish?
It depends for whom of course!
For Vietnamese people for example, Chinese is not completely outside their frame of reference. Many elements look and sound familiar:
I think this really comes down to how close your language is to Chinese. I, for example, am from Vietnam, my only mother tongue is Vietnamese and I’ve been learning English for roughly 10 years now and Chinese for more than 1 year. To me, English is definitely the harder one, since its grammar and vocabulary are completely foreign, it took me like 5-6 years to be able to hold a normal conversation and to be able to listen and understand what others are speaking.
Nguyen Nguyen (YouTube nickname), commented the question if Chinese is the hardest language on earth.
Chinese generally has four main challenges as a foreign language:
The vocabulary (the lack of loanwords and other recognizable elements)
Short phrases (idioms) linked to Chinese culture and history
Learning to read and write Chinese is time-consuming – even for Chinese people. On the other hand: Chinese grammar is relatively easy. Compared to German for example, you don’t have to worry about different tenses, pluralization, cases, genus, articles and what have you.
Which means that basic communication can start from an early level, without the grammatical obstacles typical for German, English, Polish and other languages. Learning Chinese for daily survival is not as hard as many people think. Chinese people usually won’t hesitate to show you their admiration when you try to speak their language.
Nr. 3: “I don’t have time”
If you are a managing director with a family at home, you might well have too much on your plate already. You won’t be able to focus on yet another task, neither during the evening nor on weekends. You are either too tired or too occupied with work, family and the other 89 things on your to-do list.
What’s more, – I noticed this with management people I used to teach – if you cannot be good at it, you start to hate it. Therefore, without the proper time resources, any learning process is set up for failure.
On the other side of the spectrum, I used to know some people (actually men) who worked a normal office job, were single and spent most of their leisure time playing Xbox and drinking beer.
Either way, time is a limited resource. That’s why we MAKE time for things (or people) we value.
You can even study on your way to work. If you “waste” a lot of time commuting every week, this is “hidden potential” you can tap into.
The hours normally wasted in the Berlin S-Bahn turned into a completely different experience when I started listening to audiobooks and courses in history and philosophy. Average traveling time per week: 10 hours. Around 480 hours per year! Why not invest some of that time in something more useful?
If you ever took driving lessons: it’s the same idea. Regular practice does the trick.
Imagine what you can achieve in a year if you spend two hours every week on learning something new?
Nr. 4: “I’m not in China. How can I learn Chinese?”
Whatever you do, you should always prepare yourself for the real thing. If you are not in China right now, maybe you are planning to go there at some point and you’ll prepare yourself for that as good as you can.
If you cannot go to China: consider digital immersion and meeting up with local Chinese. The internet offers so many possibilities to communicate that Marco Polo never had. Chat with Chinese people, find Chinese teachers online, watch Chinese TV-series. There’s a surplus of options.
Nr. 5: “I’ll never understand Chinese culture anyway”
This is what a friend said to me after somewhat unfortunate first experiences with Chinese culture, working for a Chinese company. She never felt very sympathetic towards Chinese culture, but after being part of a Chinese company she completely lost all interest and felt she’d never understand “Chinese mentality” and their “indirect way of communicating” anyway.
“Never again”, she said to me, which I could understand, from her point of view. I just felt she gave up too early and let one bad experience waste everything. The road to understanding was from now on was blocked. By herself.
The obvious point here: If you don’t have any positive feeling towards a culture or language, learning their language becomes a struggle, cause you cannot develop any interest towards it.
This is where I’ve seen many people fail, because they couldn’t identify with their target language on any level.
And Chinese culture envelops much more than the corporate culture of some Chinese enterprise entering the global market. The challenge here is to find some area of interest you can positively identify with.
Thanks for reading this article! If you have any thoughts or comments for me, feel to write them down below.
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Disclosure: These are affiliate links. They help me to support this blog, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.
Reading skills are vital, not only for high-level proficiency of the Chinese language, but also for daily survival: from opening a bank account to ordering plane tickets. Reading is key. Here are seven ways to boost your Chinese reading ability while staying in China.
As if learning Mandarin isn’t difficult enough, many distractions creep into our lives and keep us from advancing towards our goals. Here are five things to downscale in order to become a more effective learner.
Interview: I talked to the co-founder of Keats Chinese language School Zier Liu (刘子尔) and asked her why students keep returning every year and how Keats adepts to the present Covid-situation.
Are you considering to learn Chinese? What speaks in favor, what speaks against learning one of the most difficult languages in the world? This is what the Mandarin learning community has to say about it.
Are Pleco flashcards worth spending 10 bucks? Are they really essential or can you learn Chinese without Pleco flashcards? Let’s have a look at the pros and cons!
Learning Mandarin can be a loooong-term endeavor. Looking back on at least 8 years of learning Mandarin, there are a lot of things I wish I could have worked out earlier. I’ll share them with you, hoping that some of these points are helpful.
01. Surround yourself with motivated learners and people who want you to succeed
More often than not, people in your social environment won’t care about your passion for Mandarin. They might even completely fail to understand your motivations to learn this language. I’m not telling anything new when I say that staying motivated is much easier when you’re surrounded by other motivated people. People who share the same goals and care about your success.
The good news is that being surrounded by the right people is not purely a matter of luck. It’s actually up to you to create a better learning environment for yourself. For example by joining learning groups on Facebook and online communities like Quora and Reddit. In general, you will find like-minded people and more experienced learners to team up and share your goals with. Some of them may be preparing for the same HSK exam as you are. Also forums like Chinese Stack Exchange and Chinese Forums allow you to connect to other learners, ask for advice and share knowledge. The bottom line is that teaming up with other motivated individuals (and native speakers!) makes learning Mandarin easier, more fun and rewarding.
02. Don’t trust your teacher to tell you everything you need to know about Mandarin
Everyone has heard of “never trust a doctor”, but how about “never trust a teacher”? How can there be a transfer of skills and knowledge without trust?
I’m not saying you shouldn’t trust your teacher. I’ve had some excellent teachers that felt responsible for my progress and did more to support me than I could reasonably expect from them. But teachers tend to have their own routines and agendas. They like to follow their coursebooks and measure their students’ improvements mainly by test results. Most importantly, they lack the time to give you the support you need, answer your questions and point out personal areas for improvement.
I don’t blame them. I’m thankful for all the support they gave me. At the end of the day, we ourselves are responsible for our learning success. No one else. Gotta problem? Chinese class too slow, too fast, boring, not what you were looking for? I know it’s not always as easy and straightforward, but don’t wait till someone else presents the solution to you. To find it yourself and grow in the process is much more rewarding. Find answers on Chinese learning forums or blogs for example. I found that almost every issue I encountered while learning Chinese, somebody else experienced before me.
03. Invest in learning tools
Language learning is not like ten years ago. Online tools and apps become increasingly important and reshape the learning journey. When you seriously start learning Mandarin, you probably want to spend some money not just on books but also on tools and apps.
The English-Chinese dictionary app Pleco (or alternatively Hanping) is an absolutely essential learning tool – with lots of add-ons that include flashcards and graded readers. Anki and Memrise are popular apps for flashcard learning. They allow you to create your own series of flashcards and track your learning progress. DuoLingo, LingoDeer and HelloChinese are more gamified apps to study new characters, sentence patterns and more.
It’s up to you which apps you want to reward with your trust and money. Obviously, apps aren’t the solution to everything. In most cases, they can’t replace qualified teachers and tutors. However, they can be a valuable extension of your learning. It all depends on your language goals, learning style and time schedule. For instance, if writing Hanzi isn’t that vital to you, you probably don’t want to pay $14.99 for a monthly subscription to Skritter. If, on the other hand, you’re serious about improving your reading skills, apps like The Chairman’s Bao or Du Chinese might be worth paying $45 – $55 for a half a year of tailor-made reading content. If you know which app to pick to work on a certain language skill, you can speed up your progress in unexpected ways. Although you might want to know what you can get for free first:
04. Finish Pinyin base camp before moving on to Hanzi
Many people ask what’s the right time to start learning Chinese characters, because they can’t wait to dive into them. In my modest experience, there’s no optimal moment. However, I know all too well how easy it is to waste precious time on Hanzi when your Pinyin basis is still sloppy. That includes the grasp of the four tones and frequent tone pairs. Yes, Pinyin isn’t the real deal and you’re practically illiterate if you can’t read Hanzi – that’s true -, but in the long run, investing enough time into a solid Pinyin foundation is worth the slow start.
Learning Pinyin is actually quite fun, because while working on understanding the phonetic system and improving your pronunciation, you can expand your vocabulary without worrying about Chinese characters. Plus, it’s good to know that the number of syllables in Pinyin (for Standard Chinese about 413) is manageable and much less intimidating than the vast amount of Chinese characters.
05. You need to keep working on Pinyin and tones because your teachers won’t
Once you finished Pinyin base camp and can’t bear anymore drills, it’s tempting to close this chapter and never look back. My Chinese teachers seemed to feel the same way, since we would simply hurry on to the next challenge. Less so at my Chinese university: here vocabulary drills and “repeat after me” exercises were common practice. Boring and childish maybe, but useful too if you’re paying attention. Especially since many Mandarin learners seem to think that it’s okay to “speak Mandarin without the tones” or “if you speak fast enough, tones don’t really matter”.
Unfortunately, they matter everything. Just to give one example what can happen if you turn a third tone into a fourth. Instead of saying “Wǒ yǐqián zhù zài Hélán de běifāng” (I used to live in the north of the Netherlands), I said “Wǒ yǐqián zhù zài Hélán de Bèifāng“, which caused my conversation partner to think I used to live in a place in Holland called “Beifang” in Chinese.
It’s also very easy to say that you study Korean (Wǒ xuéxí Hányǔ) instead of Mandarin (Wǒ xuéxí Hànyǔ). A good way to mend such mistakes is by mimicking native speakers and recording your own speech or reading. Don’t hesitate to ask Chinese friends to check your pronunciation (not the whole time of course) and point out mistakes.
06. Drills are actually not that bad
Drills seem to be mostly regarded as a lame and outdated method to learn a foreign language. Many language learners view drills as an outright insult to the intelligent learner who doesn’t gain anything from blindly repeating words and sentences.
I used to feel that way myself. Drills can be effective though, particularly for a language as remote as Mandarin where most newcomers have to start from zero without any point of reference. They help drilling in key vocabulary, sentence patterns and grammar points so that you can not only understand, but also actively use them in real life situations. “Passively knowing something” is not enough, you want to know exactly how to say it and when to say it. Drills pull what you’re learning from the “passive corner” in your brain over to the active corner – so to speak.
There’s no shame in putting such drill exercises on repeat while working out or doing some cleaning. It’s relatively effortless and good for retention. Besides, you can’t hardly do enough listening, even simple stuff like “X 在不在”？or “X 在吗?”. It all adds up eventually and becomes usable. You’re intellectual ego protests? Don’t listen, it really works!
07. Read more on your level
I used to limit my reading to relatively complicated texts from my textbook. In other words, I focused on intensive reading above my level as a means to acquire new vocabulary and learn grammar points. Important, yes, but I noticed a strange thing during my first HSK test: my reading was surprisingly slow! Often I’d get characters mixed up or I’d know the meaning, but couldn’t pronounce the character. At the time, I was a pretty dedicated student who spent up to 8 hours a day studying Chinese, so how was that possible?
Well, maybe it wasn’t so much lack of reading, but the fact that I was mostly reading above my level, always rushing to the next chapter to devour new vocab. Instead, I could have been reading a broader variety of texts on my level (98 percent know words) to improve my reading fluency.
A solution to this are free reading resources like:
Clozemaster is also worth a try. This reading app takes the definition of sentence-mining to the next level by giving you an endless amount of useful sentences to read and study. And it comes with metrics that help track your progress. (all levels)
Or graded readers that allow you to read more on your level. This is a great way of building up reading fluency and while you’re discovering the story, you’ll learn new words far more naturally than when studying a text.
Disclosure: These are affiliate links. They help me to support this blog, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.
08. The power of reviewing is undervalued
If you’re serious about learning Mandarin, you need some kind of reviewing system to keep track of everything (or rather the most important stuff). It’s easy to fill notebooks with new vocabulary and sentences, but somehow it’s much harder to re-read and memorize them on a regular basis. If you don’t review however, what’s the point of making notes? In fact, when people talk about language learning, they hardly ever mention reviewing routines.
SRS flashcard apps like Anki, Memrize or Pleco’s flashcard add-on probably are the best solution for the more “analytic” type of learner. Their basic function is to help you remember before you forget. But it should also be said, that “overdoing flashcards” has the opposite effect. Because the more vocabulary you add to your decks, the longer it takes to empty your daily queues. In short, the whole scheme loses its effectiveness. Flashcards should never “tyrannize” your studying. A daily, ten to twenty minutes flashcard session is enough.
At the end of the day, your reviewing method depends on your learning style. For people like me who tend towards a more fluid approach, tons of flashcards somewhat take the fun out of the whole thing. After all, people aren’t machines. But that doesn’t mean regular reviewing doesn’t have real benefits.
09. Listen, listen, listen (it takes a long time to understand a normal conversation in Chinese)
For most learners it takes an awful lot of time to be able to follow an average Chinese conversation. The best remedy against this is listening practice. Especially when you’re not in China, Taiwan or any other Chinese speaking environment, probably the next best thing you can do is creating your own digital, immersive environment and listen to as much (comprehensible) Chinese as you can.
The good news is that as long if you have time and internet, you find an endless amount of resources waiting for you. Just enter 听书 on YouTube and be amazed. Listening is probably what you should be doing when you have a bad day, aren’t motivated or can’t focus. Join other motivated learners in a listening challenge to see how many hours a month you can immerse yourself – a fun way to cultivate a healthy listening habit.
These “challenges” are organized by Olle Linge (HackingChinese.com)
By the way, I don’t see why listening shouldn’t include watching. Here are some suggestions and more can be found here:
TV Series
外国人在中国 – CCTV docuseries about foreigners living in China
爱情保卫战 – Mainland Chinese live-show where couples fight out their problems on stage (2010)
Happy Chinese – educational melodrama produced by the Chinese TV channel CCTV to teach Mandarin to foreigners (2009)
新葫蘆兄弟 – newer adaptation of the Chinese cartoon “Huluwa” (2016)
惹上冷殿下 – Mainland Chinese “idol drama” called “Accidentally in Love” (2018)
绅探 – Detective series set in Shanghai in the 30s called “Detective L” (2019)
tv.cctv.com/live – Watch live Mainland Chinese television just like you’re in China. [free]
iQiyi – Mainland Chinese video platform based in Beijing. [free / $$$]
Tencent Video – Mainland Chinese video streaming website, also available in English. [free / $$$]
ifvod.tv – Movies, series, documentaries and more, usually lacking English subtitles for Chinese. Many “non-Chinese” content with Mandarin subtitles. [free]
10. Use HSK as actionable goal and benchmark, but don’t focus too much on it
HSK is the standardized test for non-native speakers. It consists of six levels (version 2.0) which compose the main frame of reference for Chinese language proficiency. Mandarin learners focus on passing HSK exams and sometimes come to identify with their HSK level in a way that’s out of sync with reality.
Although HSK is doubtless an important certificate, actionable goal and benchmark, I’ve never been a fan of HSK-focused learning. Focus on real life communication skills instead and take HSK for what it is: merely a test.
11. You might reach your goals, but you’re never finished
When I started learning Chinese, HSK 4 (which is supposed to equal upper intermediate level) was my ultimate goal. HSK 4 would be sufficient to have conversations with my Chinese family and friends, survive on the streets of China and so on. If I could only accomplish this goal, I’d be satisfied and move on with my life.
After two years of serious studying, I passed HSK 4 with 287 points, but was I “done”?
Although by this time, I was fluent enough for conversations with my Chinese family and friends, the expected feeling of satisfaction never came. Instead, I realized that I had just entered the great realm of the Chinese language and that I was still nowhere near almost-native speakers to be admired on YouTube.
Don’t get me wrong: you can achieve a lot in two years and it’s worth it – but it seems there’s always some greater goal ahead.
Conclusion – you’ll never be the same
If I could start from zero, would I do things differently? Yes – firstly, I probably would join a serious language program much earlier, instead of starting out on my own. Self-studying Mandarin is not impossible, but you have to know what you’re doing. Self-studying becomes more rewarding when you at least have acquired some basics. Secondly, I would stay at least one year in Mainland China or Taiwan to get that daily practice and input which is hard to get elsewhere.
To wrap it up here, these ten points only reflect my personal experience. Everybody’s different and there’s no ideal way to learn Mandarin. As with most things in life, you have to find your own way and figure out what works best for you.
Thanks for visiting Kaohongshu! I hope you enjoyed this article. Do you have any language learning advice you wished someone had told you earlier? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
Affiliate links
Disclosure: These are affiliate links. They help me to support this blog, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.
Want to improve your Chinese writing skills and get instant feedback from native speakers? Then you might want to try the new foreign language learning platform Journaly.
I purchased a copy of Edmund Chua’s and Ranny Ran’s Graded Chinese Reader for HSK 6 called “The New Housekeeper”. I’d only recommend it to a specific group.
Human learning capability is tremendous, but can you really learn ANY LANGUAGE in 180 days?
Chris Lonsdale’s language learning principles
The man who makes this bold claim is Chris Lonsdale. He is a New Zealand psychologist, linguist and educator who adopted the Chinese name 龙飞虎 or “flying dragon tiger” (or something like that).
The title of his TED talk sounds like some shady language school’s advertising pitch. Then again, he did manage to catch people’s attention (over 18 million views on YouTube).
Chris Lonsdale on how to learn any language in six months…
Lonsdale’s approach in a nutshell:
Things that don’t matter in language learning
Talent
Immersion (per se)
Why immersion isn’t a necessary factor: “A drowning man cannot learn to swim.” (We need comprehensible input)
What does matter is Language modeling
Attention
Meaning
Relevance
Memory
Five Principles of Rapid Language Acquisition
1. Focus on language content that is relevant to you. We master tools by using tools; we learn tools fastest when they are relevant to us. 2. Use your New Language as a Tool to Communicate, right from Day 1. 3. When you first understand the message, you unconsciously acquire the language. “Comprehensible input”; comprehension works; comprehension is key. Language learning is not about accumulating lots of knowledge. In many ways it is about 4. Physiological Training. “If you can’t hear it, you won’t understand it, and if you don’t understand it, you are not going to learn it. You have to be able to hear the sounds… Speaking requires muscle; if your face is hurting you are doing it right.” 5. Psycho-physiological states matter, and you need to be tolerant of ambiguity.
Seven Actions for Rapid Language Acquisition
Action 1: Listen a lot. “Brain Soaking” Action 2: Focus on the meaning first. Get the meaning first before you get the words. Use body language. (Understanding through comprehensible input.) Action 3: Start mixing. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to work.” Action 4: Focus on the core (high frequency content). For English, 1000 words is 85% of anything you are going to say in daily communication; 3000 words gives you 98% of anything you are going to say in daily conversation. Week 1 Tool Box (in the target language): – What is this? – How do you say? – I don’t understand… – What does that mean? – Repeat that please. Week 2-3 Pronouns, Common Verbs, Simple Nouns Week 4 Glue Words: and, but, therefore, even though Action 5: Get a Language Parent. Language parent creates a comprehensible input environment. 1. Works hard to understand what you are saying 2. Does not correct mistakes 3. Confirms understanding by using correct language (feedback) 4. Uses words the learner knows Action 6: Copy the Face Action 7: “Direct Connect” to Mental Images
My thoughts…
First, Lonsdale delivers a great speech on what he thinks is the best strategy to learn ANY language and he deserves credit for motivating and inspiring people as well as for offering practicable advice.
A question I had straight from the start though, is what does he mean exactly by ”learning any language”? What level of proficiency is he speaking of? Which language skills is he talking about? Is he referring to the highest achievable level? According to the Common European Framework that would include the following:
C1 Effective operational proficiency or advanced
Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer clauses, and recognize implicit meaning. Can express ideas fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organizational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.
C2 Mastery or proficiency
Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarize information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express themselves spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations.
And for that you would need to study at least 1000 hours or at least 8 hours a day in six months…
I also couldn’t help noticing the contradiction that he learned Chinese (to a very impressive level) by immersion. Doesn’t he tell the story that he stayed in China, “soaked his brain” in Chinese and gradually started making sense of the language? Basically, he is telling us that this combination of immersion and “survival” from day one worked out pretty well for him.
This leads to the question if you can apply the same principle when you are not “immersed” and not in “survival mode”, say you are learning Chinese in Brazil or Canada. Can you really recreate that kind of experience?
Another issue: Lonsdale believes you should start speaking from Day One and use the language as a tool for real communication (no simulation stuff). In a way, I think he’s right about this. It’s the most natural thing to do (in the right environment). BUT many people are extremely uncomfortable with this. It’s a big step out of their comfort zone. Other high profile language learners like Steve Kaufmann argue you should acquire basic vocabulary first and read, read, read, before you can have a meaningful conversation. Not everybody is going to be comfortable with communicating in Mandarin from Day One, so that’s an issue.
Conclusion
On the whole, I really like what he has to say about language learning. He’s got a powerful message that’s all about learning a new language the “hard and uncomfortable” way, telling us to “get out there and do it”. We need people like Lonsdale who develop their own ideas about language acquisition.
Does this method apply to everyone? Well, he overgeneralizes his own learning approach and success a bit, but he knows what he’s talking about. The thing is no learner is the same. Language learning depends on so many personal circumstances and preferences. At the end of the day, I guess you’re free to try his method or parts of it. I personally like the “leave your comfort zone” part as it’s essential to any kind of growth.
By the way, if you want to hear Chris Lonsdale speak Mandarin, check this video from Mandarin Corner where he tells all about his method, covers Chinese characters (what about them, right?) and explains why Mandarin class is a waste of time.
Let me know what your thoughts are on this topic. Can you be fluent in Chinese in only six months? Please leave a comment below.
You’re at intermediate level and want to improve your listening skills, but you haven’t found the right materials yet? Mandarin Corner is a good option for learners that have entered the intermediate stage: no explaining in English, no dumbing down. And because their podcasts are completely subtitled, they’re ideal for slow listening!
You’ve probably heard of different listening modes and developed your own listening strategy. By the way, I distinguish these four listening modes:
Passive listening: play Chinese audio while you’re doing the dishes, fixing your bike or working out. You don’t take in every word, every sentence, but enough to grasp the general topic and some keywords.
Active listening: You turn your full attention towards whatever you’re listening, trying to understand and retain as much as you can.
Slow listening: You listen attentively, playing the audio at a lower speed or stopping the audio from time to time to break down sentences and discover details. You can even pause the audio to study the script.
Re-listening: You keep listening to the same content over a period of time to the point you get so familiar with it you know what the person is going to say next.
It’s actually not a bad strategy to apply the different modes above in this particular order, from passive to more active and then repeating the cycle. It’s what I used to do with a new dialogue or chapter from a textbook. I’d just put the track on repeat while doing other stuff, before turning my full attention towards it and studying each and every sentence. It’s kind of like a mental warming-up, making the training itself a little less tough.
Slow listening with Mandarin Corner
I applied these listening techniques while enjoying the Mandarin Corner podcasts. Not because I’m so cool, but because that’s how things “work out”. Finding time (and using that time!) to listen to comprehensive Mandarin audio comes first – that’s a daily struggle. So if I do manage to make that choice for Mandarin, even if it’s just for 10 minutes, I pat myself on the back. That’s why how I listen comes second. Sometimes I do background listening, sometimes I’m able to be fully focused on the audio content.
In this case, I opened my laptop for some slow listening, studying the subtitles and singling out a bunch of keywords and some vocabulary I was less familiar with. While I was at it, I decided to add a little introduction to each of the five videos as well. I hope you enjoy the discussions in the videos. Here we go:
Main questions: Why is China’s divorce rate so alarmingly high? What are the main reasons for people in China to get divorced?
My thoughts: People from my generation (90’s) seem to think you shouldn’t marry before you’re at least 35 of age and have gained “experience”. And even then it’s probably a stupid thing to do, because you’ll never be free again. But does this lead to a lower divorce rate? It doesn’t look like it. So is the Chinese divorce rate really that high? Do we have reliable Chinese and international statistics to make a solid comparison?
The reasons for Chinese marriages not working out are manifold: some are universal, some are more related to Chinese culture and modern Chinese society like the pressure to marry early (25, 26), if need be with the help of a matchmaker (so the soon to be wed hardly know each other). Other reasons mentioned in this podcast include long-distance marriages, the financial pressure on young couples (家庭压力 – jiātíng yālì), conflicts produced by the couple living together with the (grand)parents and last but not least higher expectations towards marriage, especially by financially independent women.
China’s divorce rate has been increasing since 2003; in 2019, more than 4 million couples decided to end their marriages. These numbers are interpreted as a sign of gradually improving gender equality: Women are becoming more financially independent, and the social views on marriage have changed as China became more and more economically developed in the last two decades.
to bring up children for the purpose of being looked after in old age
婆媳关系
póxí guānxì
relation between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law
妈宝男
mā bǎo nán
mama’s boy
自我的性格
zìwǒ dì xìnggé
self-centered character
宠爱
chǒng’ài
to spoil
公主病
gōngzhǔ bìng
princess syndrome
闪婚闪离
shǎnhūn shǎnlí
flash wedding, flash divorce
催婚
cuī hūn
to be urged to marry soon
妥协
tuǒxié
to compromise
相亲结婚
xiāngqīn jiéhūn
matchmaker / blind date marriage
对婚姻的观念
duì hūnyīn de guānniàn
views about marriage
对婚姻的期望
duì hūnyīn de qīwàng
expectations towards marriage
Mandarin Corner: Why is getting a wife so expensive for Chinese men?
Main questions: Why is getting a wife so expensive for Chinese men? When it comes to finding the right husband, why do most Chinese value financials over personal qualities? How can China’s young men live up to these high standards (buy a house, car, wedding gift, take care of their parents etc.)? How do they deal with the pressure?
My thoughts: Even though gender roles in Chinese society have changed (with more and more working woman becoming financially independent), the dominating ideas about marriage are still very old-fashioned and materialistic. Parents and grandparents have a lot to say in this. Men are traditionally expected to provide a house, car and other things. For the average Chinese guy these things are not easy to come by, so it’s not that hard to imagine that such expectations put immense financial and psychological pressure on even the strongest marriage.
China’s never been short of people, but under such harsh conditions I do have sympathy for those who decide that it’s better not to marry and have children – or at least not rush into it, just because their parents married when they were 23 and think that’s not the only right thing to do. I notice younger generations in the big cities of China having more western, individualistic ideas about marriage and life in general. But in a way these ideas get rolled over by harsh economic realities:
At the same time (2003 – 2019), China’s birth rate fell to the lowest point in seven decades in 2019. While Chinese authorities have attempted several measures in the last decade to ease its one-child policy, established in 1979, including officially announcing an end to the policy in 2015, the country’s birth rate did not see any signs of recovery. The increasingly high cost of raising children, lack of legislation in protecting women’s rights in the workplace, and lack of government-funded family support all contributed to China’s low birth rate and the country’s increasingly imminent issues in taking care of its aging population.
Mandarin Corner: Stereotypes Chinese have of foreigners
Main question: What are some common stereotypes Chinese have about foreigners?
My thoughts: How do Chinese people view “us”? What stunned me: when Chinese people talk about waiguoren, they usually mean “westerners with a white skin”, so they exclude pretty much everyone else, except for white people from America, Canada, Australia, New-Zealand and Europe. Aren’t Koreans and Japanese (to name just a few) foreigners too? Apparently not! Does this mean they’re sort of like China? Or that they are not important enough to be included like Africa? A conversation about stereotypes and ignorance.
Vocabulary
内向的人
nèixiàng de rén
introverted people
擅长运动
shàncháng yùndòng
to be good at sports
跟我的印象不符的地方
gēn wǒ de yìnxiàng bùfú de dìfāng
aspects that don’t match my impression
对外国人的了解比较少
duì wàiguó rén de liǎojiě bǐjiào shǎo
knowledge about foreigners is small
刻板印象
kèbǎn yìnxiàng
stereotypes
单一民族的国家
dānyī mínzú de guójiā
homogeneous nation
自然而然
zìrán’érrán
naturally, automatically
符合中国的传统审美
fúhé zhōngguó de chuántǒng shěnměi
match Chinese aesthetic standards
中央帝国
zhōngyāng dìguó
central empire
以前留下来的印象
yǐqián liú xiàlái de yìnxiàng
an impression from the past
促进文化交流
cùjìn wénhuà jiāoliú
to promote cultural exchange
总体的趋势
zǒngtǐ de qūshì
overall trend
开放
kāifàng
tolerant
保守
bǎoshǒu
conservative
接受不了
jiēshòu bùliǎo
can’t accept
道德禁忌
dàodé jìnjì
moral taboo
同性恋
tóngxìngliàn
homosexuality
Mandarin Corner: 6 cultural aspects you must consider when doing business in China
Main question: What intercultural differences do you need to understand when doing business in China?
My thoughts: I love discussing cultural concepts like guanxi and mianzi! You can talk about them endlessly. To me they are key concepts to understand Chinese culture. A key phrase in this podcast: “Understanding them is one thing, accepting them is another”. Yes, that’s the hard part! Imagine your lazy co-worker getting promoted for maintaining the better guanxi with the top-level management, while you, the hard-working fellow, come out empty-handed. This can happen in a Chinese company. How do you adopt? Are you willing to adopt? Anyway, watch and learn.
Vocabulary
认可
rènkě
to approve, approval
自身
zìshēn
oneself
泼冷水
pōlěngshuǐ
to dampen one’s enthusiasm
夸
kuā
to praise (to boast)
途径
tújìng
way, channel
资源
zīyuán
resource
评价
píngjià
to evaluate, assess
虚荣心
xūróng xīn
vanity
摆设
bǎishè
to arrange, decorate (decoration)
当面拒绝
dāngmiàn jùjué
reject somebody face to face
错失机会
cuòshī jīhuì
to miss an opportunity
产生误解
chǎnshēng wùjiě
to lead to / produce misunderstandings
表示尊称
biǎoshì zūnchēng
to express respect by referring to somebody’s title
级别
jíbié
rank, level
职称
zhíchēng
job title
职场中
zhíchǎng zhōng
in the workplace
通过别的方式
tōngguò bié de fāngshì
by other means
给我发难
gěi wǒ fànán
give me trouble
得罪我了
dézuì wǒ le
offended me
关系
guānxì
relations
虚拟社交货币
xūnǐ shèjiāo huòbì
virtual social currency
一个网络
yīgè wǎngluò
a network
关系网
guānxì wǎng
network of relations
建立关系
jiànlì guānxì
establish a relation
Mandarin Corner: the 996 work culture
Main question: Are Chinese workaholics?
My thoughts: Yes, people in China work long hours without complaining. It’s funny, like mentioned in this podcast, that only after some computer programmers (highly qualified workers) started bitching about their long working hours, 996 work culture suddenly became an intensely debated topic. (As if the local laoban selling vegetables doesn’t work 72 hours a week!). I remember working with a Chinese IT-team stationed in Beijing that our side, the European team, would stick to the eight hour working day and complain about any overtime work, while the Beijing people would show up an hour early and even spend their free evenings working in the office. Well, yes “working”, nobody can be productive the whole day. But it was obvious, that we were dealing with completely different work cultures. We’d still have life outside of work, where as our Chinese colleagues practically dedicated all their time to their company jobs. Did they feel “996” is a privilege for young people like Jack Ma said? Are they thankful to have this opportunity? I doubt they have much time to ponder this question…
Vocabulary
996
jiǔjiǔliù
work from nine to nine, six days a week
加班文化
jiābān wénhuà
working overtime culture
工作制度
gōngzuò zhìdù
work culture
争议点
zhēngyì diǎn
controversial point
邪恶资本家
xié’è zīběnjiā
evil capitalist
巨大的福气
jùdà de fúqi
a major blessing
拼搏
pīnbó
to struggle,
朝九晚五
cháo jiǔ wǎn wǔ
work normal office hours (09:00-17:00)
不满的情绪
bùmǎn de qíngxù
dissatisfied state of mind
高新的职业
gāoxīn de zhíyè
high-paying profession
潜规则
qián guīzé
unspoken rules
常态
chángtài
normal state
理所当然的事情
lǐsuǒdāngrán de shìqíng
a thing that is regarded as normal
道德谴责
dàodé qiǎnzé
moral condemnation
通宵加班
tōngxiāo jiābān
work (overtime) throughout the night
重复性的工作
chóngfù xìng de gōngzuò
repetitive work
往大了一点说
wǎng dàle yīdiǎn shuō
to speak more generally
经济压力
jīngjì yālì
economic pressure
生活状态
shēnghuó zhuàngtài
living conditions
紧张的状态
jǐnzhāng de zhuàngtài
tense, strained state / condition
线上加班
xiàn shàng jiābān
work overtime online
That’s it! I hope my notes are not too bad. By the way, if you want better quality notes: the scripts for each podcast can be downloaded if you make a one-time donation to Mandarin Corner. I want to thank Mandarin Corner for creating these great videos and hope that more content will follow in the years to come.
Affiliate links
Disclosure: These are affiliate links. They help me to support this blog, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.
The biggest obstacle to mastering Mandarin for many people is its writing system. In a previous post, I focused on deep-rooted bad practices surrounding the study of Chinese characters. A relevant topic, but there was no light at the end of the tunnel. So what does work? In my own quest to improve my command of Hanzi, I found two interesting approaches: one is the well-known “Chineasy method”, the other is the “Uncle Hanzi way”.This is what you can learn from them.
The “Chineasy Method”
Visual mnemonics
Shaolan’s elevator pitch-like introduction to Chineasy (TED talk, 2013)
The Chineasy approach is to put Hanzi into a visual context and memorize them with the help of illustrations that depict the character’s meaning. Shaolan Hsueh, the entrepreneur behind Chineasy, managed to exploit this idea commercially better than anyone else. Chineasy’s impressive design and Shaolan’s smart marketing campaign even helped popularizing Mandarin and Hanzi abroad. For the first time, it seemed, someone had come up with an unique method for Chinese characters that makes them learnable for almost anyone.
Chineasy – a serious learning resource?
But is Chineasy really a “language learning system” as it says on Wikipedia? To what extent does it teach you to read and write Hanzi? It’s hard to ignore that some Mandarin teachers and other experts have pointed out some serious flaws:
Source: Chineasy on Amazon
Chineasy teaches all characters as if they were pictographs. Pictographs are easy to explain (my teachers have been guilty of this kind of cherry-picking too), but unfortunately they only make up around 5% of all characters. This is misleading.
These characters don’t necessarily match the most frequently used characters which is unpractical for learners.
Chineasy mixes traditional and simplified characters for convenience. This is not best practice. Especially for beginners, it’s much less confusing to stick with either simplified or traditional characters.
Chineasy overreaches when it calls itself a “learning method” or “system”. It’s not a system, it’s rather a learning technique put into practice. It reaches its limits pretty soon though.
Visual mnemonics can be helpful
That being said, the visual approach exemplified by Chineasy can be useful. Associating a certain image with a character or its individual components makes memorizing Hanzi less of a struggle. It all boils down to this: Chinese characters have to make sense when you learn them. Yes, Chineasy’s approach is quite random at large and disregards the composition and history of the character, but applying some form of visual mnemonics is much more effective than blindly memorizing meaning and stroke order, especially when you’ve just started out.
The “Uncle Hanzi Way”
Richard Sears – also known as 汉字叔叔: “I found that almost all Chinese had learned to read and write by absolute blind memorization and almost no one had a clue where the characters actually came from.“
Obsessed with the origin and history of Chinese characters
In the long run though, we shouldn’t stick with random images and stories. Instead, we should try to get the characters “right”. That means caring about their origin and history. Let’s discuss the second approach.
“Uncle Hanzi” is the nickname of Richard Sears, an American physicist, who has been obsessed with the origin and history of Chinese characters for most of his life. He created an online database of more than 96.000 ancient Chinese characters called hanziyuan.net.
In his own words: “At age 40, I got the idea that I needed to computerize the origins of Chinese characters so that I could sort out the crap from the truth. I started researching but did not get started actually doing it. At age 44 I had a near-fatal heart attack and after recovering, but not knowing when I might die, I decided I must get started.” At hanziyuan.net you can trace back the composition and meaning of almost any character to its origins as far as they are known. Take 家 (house) for example:
The search results from hanziyuan.net for 家
Getting back to the source
“Uncle Hanzi” is an extremely interesting case, because he doesn’t come from the field of sinology and seems to be a lone wolf fueled by a hardcore obsession with Hanzi. (Just imagine a sociologist investing 30 years of his life into die-hard quantum mechanics research). Sears obviously wasn’t satisfied with blindly memorizing characters or Chineasy-style mnemonics. He wanted to grasp the “logic” and understand the origins. After all, the ancient Chinese didn’t just “make them up” as they went along according to Sears.
He also argues that practically all the first characters would have been pictographs which evolved and became more abstract over time. In other words, what today seems abstract, used to represent something concrete which we should try to understand to make our lives easier. The case of 家 (a pig under a roof) illustrates this.
Of course, it’s going to slow us down when we take a history tour for each new character, but I’m convinced that the more solid our foundations are the easier it becomes to add new layers. But how to put the “Uncle Hanzi Method” into practice?
How Pleco and Outlier Linguistics can help
The dictionary app Pleco (partly) supports this learning method by breaking down each character into its components. That’s good for a start, but doesn’t give you the full story like the example of 名 shows. Its components don’t add up to its meaning (name), so there must be more to tell here.
For those who want to gain insight into the etymology of Chinese characters, there’s a practical solution called Outlier Linguistics. Their dictionaries help you understand the history of Chinese characters that most Mandarin teachers fail to explain. You don’t need to install another dictionary app by the way, because they come as add-ons for Pleco in a “Mini” and “Essentials” edition. For most people this is probably overkill, but for serious Hanzi learners quick access to etymological basics might well be the key to progress. This is how I see it: the more profound your understanding of Hanzi, the easier it becomes to grasp and memorize new characters. They’ll start to make sense.
The Outlier Essentials Edition should get you a long way:
2700+ characters as of newest update (plus regular updates until they reach 4000)
Simplified and Traditional characters
Detailed explanation for every character
Stroke order for all 4000 characters
Meaning tree for every character showing how different meanings relate to each other
Ancient forms for all semantic components
The dictionary (meaning add-on for Pleco) looks like this:
If you want to take a closer look, you can check out the demo version.
Conclusion
The “Chineasy method” and “Uncle Hanzi’s approach” both have their merits. Putting characters into a visual context does help, just like developing a basic understanding of their origin and history does.
Actually, to zoom out for a moment: we’re not really talking about methods, but learning techniques linked to different levels of understanding and experience. Mandarin expert Olle Linge came up with 5 different levels of understanding Chinese characters which gives us something to hang on to. I added Chineasy and Uncle Hanzi in brackets. Most of us are somewhere in the middle of this scale:
Inventing pictures that disregard composition and structure of characters (Chineasy)
Creating stories and associations that obscure functional components
Using superficial pictures while being aware of functional components
Using superficial pictures and encoding functional components
Etymologically correct mnemonics with no shortcuts (Uncle Hanzi)
I’d label myself with level 3, although it differs from case to case. I know I’m nowhere as good as I could be with serious studying. Taking some inspiration from Uncle Hanzi, I keep aiming for level 5. I do hope though that it won’t take me 30 years to get there!
What’s your take on Chineasy? Does it work for you? Do you think Chinese characters have logic like that can be understood if you study them long enough? Please feel free to leave a comment down below.
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Not so very long ago, probably around January this year, I was working on an article with the cheap yet upbeat title “10 reasons to learn Chinese in 2020”. Then 2020 came along, bulldozed my plan and the article died an early death. What bothered me the most though: I simply couldn’t think of any convincing reasons why 2020 should be the year to study Mandarin!
Was it just me? Or maybe studying Mandarin is just not as popular as it was before? I had to find out and looked at some data from trends.google.com that I want to share with you in this post. This website plots the popularity of any given search term on Google over time. The results were shocking.
Google data: popularity of learning Mandarin is in decline
Search term “learn Chinese”
Global search volume for “learn Chinese” on Google ( 2004 – 2020) (Source: Google Trends)
I simply entered “learn Chinese”. What we see on the whole is a more or less steady decline, starting from 2005 (!), with a little peak at the beginning 2020 due to the Covid-19-pandemic. But could it really be that in 2005 studying Mandarin was more popular than say 2015? I had to have another try with a less vague search term.
Search term “learn Chinese for beginners”
Global search volume for “learn Chinese for beginners” on Google ( 2004 – 2020) (Source: Google Trends)
What I got was more or less the same picture, the line dropping with ups and downs until 2013, then climbing up a little and then almost stabilizing on a low level. To get a more complete impression, I consulted the data for YouTube as well.
Popularity of learning Chinese on YouTube
Global search volume for “learn Mandarin” on YouTube (2008 – 2020) (Source: Google Trends)
As everybody knows YouTube has developed into an important platform for language learning, Mandarin Chinese being no exception. The YouTube data surprisingly shows a different picture. Between 2009 and 2017, the number of people looking for content to learn Chinese fluctuates on a relatively high level. Then the frequency of the search term suddenly drops in July 2017 with no sign of recovery. The exact same thing we get for the search term “learn Chinese”:
Search volume for “learn Chinese” on YouTube (2008 – 2020) (Source: Google Trends)
Just to double check, I entered the search term “living in China”, only to discover the same “crash” in July 2017:
Search volume for “Living in China” on YouTube (2008 – 2020) (Source: Google Trends)
What happened in 2017?
The YouTube data clearly indicates a downward trend that sets in from July 2017 and continues until this day. What happened in 2017 that had such on impact? My best guess is that Trump and the Sino-American Trade War happened, leading to much insecurity.
Is China’s restored self-confidence and CCP led nationalism demotivating people to learn Chinese?
What about individual countries?
I chose to examine Google’s “global data” using English search terms. How about individual countries though?
Vietnam
United Kingdom
Germany
Canada
Australia
USA
To my surprise, the general trend in these six countries is very similar. All charts indicate that the popularity of Mandarin is in decline.
Validity of data from Google Trends
I’m still not completely sure if the data give an accurate picture of the situation. It could for example well be that people’s search behavior on Google has become more sophisticated over time, which would (partly) explain the decreasing popularity of a search term “learn Chinese”. The YouTube data is probably more significant, but we still require more indicators to satisfyingly answer the question. HSK statistics revealing how many people have been taking the standard Mainland Chinese test over the last decade could be insightful for example. Let’s have a quick look.
HSK exam growing in popularity
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any up-to-date numbers, but the overall trend points towards growing popularity of the HSK exam:
This China Daily article even mentions 6.8 million test takers in 2018:
The HSK exams, a test of Chinese language proficiency organized by the Confucius Institute Headquarters, or Hanban, were taken 6.8 million times in 2018, up 4.6 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Education said on Friday.
These HSK statistics obviously contradict the data I found and are somewhat reassuring, since it’s only logical that the language of a growing superpower has increasing significance in the world. And even though the interest in Mandarin may be waning in some parts of the world, this doesn’t necessarily mean that this a global trend. Take a look at African countries like Zambia for example where starting from 2020, Mandarin Chinese will form part of the Zambian high school curriculum.
Learning Mandarin becoming less popular – so what?
To end on a positive note here: even if it is true that fewer people are interested in studying Mandarin, why should we care? After all, when Mandarin skills and Chinese cultural competence are becoming more rare, people who do possess them become even more valuable. We need people who are proficient in the language and understand China’s culture and history. We have lots of challenges still ahead.
Is studying Mandarin becoming less popular? What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment below.
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