How To Self-Study Mandarin Chinese

Here are my personal self-study tips and hacks for you to try on your path to becoming a Chinese Language 自学成才!

Top Comments:

1. Yeah, finding Chinese university students in your home country is a great way to learn Mandarin! I worked with Chinese international students in college back in Seattle and most of them were just struggle to make American friends. So if you decide to reach out, you’re helping yourself AND making a Chinese student’s university experience better!
2. Whoa!!! Wasn’t expecting the love! Many thanks, Kevin! Good Good Study Day Day Up!
3. Kevin, you are underselling yourself. I found your videos are typically well prepared. You alway show your respect to the locals wherever you go. You are certainly a humble person who generously recommended your peer bloggers. Keep up your good work,! You are a good remodel for other bloggers.
4. Guess what, as a Chinese abroad I am watching your vlog about China to improve my English speaking, hahaha.😂 I like to seek for different aspects and viewpoints of China from westerners. But only for objective and friendly points. Thanks for your sharing.
5. Another tips for all intermediate or advanced Chinese learners- to read the official newspaper or magazine online. I major in translation and that’s how I improve my English reading and writing- by reading Economist. Just pick up the contents interesting to you, highlight the words, phrases or idioms that you don’t catch on the PDF, counsult the official dictionary and make a weekly or monthly summary( as you like XD). To be clearer, I strongly recommend you find synonymous words or equivalent expressions for those noted on your PDF. And then you will get the most valued and customized” textbook” for you to utilize the language much more freely. Last I have to say Monkey speak great Chinese and wish Monkey enjoy his life here in China.️
6. Anki, for vocabulary. Getting and creating my own decks (especially creating) has improved my learning in every endeavour I have taken. When I put in the work I was able to learn roughly 5000 german words in two months. 1000 words roughly for Russian in three months. This is not language but anatomy has been a lot easier to me from Anki I suggest people looking into it as a secondary source for not necessarily language learning but language reinforcement.
7. thanks man, that’s very useful tips. I’ve been living in Tianjin for 4 years now and self learning Chinese, but still your tips are very handy for me.
8. What I do learning Chinese is memorise an extract of a text (it is usually the most complete one) and then I recite and record it. If u have a Chinese partner you can ask him or her to record that part of the text and this way you can hear as much as u want to, and also compare both of them. I am not sure if I explained it clearly but u can ask me again if u did not understand it.
9. Jared’s mandarin is just incredible good, I cant tell he is a foreigner without seeing his look, many typical expressions and slangs. that German guy, he has a little bit accent, i can tell he is a foreigner, but in general, he is also perfect.
10. Another great show to watch if you are a beginner-intermediate is 爸爸去哪儿-Dad where are we going. It’s a reality show where famous Chinese (actor, hosts, etc) men and their children explore various parts of China.