6 Hacks for Learning Chinese

[@Thelinguist]

My Language Learning Resource: Where I Learn Languages ⇢ www.lingq.com/ --- FREE Language Learning Resources 10 Secrets of Language Learning ⇢ www.thelinguist.com LingQ Grammar Guides ⇢ www.lingq.com/en/grammar-resource/ My blog ⇢ blog.thelinguist.com/ The LingQ blog ⇢ www.lingq.com/blog/ --- Social Media Instagram ⇢ instagram.com/lingosteve_/ TikTok ⇢ www.tiktok.com/@lingosteve Facebook ⇢ facebook.com/lingosteve Twitter ⇢ twitter.com/lingosteve LingQ Discord ⇢ discord.gg/ShPTjyhwTN

[@刘博洋-p8v]

oh my 佛祖，this man is a professional language learner，he is so fluent in Chinese that even as a Chinese native speaker lke me cannot find a mistake in his speech.

[@gamerdude6572]

You're English Is good

[@sleepsmartsmashstress8705]

For some reasons Canadians are at the top of their game with languages. with Powell Janulus World Record holder polyglot with 42 and Steve, and me at 21 we all live with an hour drive from each other in Vancouver area. British Columbia Canada Read about Powell here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Janulus

[@ahmedttarek7171]

When you talked about that boring book and threw it away, I actually laughed out loud :D You are a great man

[@e-genieclimatique]

in brief: 1. **Focus on Pinyin**: For the first month or two, focus on listening and Pinyin, which is the Romanization of Chinese characters. This helps you get used to the sounds and makes it easier to learn characters when you have meaningful words to refer to. 2. **Study Characters**: Once you decide to study characters, go at them full time, meaning at least half an hour a day. Develop your own memory system for this, such as using flashcards or a spaced repetition system. The goal is to learn the first thousand characters. 3. **Focus on Patterns**: Don't get caught up in complicated grammar explanations. Instead, focus on patterns in the language. Kaufmann recommends using resources that introduce patterns, as this helps you get a sense of how the language works. 4. **Read a Lot**: Find interesting things that you want to read. Reading a lot helps you familiarize yourself with the language and its patterns. Kaufmann suggests starting with lower intermediate books and gradually moving on to more advanced content. 5. **Listen to Things You Like**: Listen to a lot of content in Chinese, preferably content that you enjoy. This could be anything from classic Chinese literature to modern novels. The goal is to get your brain used to the sounds of the language. 6. **Try Shadowing**: Shadowing is the process of mimicking the speech of native speakers. While Kaufmann admits he hasn't done much of this himself, he suggests it could be a good way to get used to the "music" of the language, especially the tones.

[@MrOzzz-fn3eb]

谢谢！我已经15岁，我在学习普通话的最后一年，你的影片是有帮助的！普通话是一个复杂的语言，我有麻烦记忆某些单词。另外这是第三语言，我已经学会了。我会努力学习德语旁边，但我相信这将是更容易学习，因为我会讲英文。

[@tomwtkoym9979]

加油！

[@hansonl0078]

加油！

[@马正-w5s]

非常棒 我现在18岁 是中国人目前在上海学英语 加油

[@DudeRevolution]

Thanks Steve Martin!

[@CornbreadJenkins34]

DudeRevolution :D hahahaha :D

[@joyfulsavage9905]

哈哈 🤣🤣🤣

[@silvousplait7847]

If you want to study a language by writing down words or phrases down in flashcards or something, write them in bright colors. This helps with not only language, but also Math, Anatomy and basically everything. Reading, Listening to Programs in that language and reciting is also extremely important with Dedication und Motivation.

[@billshepherd3555]

I'm not a fan of shadowing, either. But from my own experience, when I was listening to a podcast, there were certain pieces of the audio that I truly enjoyed (a saying that was truly meaningful, or a piece of a speech spoken by a speaker with an attractive voice) and then I tended to keep rewinding that part and repeat along the speaker (usually trying to imitate their intonation and accent, too). But the point is I didn't deliberately make an effort trying to repeat after every single piece of the audio. I did that whenever I felt like to. Again this comes down to one important factor of language learning like you usually said, "Do what you like doing! "

[@Thelinguist]

Bill Shepherd Agreed.

[@tedc9682]

To me that happens in songs. I need to learn the words to that chorus or that phrase. I haven't shadowed yet, but I will start. I already walk around saying "you exist in my song" anyway. Why not say it correctly?

[@amyshi6964]

I'm already Chinese I don't know why I went here😂😂

[@8lue5oul]

I'm chinese but i can't read, speak or understand, only hakka

[@mustikamaharani7568]

Amy Shi I can feel you 😂

[@lakhenaung9298]

Cxkunkun exactly same. instead i’m quite fluent in english lol smh

[@lucasdiniz2144]

u lucky bastard

[@蚌埠居士]

我也不知道

[@justakathings]

I would suggest shadowing to content you’ve already watched bc it doesn’t hinder your enjoyment and you already know the words. It’s worked great for me for Japanese.

[@grimnny1459]

hello steve, this video is very emotional. i cried while watching this. your over 40 years of age, i feel you man. im 69 years old.. im also 80. i always wanted to learn china. this helped me learn it fast and speedy like a snail. thank you so much steve. i hope you will live a bigger life so i can watch more of your amazing amazing amaizng videos. love of love micheelle heart

[@IsraelMVega]

This video deserves more views, greetings! Chinese learner right here

[@cynthiasadlermusic]

some of these hacks are great for learning any language (listen and read things you like, spaced repetition). that said, I will try applying these hacks to learn some Mandarin

[@子祥林-y9f]

我是中国人，抱着学英语的态度来看你的视频，真不错啊，我居然能听懂你说的一大半。本来想着用你学习中文的方法来学习英语，看看是不是可以简单一点，现在看来，语言的不同个性和属性让语言学习需要具体针对，个性化学习。

[@ramonkroutz]

Of all the horrid content surrounding Mandarin, this made the most sense. Concise, and logical. Thank you sir.

[@Grazia683]

Very useful tips. I'm trying to learn Chinese . Before starting I thought it was 'a mission impossible', now I think 'you can do it if you reall want' + very good tips. Thanks a lot.

[@estrafalario5612]

3:44 Yes! A good way to keep learning is by realizing that something isn't interesting/useful anymore so you have to move to something more relevant. NO REGRETS about it.

[@saiwenya]

Love these tips! I’ve been using duolingo to maintain some of what I learned in high school and college before I decided I couldn’t fit it as an academic priority, but now in quarantine on summer break I’ve found that interest again since I think it’s probably way easier to maintain than to forget and then relearn. Even just doing some fun matching on duo every day, the things you said about shadowing is very helpful for getting the most out of short casual lessons. I mimic the audio as closely as I can and it becomes muscle memory. Sometimes people forget how much easier it is to get comfortable with speaking or anything else when you just copy the experts to the best of your ability until you get better. Maybe it’s because I’ve done music for most of my life but leveraging the skill of internalizing and replicating sounds made a big difference for me learning Mandarin, which is like music itself!

[@saiwenya]

Sorry for rambling! I appreciate the great advice in this vid :)

[@allisel.hemmerling3382]

Silver fox here has lots of good points.

[@Vajew]

I find that when I do any kind of lengthy reading in Chinese, like if I'm using Lingq to read an article, it's very helpful to read it aloud. It gets you familiarized with using new words and is a good substitute for speaking with a native speaker if you don't have that opportunity/you're too shy or insecure with your speaking.

[@jackbrady9738]

You can just tell this man is a gentleman. Class act mate thanks a lot

[@JPinToronto]

Thank you for making this video! It was short, concise, and very helpful.

[@kjlovescoffee]

Times change. With a tool like Skritter, there is absolutely no reason not to start learning characters from day one. It teaches you stroke orders, pinyin, pronunciation (clear recordings by a native), plus it offers a selection of sample sentences and user submitted mnemonics. You can build your own vocabulary lists, based on your input - a very powerful combination.

[@TanerNilluhktaf]

When I just started learning, luckily, I did do it according to your first hack, 1-2 mo just listening and pinin. It worked very well. And only then I approached characters. After some time, I came to study the language in China. Education was just classical. You have comprehensive class, listening and speaking, and reading. It think methods of teaching are outdated and everyone is using those crappy books.

[@Naturmuslima]

Oh i missed your Videos. Thanks so much. This Polyglot idea changed my life so much. Language is simply a key to soooo many things. It pushed me to an extend İ couldnt dream of before. And just by the way İ even learnt to love my native language German, which I didnt before.

[@sherryyeh3854]

Wow, you're doing everything right!! Thanks for sharing. That's exactly why my KZbin videos focus on teaching patterns and vocabulary.

[@rosalieo5045]

The book he mentions at 4:07 is called Luotuo Xiangzi by Lao She

[@romee-elise]

Thank you KZbin for recommending this video to me - a native mandarin speaker. I totally agree with what the speaker said. So true. I guess whether people can achieve the goal of speaking good Chinese is good method and persistence. I especially respect people who study and master our language, because I feel it’s a very difficult language.

[@beergaucho2]

Great tips. Thanks! I've already put them into use within the hour. I'm much more motivated now to continue.

[@RicardoSilvaTripcall]

Thanks Steve, I'm going back to my chinese studies and these jacks are going to be very helpful.

[@EinhornAnspitzer]

I have a book full of poetry by Tagore in both Chinese and English which was a gift of my exchange student :)

[@MrAlexhopi]

good thing are kidds book like little princ ， 小王子，it s nobody gave you pinyin book but with hanzi , great tricks thank you ... what i like to read is i found it on a asia... xie xie

[@Jimserac]

Many thanks for this !! For some reason, the books and cassettes or tapes from 40-60 years ago seem better than the plethora of confusing apps, aids and software that is available now. I am a retired Acupunctureist and Herbal Researcher who never learned Chinese so I am attempting it now. The best I've seen so far is the old series by DeFrancis and the audio is freely available at the Seton Hall website, converted to mp3 from the old tapes they were originally on. The Beginner mp3's are great. The Intermediate are somewhat poorer quality but still quite listenable and useable. I will head over to your blog to learn more. Because of my research, I prefer to focus on Traditional characters but if you learn one, you learn the other as well I guess. Again thanks !!

[@Thelinguist]

De Francis is a classic. I was on the Yale-in-China series so didn't use it/ Yes best start with traditional, simplified is easy to learn then. WE also have simplified at LingQ.

[@MrMsMisterT]

I love shadowing and do it everyday. :D I often put a lot of emphasis on words I think sound funny, though.^^ It's still helpful. I will definitely pick up Mandarin in the near future, I haven't started to learn any Chinese language, yet, but they sound awesome and whenever I look into the lyrics of some Chinese songs I listen to I instantly remember a few words. The barrier between Chinese and European languages may be huge, however, those short chant-like words have a magic and simplicity of their own.

[@lukekhumalo1520]

I have been learning chinese part time for 2 years and I feel I noticed a few gaps that have drawn me back " thanks Steve

[@matt-od8li]

Spent the last 2 weeks doing pinyin and got slightly discouraged. Happy to know i should spend 1-2 months. Ty for ur advice

[@whateverittakes5100]

Thank you for this. 6 Hacks for Learning Cantonese would be welcome too.

[@Dannykhc]

If you want to practice reading Chinese as it is written in government documents, in Hong Kong at least, it might be worth going to the website of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong where the government has all sorts of briefing papers on the economy, social welfare, financial services, infrastructure development, housing, food safety, etc that are written in Chinese and also in English. You can read the English version of the briefing paper and then have a go at the Chinese version of the briefing paper. When I studied Mandarin, I found that going through books written for native Chinese persons for the teaching English news stories also very useful in increasing vocabulary. In that way I learned what the Chinese was for intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

[@sydneylam19]

Hi Steve, you're such a brilliant polyglot! And I'm sure that you benefit a lot from reading Chinese History and Literature, which is so different from that of the West. I hope more people would appreciate the beauty of traditional Chinese culture. :)

[@shotokhan1992]

我学习中文的时候，一边儿学如何写汉字，一边儿学如何说话。我一向觉得中文很有意思所以对我来说好容易，但是我想只要你回忆每个汉字的发音，你就也可以用这个办法。

[@kichelensiko.8560]

你好！月月反！！！

[@14thSun]

谢谢你！

[@cry6314]

你说中文?

[@AllanIsumiTV]

Steve, I don't know if you like korean TV show (k-drama), but there is a lot that are wonderful, at least for me, maybe can help you with listening to the language. And also, you can watch on Viki or Dramafever for free. "It's Okay, That's Love" is very good! Love your videos!

[@S11702]

现在在大学上日文课，会中文和英文真的会很有帮助

[@sonyajanaeabouhaydarabouha9957]

Thank You for This vídeo. I want to understand and leatn The Chinese language.

[@directfromwoopwoop1914]

I agree with all these tips Steve. I was able to learn characters alonside pinyin throught my first university year however it was entirely due to the fact that university pace with any languages is very slow. I tried to improve my learning methods for Chinese however all methods I could use for German, Russian and other languages made no sense with Chinese. The Characters arn't phonetic so you always need some form of reference, listening does not include word families you can pick up and hear again easily and extensive/intesive reading is difficult again due to the interruptions caused by referencing. I was learning simplified writing but I did go through the 20 Lectures on Chinese Culture and it attuned me to reading traditional, which I must say helps A LOT with inferring meaning from any given character, maybe also a good tip for the modern learner.

[@Thelinguist]

Structured Analytics I really enjoyed that book, 20 lectures on Chinese culture. It opened up a new world.

[@lx3723]

Structured Analytics you know what when i was young and did something wrong the teacher would let me write my name for hundred times or a article of the textbook 3 times, if i didnt finish it, i couldn't go home. haha maybe a strict teacher helps a lot for the students like me lack of discipline. XD as a native speaker i would say the way you learn chinese is totally right, cuz some traditional chinese character have been simplified to one character, so its also for us difficult to determine which character is the right one in the word we want to say(a word is usually made from 2 character).

[@Themindofreyrey]

Great video. Just one thing, the book you mentioned is traditional Chinese not simplified.

[@supermonk3y07]

I just always wondered how Chinese and Japanese learned to read and write. Something tells me they learned to speak it quickly as children but to read and write it, they didn't know how to until they were adults. Or maybe only the high class people could only read and write since they could actually afford to specialize in this. Meanwhile peasants and farmers didn't know how since well they worked a lot. They already had a lot of obligations. Maybe reading and writing is a different and separate skill, because even to this day there are some people still like that (it's going away though). Yeah some people especially older generations of people from China, India, Mexico etc. they can speak normally/properly but if you write to them in their language they won't be able to understand. Also they will they can much less write, replicating the characters/letters you tell them to.

[@johncates6215]

相声...What a brilliant idea!

[@IsraelMVega]

Hi Steve, I just want to say I am really interested in the writing repetition method you mentioned. I am a Chinese learner and I used to write several times the characters that I am learning from a book which is divided in units. I hope you can attend my message. Greetings!

[@tatyka6317]

Great! Thank you so much for sharing your valuable thoughts and hacks. Really much appreciate this!

[@JariSatta]

I read content that also has the potential to advance me financially, professionally, and spiritually. You are so right on this (高级汉语口语 part) why is it more important to develop textbooks that tell us about what squirrels and rats eat than to teach us universal principles of real life. Who cares about what an imaginary Lars or 田中 does. An excellent channel on KZbin for an advanced Mandarin learner; iCNTV纪录 官方频道 they hanzi-sub every video

[@norm2010c]

***** Thanks for KZbin channel information.

[@xuzhang1841]

Jari Satta Hello . I want to improve my english! So i want to make friends ! I come from China !I can teach you chinese

[@caileigh9497]

-Steve Kaufmann - lingosteve I really like pop music and a song that I really like that's chinese is 小苹果. It really helped me because I was interested in it.

[@Lsong60]

Suggest watching "Ten rules to learn Mandarin / English fluently"

[@joeovip]

Thank you Steve! So clear!

[@KMMOS1]

If the sound of the target language is brand new to the learner's ear, whether the target language is linguistically similar to the learner's native language is not so important. Getting the sound of the new target language into the learner's brain is critical, and the quality of that learning is foundational to subsequent understanding. So, perhaps audio-only language methods such as Pimsleur, even if they have lots of native language (English) within them, may be worth initial exposure just for the high quality target language sound presentation. Instead of Pinyin there is English, and even though the total Pimsleur vocabulary is less than desired, enough aural recognition and enunciating competence is developed to allow moving on to another method and building on the Pimsleur foundation either with patterned sentences or a combination of conversational audio and accompanying text (Assimil, for example). Shadowing the target language audio in Assimil will not frustrate understanding because the translation is readily available on the opposite page. After completing an Assimil course, shadowing may continue with more interesting content chosen personally. If that content is available in multiple languages the learner is interested to master, a basis for acquiring polyglottery may be established.

[@xavierchbs]

As a native Chinese speaker, I suggest that you don't care too much the four-tone pronunciation when you start learning Chinese.

[@sha3698]

super useful, thank you!!

[@maekosin]

I use a lot of shadowing in order to practice my English, it really helped me a lot, since I don't find native speakers so easily to talk with me through skype, for example. This shadowing technique should be even more powerful as far as Chinese and Korean are concerned. Great advice! :)

[@fromswitzerlandgoblin8475]

maekosin Stop commenting in every single video, please. How boring! You're such low-brow poster. Gosh! Is this your mantra or what ?

[@maekosin]

Sorry I will stop... I didn't perceive it was annoying anyone.

[@maekosin]

"low-brow" I didn't know this word... Thanks. xD

[@gammondog]

maekosin Don't forget that you can "vote up" a video and "like" a video without fear of annoying anyone. The channel owner will appreciate the the "like" and the commenter receiving the "vote up" will be the only one seeing you respond to their comment. Please don't be put off from commenting once in awhile. Your enthusiasm for language learning is appreciated as positive contribution to this forum.

[@maekosin]

William Albert, thanks a lot! I write in every video because I like to see these videos from Steve to improve my English, see tips and I always want to practice my writting putting some comentaries... I didn't know people would be annoyed because of that... Thanks a lot for the motivation.

[@kennethcobarrubias391]

what is the name of the book for the patterns?

[@bernardosullivan1654]

Steve doesn't mention that the first two books he spoke about use traditional NOT modern simplifed characters.

[@ThanhLe-ro2pb]

New subscriber here. When I first look at you I said to myself:what? Robert De Niro is giving out Chinese learning tips? Haha, I bet someone did say so before. Thanks for your helpful advices!

[@dave7craft141]

I believe a very good book for chinese is jinbu 1

[@tamarayuen7774]

I'm learning Cantonese and Traditional Chinese characters (to communicate with my in-laws) - I've been enjoying your podcast book and was amazed to find you on KZbin while clicking through other links! What are your tips for learning Cantonese when most writing is in the form of Mandarin? Is there any material you would recommend? Particularly any interesting literature at a beginners level just to get me started? What techniques did you use to learn Cantonese that were different to learning Mandarin?

[@Thelinguist]

Tammi Lee Look for beginner books and then find Cantonese radio. We have several stations in Vancouver but I am sure you can download programs from Hong Kong. Just search for them.

[@tamarayuen7774]

Steve Kaufmann - lingosteve Thankyou!

[@marcusweddle5269]

The book you mentioned by Harriet Mills seems interesting. Though, it's hard to find any information about the contents. Your brief mention of it seems to be the most in-depth description on the internet!

[@Thelinguist]

Marcus Weddle I googled and found this. Really a good book but traditional characters. books.google.ca/books/about/Intermediate_Reader_in_Modern_Chinese_Vo.html?id=xb8x69Q117wC&redir_esc=y

[@marcusweddle5269]

Steve Kaufmann - lingosteve Oh, it's disappointing that it's only in traditional characters. Volume 3 seems to be only one with a short preview. Here's the link for anyone else that may be interested. www.amazon.com/Intermediate-Reader-Modern-Chinese-Volume/dp/0801498279/ref=pd_sim_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=17CF16FE78R1330Q8SKN

[@toastoneggs7356]

Thanks for the tips!!

[@ChinaIcons]

Great tips!

[@kenxd585]

those flashcards were so pretty lol and so small and cute

[@camnguyen7220]

I can see that you focus on the input comprehensive more than the out put at the stage of the beginning. I have applied it for my English learning journey and saw the nice results. Thanks for giving advice. I am considering to learn the third language which is Chinese. I don't know if learning two languages at a time is good or not. My English level is B1. Can you give me advice? Achieve C1 C2 level in English first, then learning Chinese or do it contrastly.

[@Thelinguist]

I suspect your level in English is closer to B2. You are good enough to start Chinese along with your English. Follow your passion or interest.

[@tedc9682]

Thanks. Good ideas.

[@cophnia61]

About characters: what input do you use to write them? Something like a chinese word in pinyin and then you must write the character from memory? Or just copy the character while you see it? I ask because I know you're not a great fan of tests and for example you put everything on front of the flash-cards on LingQ. What you suggest to new learners of chinese/japanese? I used to write kanji but now I review them on anki with kanji on front and usually the answer is a word for every pronounciation (for example 便　→　べん　of　便利　and　びん　of　郵便). Do you suggest something similar to new students of chinese/japanese or you suggest them to actually write the characters? And if the latter, do you suggest them to write characters from memory (for example べん利 and they must write 便), or to just copy them will suffice (supposing they are reading a lot so they see characters all the time anyway)? Thank you in advance and sorry for the length of the question (and for my english ._. )!

[@kylelucien7632]

Sir....xiangsheng...... impressive

[@ericah7305]

Thank you!!!

[@颐程]

Thank you sir.

[@matthewloper1531]

What do you mean by shadowing?

[@markchavez738]

He means, when your listening to Chinese repeat back what you just heard.

[@thatdutchguy2882]

Good tips 太谢谢了。

[@LauraMehy]

Muy útil, muchas gracias.

[@pedazodetorpedo]

I agree with all your tips, and it clearly worked for you, but what I struggle with is that any "authentic" materials are just too difficult to understand and derive any benefit from. I could listen to Chinese all day and it would just go in one ear and out the other, because it is too fast to follow and I don't have the sufficient vocabulary to follow it anyway. Similarly with reading, even though I can recognise several hundred characters, and read any character with the help of a browser plugin, it is the grammar that makes it difficult to understand; the words make sense in isolation, even clusters of words, but eventually I get to a point where the syntax just blurs the meaning beyond comprehension.

[@Thelinguist]

Le Ténia Get on LingQ and build yourself up to the level you need to approach authentic content.

[@Kebbe0]

I'm studying Japanese and I'm wondering if you could make a similar video as this but for people like me who are studying Japanese? Other than that, great video as always.

[@abdulrazzaq133]

Have you learned japanese

[@abdulrazzaq133]

Ima Nihongo o manabimashita ka

[@Kebbe0]

@@abdulrazzaq133 6年前と比べれば結構上達してきたと思いますよ。2018年〜2019年日本にほぼ一年間留学する経験があって、そのとき日本語で行われる理系の授業を受けたりしていたのです。6年前の僕はそんなことをするなんてあり得ませんでしたが何とか受かりました

[@abdulrazzaq133]

After 6 years man

[@abdulrazzaq133]

@@Kebbe0 i need your contact no

[@MrAlexhopi]

thank you ...

[@solitwar]

Omg i tryed to read the book that you mentioned and the mandarin companion, and holy shit ._. thats to hard for me

[@Gundal66]

interesting tips 😀 Any advice on how to not have any accent in chinese?

[@Thelinguist]

as with any language you need to listen and practice a lot. It is not realistic to expect to achieve no accent.

[@xolang]

Thank you Steve! What do you mean with patterns btw?

[@sophienguyen8339]

This is really helpful. Thanks a lot

[@T妹]

I am studying English with great distress. If anyone wants to learn Chinese, we can exchange the language of learning each other. I also speak cantonese.

[@T妹]

Naya Jay you can give me your email

[@T妹]

Naya Jay We can contact via email

[@SirJack-lr3vm]

Mr Kaufman, What is better to learn in your opinion, traditional or simplified characters?

[@crimsonred3956]

could you give us atleast the first 100 characters by importance. thanks!

[@Thelinguist]

That is very easy to Google for. I have no idea.

[@maia3420]

Ah. This is the problem I've had with Japanese. I have been trying to learn Kanji alongside vocabulary and what not from the beginning. Perhaps I should've/should put it off for a few moths and read kana or romaji for vocabulary and patterns then re-introduce the kanji.

[@maekosin]

Mai A, do you like do read Naruto? I don't know if I will have someday strength to learn Japanese. Is it taking from you so much effort? Thanks the attention.

[@maia3420]

maekosin I have read Naruto and other manga, but only in English. I've found I can read at a slow pace and with mistakes, Japanese that has a lot of kana with some kanji but not a lot. I know to be considered highly fluent in reading, one is said to need just over 2100 characters, knowing at least their core meanings and pronunciations as most kanji have more than one. However, I think with 1000 or 1200 solid characters, we could grind our way through something of Naruto's level or maybe Harry Potter's. Adult reading is probably not going to happen until we get fairly close to 2000. Reading a Novel like Harry Potter is beyond my capabilities currently. To answer your question, yes it is taking a lot of effort but this is partly due to my lack of language learning experience. I have realized several mistakes I've made over the several months that I've been at it that had I known beforehand, I would be notably further along. I would say follow these tips well. I wholeheartedly agree that we should listen and read above *All* else. However if reading and perhaps writing our a part of our goals, then learning the characters will be necessary. Reading also greatly amplifies your vocabulary and makes understanding the spoken language easier in the long run. I have tested this with the easier Spanish and found it to be 100% true. Sorry for the long post. I would encourage you to pick up learning Japanese too. Start learning the kana before the kanji (a very easy alphabet). It's necessary to learn them as much as kanji but oh so much easier. Most people tackle them within a week to a month. It took me about 3 weeks before I got used to most of them, but now I can read them easily. Good luck to you.

[@maekosin]

Usted hablas español? Muy interesante. Yo soy brasileño y español aprendí en 1 año, porque mi lengua materna (portugués) es muy parecida con lo hispánico. Besides, I'm really focusing right now in French and I don't want to spend more time in another language, mainly Japanese. I don't know if I will someday have your courage to start learning a new language so different and difficult in so many aspects. Good luck! I have one question: what's your mother language? =)

[@maia3420]

maekosin Si, Yo hablo español un poquito. Es facil entenderlo pero no soy bueno en hablar. Oh and my mother tongue is English. But my recommendation is what I decided to do. Focus most (or all ) of your focus on French as I'm doing for Spanish, then when that is at a comfortable level, tackle Japanese. I still study it a little on the side because it's so different from Spanish that I don't mix up anything between them.

[@daedgoco]

maekosin Corrrection: ¿Usted habla español? Muy interesante. Yo soy Brasileño y aprendí Español en 1 año porque mi lengua materna, el Portugués, es muy parecida al Español.

[@cortez121219933]

I want to be able to learn mandarin to be able to speak with my girlfriend, as well as be able to speak to her family. It's very frustrating to not be able to communicate my thoughts to those who will be very important in my life. I have been thinking of taking a course at school or use MIT OpenCourseware. All i really need is structure or "syllabus"

[@th-yt4en]

Hey! How is your progress?

[@kingjosh1876]

Thanks for the advice Steve, I've been writing up a learning plan based on your videos. For the audio dialogues should I test myself by trying to write out the Pinyin whilst listening, or just stick to listening and reading? Additionally, are there any particular audio dialogues with Pinyin text you would recommend for beginners? After learning the proper characters should I still practice with Pinyin, or is it better to leave that behind?

[@Thelinguist]

+kingjosh1876 Check out the audio and text lessons at LingQ. You will have to write out the characters to learn them, I think. I would not bother writing out the Pinyin, just listen and read.

[@reliable301]

I would recommend shadowing only when you're really advanced and you enjoy doing that, otherwise, there's really no point of doing that

[@zlozlozlo]

Hi Steve, could you elaborate on your approach to studying Chinese characters? I've been learning Japanese for some time now, I've tried many methods of learning the Kanji, with mixed results. LingQ is great, for general language study, I use it pretty much every day. I recently managed to read a whole book using the site. But while it does wonders for vocabulary, it doesn't really facilitate learning the characters - especially when it comes to writing them. In my opinion a character-based version of LingQ would work great (basically, Japanese and Chinese LingQ would have a mode where instead of words, the LingQs would be the characters, and the review system would show character details to enable writing practice. I suggested this to Mark when he asked for feedback, he wrote back that at the moment the LingQ team can't spare the resources to implement something so complex that would only affect two languages) In the absence of such a thing, I need to devise my own strategy for learning the characters. I'd love to hear in detail how you did it. I fully intend to start learning Chinese, once I've reached a certain level in Japanese. By that time I would like to have conquered the characters as well.

[@Thelinguist]

zlozlozlo We offer 21 languages so it is difficult to specialize on the needs of one language. I would google for SRS systems for learning characters or other methods. I wrote them all out many times. I also wrote a lot in general. I think writing characters by hand helps. I may do a video of my character learning method. In essence I wrote them out on squared paper, starting with the first one, ten times or so, then put the translation or pronunciation a few columns to the right. then took the next character and did the same. Soon I would run into the first character, or at least the translation, and have to write it again before I forgot it. I just continued in this way. I started with 10 and worked it up to 30 per day. I would have to include previously learned characters since I usually forgot them as fast as I learned them. That and a lot of reading and writing. There are probably better methods today. Good luck.

[@katt230]

zlozlozlo I've been learning Japanese for about 4 years now. To memorize how to write kanji, you should try to learn about the "radicals" that make up that kanji (so you learn the building blocks compared to each individual stroke). You can look up the radicals for a character on classic.jisho.org/ . I've started reading a popular textbook called "Remembering the Kanji" by Heisig, which uses mnemonics to help remember the radicals through interesting stories (there are .pdf's of it floating around online). (An alternative is the website called WaniKani, the 1st 2 "chapters" are free.) It seems better to use mnemonics because it makes the story of the character have meaning compared to just being a series of strokes. Ex: 日 = sun, 月 = moon (they are both kanji, but at the same time they are also radicals for more complex kanji), 明るい = bright (the radicals = sun and moon, together they are very bright!) You just need to remember how to write sun and moon, not be concerned that they have 8 total strokes. If I try to just force myself to remember how to write a kanji by writing it over and over (like 10 times or something) each day without looking up radicals, I end up forgetting and it doesn't stick. There is also a website called Skritter for writing kanji online like you described, but I have never used it. Last tip, zoom in with your web browser when you are reading a Japanese website, so you can actually SEE the kanji clearly, not just blurry, vague blocks. If you have a Japanese word document, change the text size to be around size 18.

[@brunofernandezluna1051]

谢谢Kaufmann老师

[@forenl3709]

As a Chinese, look at this video cool to me

[@ronaldoondevilla1312]

sir, is it necessary to learn all chinese radical first??? my friend said, I need to learn all of them

[@TerapiaCarrillo]

Is it better to learn first Chinese or Japanese?

[@manngokwok7523]

and ofcouse you can select it in Mirosoft Window toolbox

[@macattack8265]

How did you focus on pinyin did you use a book if so what book?

[@vaskodaniel7234]

谢谢你!^^

[@donbenjamin6459]

Fellas you could also put chinese as a languaje in netflix. And only chinese, it would show you all of the dubbed thst exits :D

[@cooloptic]

Hi, Steve. As far as I remember you didn't admited shadowing as a goog method of learning languages. Does it mean that you have changed your opinion? Or maybe you find shadowing good for the chinese language or some asian languages?