how I learned chinese in 6 months... resources to study chinese

have you ever thought that learning chinese was impossible? how do people learn languages so efficiently and quickly? stick around to see the tools and resources I used to go from beginner to intermediate in 6 months!
this video is not sponsored by any brands or items listed in my kits. the links provided are affiliate links, so I may make a small percentage off the sale of qualifying items at no extra cost to you :)
how I shoot my videos: kit.co/bianca.learns/bianca-s...
favorite textbooks: kit.co/bianca.learns/bianca-s...
favorite graded readers: kit.co/bianca.learns/bianca-s...
stationary (lefty friendly heh): kit.co/bianca.learns/bianca-s...
check out my socials!
patreon: / biancalearns
website: biancalearns.wordpress.com/
instagram: @bianca.learns
tiktok: @bianca.learns
Active Learning
HSK Textbook: smile.amazon.com/HSK-Standard...
Mandarin Companion Graded Reader: smile.amazon.com/Xiao-Ming-Bo...
The Chairman's Bao: www.thechairmansbao.com/
Du Chinese: www.duchinese.net/
Character Resources/Dictionaries
Pleco: www.pleco.com/
Purple Culture Character Dictionary: www.purpleculture.net/chinese...
MDBG Dictionary/Translator: www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary
Passive Learning
声东击西 Bigger than us: open.spotify.com/show/4g90u0g...
Speak Chinese Naturally: open.spotify.com/show/7xOF4OE...
Recall:
Anki: apps.ankiweb.net/
TV Shows:
Who's the murderer: • 《明星大侦探6》08案：心酸的offer（上...
Go Ahead: www.viki.com/tv/36770c

[@jamiehush]

The biggest mistake I made was focusing on speaking and not spending the time to drill at least 1000 characters into my brain. I can repeat back any sentence that my friends in Taiwan say with the right tones, but I'd forget them after 10 minutes. The last three months I've been focusing on building vocabulary with Anki and it's been a game changer. Turns out its easier to say and understand things when you know what the words mean. Shocker I know :P I've been living in Taiwan for a year now and decided to take a break from full time work to focus on studying over the last three months. I still have a long way to go, but the nice thing about using Anki is I can _see_ the progress I've made over the last 90 days. It's easy to forget how many words you've actually learned and get discouraged, but when you see that Anki graph going up and to the right it really helps to give you confidence that you're making progress again.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I totally agree!! That's one of the reasons I'm actually not focusing on speaking yet! I want to understand at least to a high conversational or basic fluency level before I start speaking!

[@ayushmanV]

stupid question, yet how to use Anki for learning Mandarin.. can it be shared (say, if some1 created Anki resources)

[@greenish8100]

@@ayushmanV Yes, you can find anki decks if you google for example "HSK vocabulary anki deck" and it can be imported to anki. You can build your own decks and share them with others.

[@hustino11]

I’m blown away. This was such an insightful video! You’re motivating me to potentially start a channel also to log my language journey 😭😭

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

omggg do it!!! Even if it's not a regular thing, just having videos to keep track of your progress is incredibly motivating. In the midst of studying, it's easy to get discouraged by seemingly lack of progress. Taking a step back and rewatching those earlier language logs shows how far you've actually come!! It's can be a bit cringe at times tho, so you've be warned HAHA c:

[@chinesevoicegarden]

I do passive Chinese learning while I'm sleeping hoping I'll wake up fluent one day, haha

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

although just listening while you're sleeping will probably not make you fluent, it will definitely help out in the long run!! there's some research coming out saying that listening to a language right before sleeping will help your brain parse through it and understand patterns more easily. more listening = more comprehension. good luck on your journey!! c:

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Definitely agree with that! Although if you don’t listen enough, you won’t be able to know when you’re speaking correctly or not. I think practicing both together is really useful! They both help each other out in a positive feedback loop :)

[@Yasmina-co7nl]

I heard it just help you get used to listening the language not speaking it fluently

[@pjdilip]

However you will be more successful in your dream sequences 😂

[@learncommercialrealestate4570]

@@pjdiliptop comment

[@mattfadich5994]

You had me hooked in just a couple of minutes. I appreciate how you integrate words and graphics into the dialog. It's very informative and entertaining. I look forward to future videos. Thank you!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

aww thank you! I really appreciate it!! :)

[@jimbagsh9569]

Thanks Bianca. I’m not learning Chinese - learning Nepali (intermediate) & Italian (beginner). I think too many language channels have long forgotten what it was like to start a new language for someone who only speaks their mother tongue. So, your channel is a breath of fresh air. Looking forward to seeing what else you post in the future. :)

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you!!! I try to be honest at how difficult but fulfilling the journey is. It takes a ton of time and effort, but the rewards are so great!! let me know if there's any topic you think could be helpful to make a video on! :)

[@bleuapricot]

hello I am designing an app for learning Nepali, can I ask you questions for user persona?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Yep go ahead!! Would love to answer whatever I can help with!

[@luciaantolini5133]

I'm in love with your channel! is so interesting 🥺

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you!! appreciate it!

[@giovanibumbar22]

Yaaaay🙌🏼 Great video! I'm currently learning Koine Greek and Hebrew and I'm excited to try some of your methods. Thank you!😁

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

So awesome!!!! Let me know if you have any questions or comments about some of the specifics :)

[@Jessica_Le]

it's great to discover a new channel with such well-edited and helpful videos, keep up the good work🙌

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

aww thank you!! i'll try my best to keep making fun, informative, but realistic videos on my journey with language learning!

[@megan-mr9vk]

this video inspired me so much!! you’re so lovely as well :-) i would love to see a video with some recommendations for chinese media that you like but also some that are helpful for beginners.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

aww thank you!! I would love to make a video about that!! but one thing that I noticed was beginner media material is very limited except for graded readers. it's particularly difficult to find videos, tv shows, or podcasts that are not "teaching style" but still comprehensible to beginner learners. What I ended up doing was just watching and listening to native tv shows or podcasts and try to just notice words. It didn't try to understand that. I kept reading more and more to increase my vocabulary to the point where I could understand that more native content a bit better! a lot of people recommend using peppa pig, but personally, I can't really keep myself watching something that i'm not interested in, so that wasn't a really viable option for me!! one show that could be good for a beginner is: 爸爸在哪儿？it's a show about dads taking their kids on trips! people like to say that it's perfect for beginners because kids are talking, but there's still a lot of conversation between adults that aren't easy to understand. however, because kids are speaking about similar topics, you will find more comprehensible things than something else!!

[@Sakura-zu4rz]

❤❤❤❤Your channel is literally my comfort place. You make me so happy. Love you 🤗❤

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

aww thank you!!

[@juliaa1617]

Thank you very much, very practical and inspiring. I've started learning Chinese recently and your video was most useful! 🌹

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you!! I'm glad it was helpful!

[@Henry-teach-Chinese-in-jokes]

I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture, and many years studying Chinese culture and jokes. My native language is Chinese. I teach Chinese in humorous way and with cute pictures. Hope somebody recommend my videos to those who want to learn Chinese.

[@jamanakdchunem5998]

you're so underrated, I hope more people see your videos. Thanks for this video

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Aww thank you!! I really appreciate it :)

[@overthemoon416]

thank you for your advice. I'm approaching a decade of learning mandarin and I appreciate your good ideas for not getting caught up on every word and stressing the importance of passive learning as well. I watch chinese dating shows and chinese shows on netflix and don't always understand every word in the sentence. but you reminded me that's totally okay! definitely plan to use some of the resources you mentioned.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

that’s actually one of the hardest things for me to remember as well! Being okay with not understanding everything can be hard, but it’s a skill that will help us keep learning! I have a tendency to look up every single word I don’t know, but often times I’m not ready to learn that word (could have a complicated grammar usage or tons of complex definitions) and It ends up confusing me! In those cases it’s best to move on and learn the word when there’s a strong enough mandarin framework where that work is no longer super challenging! Thank you for this comment and I’m glad that some of the stuff I said was useful :) as long as you keep learning regularly, you’ll see so much progress!!!

[@mcarolinagodinho]

just found and channel and already love it. thank you for all the tips, specially the recommendations of podcasts - learning passively is something i also love doing. i am also going to track my chinese progress here

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

amazing!!!! I'll also be showing an updated version of how i've turned my passive podcast learning into active learning soon! Definitely requires more effort since it's still an extensive form of reading/sentence mining first, but it's really cool switching to use podcasts as both active and passive tools!!

[@mcarolinagodinho]

@@bianca.phdinprogress looking forward to watching the video! as i am taking chinese lessons, i also end up having active learning with books and so on. i am curious about what motivates you to learn the language :D

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

@@mcarolinagodinho I will be making a video about that soon as well, so stay tuned! It will also be in chinese (hopefully) so it'll definitely be an interesting watch HAHA. I will definitely screw up many tones XD. but tldr, I loved ancient cultures, and I loved learning languages (just romance languages thus far). always loved calligraphy and art, and thought chinese calligraphy was beautiful when seeing it in museums! also have a chinese bf so that helps with motivation HAHAHA

[@ryankutchar2265]

I'm glad I came across your videos. That was very insightful and well put together. I myself don't use textbooks for my German and Japanese (it's an ADHD thing for me), but I love audiobooks. Also, Netflix. I turn on a show I've seen a lot of times (The Dragon Prince, for example) and then lock the controls and get cleaning or working. Keep doing what you're doing!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I get that! Textbooks can be dry. It only works for me because I know it’ll get me to those future goals the quickest!! I’m also not very good at handling ambiguity inherent in shows rn (I’m trying to work on that!), so I’m trying to work my way into more comprehensible to less comprehensible content!

[@Rockstarmama310]

I love how interactive this video is! Omg! I was so engaged throughout the whole video! Thank you for sharing your process of learning Chinese! >.< I’m learning the language but never understood “how to study” so I noticed things didn’t stick!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Aww thank you!! I hope you stick with your journey to learn Chinese! It’s a fun one :)

[@Rockstarmama310]

@@bianca.phdinprogress I’ve been at it for a year so far- unfortunately I was not actively learning the language. Also not only am I learning the language more actively now in recent weeks but- learning how to study is super major! Which is something I haven’t figured out! That’s why coming across your video!!! Has been superrrr informative and helpful since you show the details in different ways! I loved it! Thank you again!!! 🤠💖 I’m determined to converse in the language one day!!!! I do small phrases here and there with my partner :) since she’s from China! I also am able to pick up on a few quirks lol it’s awesome!!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Ooooh I love that!! It’s so great being able to practice with your partner! I do the same with my bf hehe. It takes time to learn but you’ll see progress in no time!! 加油！

[@namasterri]

This was so insightful, motivating and helpful also for me! I'm Chinese, born and raised in Italy. I speak a mix of Mandarin and Italian in my family (plus my parents' dialect). I actually never managed to be constant as I couldn't find appropriate resources or a fitting method. My learning journey/growth has been with ups and downs, so I often felt demotivated. I don't have many Chinese friends... probably because I felt ashamed of being Chinese and not being able to speak, write or understand as much. Your video reminded me that "it's okay" :) Thanks for sharing! Would love to start joint drama-watching group 😉 that would be a cool concept hehe

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

That’s so awesome! Such an interesting set of languages! I felt the same way with my romanian (heritage speaker), but I kinda just said screw it one day and am trying to not care about how “poor” I perceive my language abilities are. Just do what you can, keep learning, and overtime you’ll see just how far you’ve come! And that’s something to be so proud of! The journey is just as important as the destination :) 加油！

[@Magiic098123]

I feel the same way!! Both of my parents are Chinese but I was born in Costa Rica, so I speak a mix of very very basic Cantonese and Spanish with them. I get nervous if I have to speak around other Chinese people and have been shamed for not being able to properly speak it, but oh well 🙃 Hope everything’s going well with your journey, best of luck :)

[@fellainblueey]

WOWOW this was so helpful!! thank you :))

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Aww thank you!!! Let me know if there's anything else that would be helpful to talk about!! Would love to make more targeted content too c:

[@ShayanneNicholas]

I've been wanting to learn a language for a long, long time and just recently, I decided on taking up Chinese. Honestly, this video was super insightful and it guided me to the resources I'd need, else I'd be spending more time looking for what I should study as opposed to actually studying. It'll definitely take a while to get to the level where I want to be, but I appreciate you being really transparent about the learning process. It's pretty relieving to know that it actually does take a lot of time to become fluent, so I don't need to beat myself up over slow progress. All in all, a wonderful video! Thank you so much for sharing. Much appreciated. xxx.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Thank you for this lovely comment!!! Yeah, I think that’s such a hard thing to reconcile with when we see others progress so quickly. Even though I studied pretty intensely for a year, I’m still nowhere near fluency, but that’s okay! For a language as different from English and challenging as Chinese, it’ll take time. But that doesn’t diminish the learning process in any regard. Fluency can’t be our only goals, or else it would be so easy to lose motivation. Learning more about the culture, ways of life, watching popular shows or reading books that shape people’s day to day lives, those are smaller goals that are more attainable before we reach a more fluent level. If we focus on the little wins, the smaller accomplishments as opposed to the extensive road ahead of us, that’ll just kill any drive we may have to keep learning! Enjoy the process, no matter how long it takes :)

[@antoninakovtun989]

Wow I love your channel so much

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Aww thank you!! Appreciate it :)

[@kevinli2574]

As a Chinese native speaker, I am very pleased to learn some Chinese learning resources from this video. And her methodology is definitely applicable to anyone learning any other languages. Great job.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you!!! appreciate it :)

[@irisgilbert1525]

I love this soooo much 谢谢你❤❤❤

[@IanPaulSaligumba]

Very informative video, Thanks

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

You’re welcome!!!

[@neon_wombat]

Thanks for the tips, especially about the passive listening. I always thought it was a waste of time if I'm not trying to understand everything.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Nothing in our target language is a waste of time! Yeah, there are things that will teach us more language, but the ability to parse through sounds is also important!

[@leilagaleano2876]

I really like the video! i wish i had more time to study as hard as i want to~

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you!!! even just a little study every day will make a difference!!! :)

[@discountasian]

Thanks bianca, I'm still trying to find a routine to learning Chinese and your video helped a lot, I'm Chinese but I never learnt Chinese lol so thanks

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

i'm so glad it helped!!! let me know if you have any more questions!!

[@lingo-phile]

“Do what makes you love language learning.” 👏👏👏 Best advice ever!

[@Henry-teach-Chinese-in-jokes]

I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture, and many years studying Chinese culture and jokes. My native language is Chinese. I teach Chinese in humorous way and with cute pictures. Hope somebody recommend my videos to those who want to learn Chinese.

[@MysticalSpaceSandwich]

Very, very nice. I feel like you excellently condensed what I wish I had learned before investing 1+ year into Japanese.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thanks for the comment!!

[@joereeve2569]

Great video! I'm definitely going to start implementing the passive learning you talked about. My one question is How do you ensure the words you study in your textbook show up in anki if you're using a premade deck?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

that's something I actually encountered in premade decks that I used!! even if they're made utilizing the words from the HSK lists, oftentimes the example sentences are taken from other sources like purpleculture (a great dictionary btw!). but that means that you'll get outside words. that makes using that deck pretty challenging and it kinda defeats the purpose of the "only 1 unknown word" philosophy for anki cards. I actually got super frustrated with the deck I used early on (and even promoted haha) because this was more apparent in the HSK4 level. so I made my own deck! the only way to guarantee the cards are exactly as you like are to make your own cards. but I was able to make a deck that only uses the example sentences from the HSK textbooks, so that helps out in that regard! feel free to check it out in this video! kzbin.info/www/bejne/jGjHeaawp7Omfqs

[@tamadichikuribayashi9639]

I have also got those books recent month , hope I can success to learn :)

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

If you study you’ll see progress :) 加油！

[@heyipp1618]

I get really tired of learning easily .I tried to just study and review but i got bored.Then i tried to relax a bit and watch dramas but i got bored also .I guess i just want the result of being fluent 😭🤣

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

i feel you so hard!!! it's so easy to want to just get to the end of everything and be fluent already. i've felt that sooo many times as well. for me, i've tried to turn everything i do into a game. if i'm watching a show, i say 'ookay, I understood like 2% of this episode'. but then i study a little bit, and next time I watch I realized 'ohh now I understand 10%!!!!'. by turning each activity into a challenge or game boss that i have to beat, I always see progress in my studies!! and that helps me keep going when its rough :) each progress point is one step closer to fluency!!!!

[@usmanaziz1679]

You are so intelligent in speaking I know you will get soon 1 million subscribers than you forget 🤔 us maybe I want to learn Chinese through you Your voice is so beautiful and clear 😍 I don't know English too much like you but i understand what ever you said Love from Pakistan ☺️

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you!!! appreciate the lovely comment (: feel free to use my videos as both your chinese learning tools and english immersion hehe!

[@Isaly15xoxo]

I know this is a very late comment but just in case you see this, this video was so comprehensive 👌 I’ve been looking for a couple days to find something like this so thanks! But I was wondering if you used the HSK workbooks along with the course books themselves or just the course books?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you for the lovely comment!!! glad it was helpful!! I used the workbooks for HSK1-3, but once I hit HSK4, there was a lot of free hand responses. since I don't have a tutor, no one could grade my work and tell me where I messed up. I figured that accidentally writing the wrong sentence would impede my ability to remember accurate sentences, so the workbooks weren't as useful.

[@egreeno]

Hey Bianca! Thank you so much for this video. I have a question for you. I'm interested in using the HSK textbook, and I see that the chapters in the text book aren't quite what I thought they would be based on your method. The way you spoke about them makes it seem like it's full of vocabulary and stories. I don't see that. At least not in HSK 1. I see a lot of writing, pronunciation, and and "work with your partner" kind of things. Did you do all of these? THANKS!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

yeahh so one thing i've learned to is mold my resources to fit my methods. No textbook will be perfect for immersion, so what do you do? focus on the things that will help with language acquisition! All I did in the textbook was use the dialogues. In HSK1 they're short, so they don't pack much vocab in as the later levels, but they're a great intro and not as intimidating. HSK3-5 is where the vocab packing comes in. Here's my method. 1) read through the vocab words to kinda get a feel for what you'll be reading about. Pay attention to the sounds and what the characters look like. Try to find patterns between characters. Even if you don't know what those patterns mean yet, thats okay! knowing that two words look similar could help you remember them in the future! 2) read through the dialogue and try to understand what it's saying without looking at the english definition. See if you can figure out how the sentence works. Afterwards, look at the english to see if you understood it correctly. Don't do 1:1 translations, but try to understand each word individually and get the gist of the sentence. Chinese and english won't translate perfectly. 3) listen to the audio while reading. then listen to the audio without reading to see what you can understand. 4) repeat this process as many times as you need. This is all I use my textbooks for. I ignore all the other exercises. The textbooks just provide me the dialogues and stories I need to learn through immersion at a beginner/intermediate level. Its basically comprehensible input and beginner graded readers! I hope that helps!

[@egreeno]

@@bianca.phdinprogress THANKS! :)

[@evanhall5631]

I know that you kind of touched on what you do on Monday and Tuesday, but what do you do on the other days of the week?

[@jamanakdchunem5998]

Can I ask something? Why is the stroke order important? I generally write the words in a way that is always recognizable to the native speakers. I do have a specific order I follow usually and it generally matches or is pretty close to the original order, so is there any reason to follow and explicitly study the original stroke order (besides making the characters easier to write and more recognizable)?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Thanks for the question! Stroke order actually does matter, especially if you’re trying to learn how to write! The stroke order is used to 1. Help memorize the components of a character and 2. Help make the character look balanced when writing. You can see the impact of wrong stroke order more in calligraphy with a brush than a pen or pencil, but it help with making a character recognizable, especially if you’re writing fast. But if you’re learning Chinese, handwriting isn’t as important as a beginner. So why focus on stroke order at all! The reason for that is it makes learning and memorizing characters much easier. If you make your own stroke order, it may not be the most efficient and you’ll probably do a slightly different stroke order each time you write that character. As a result, you could forget a line or a dot and it’s a completely different character, especially for the similar looking ones! (人 and 入). Secondly, words are built of components. When you learn a character, chances are it’ll show up in another character or word. As you stack components (方、放、游) it’s so much easier to recognize and piece together the different components when writing if you remembered the proper stroke order. Ultimately, it’s up to you if you want to use your own stroke order or the official way. But typically, the official way ends up making the most sense anyway, helps make your characters look balanced and legible, and helps with remembering characters in the future! I only learn the proper stroke order when I encounter a new word to learn!

[@jordandavis6709]

Nice job! Your pronunciation is very clear. Just one thing youtube can just be said as KZbin or if you’re in China 油管 is also used. I speak Taiwan styled mandarin so they just say KZbin

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Thank you!! Yeah I had trouble trying to find out what the correct word for KZbin was when I first started making videos!! It’s definitely interesting what words are romanized or not!

[@jordandavis6709]

@@bianca.phdinprogress No problem! Keep up the great work and ignore the rude people who are just out right insulting you. They aren’t worth your time. 加油💪

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Aww thank you for that response! Putting yourself out there on the internet requires a thick skin since there are some people that aren’t very kind. But it’s so awesome seeing other commenters keeping the comments so positive!

[@youytubey]

I do mandarin blueprint and it's hands down the most effective and efficient method

[@Layla_K]

Idk how to tell you that but like.. I watched your video kept thinking about it and after few months I started learning and now it’s been like a month and a week and I’m studying the hsk3 now😭😭 I feel like it’s wrong impossible but I studied everything chat a lot and knowing them well even when trying to get back to them there’s nothing to do because I’m done with everything It’s a very huge fast progress I don’t get it myself 😭🤦‍♀️ but I’m so happy because I worked too hard

[@dandilion7746]

Hi Bianca! Lovely video as always. just a quick question. You said you study 2 chapters a week with HSK 1 / 3. Does that mean you study chapter 1 monday-wednesday and chapter 2 thursday-saturday and review everything on sunday? Or does it differ each week and it depends on how many new words and grammar structures the chapter has to offer? Im curious to know!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

that was exactly my schedule! for HSK1-3, the new words introduced per chapter isn't too much if you spend at least an hour a day reading through the book. As I learned more words, it ended up taking less time, but I still wanted to give myself enough time to review. my basic plan was this: Monday - first listen/read through of the chapter (takes the longest since you're trying to figure out what's going on and comprehend it) Tuesday - second listen/read through. I start off with listening and then reading the text without looking at the words or translations to do a quick comprehension check. it's also an active recall exercise (how much did I really retain from yesterday?) Wednesday - read through it again and make anki cards for my spaced repetition. repeat with thursday friday saturday and review both chapters on sunday. I prefer to make anki cards after reviewing the text a few times over a few days because it helps with my retention! its also easier to figure out the word in context of a paragraph, as opposed to a nice anki sentence. Overall, when I do my anki cards, I want to already be familiar with it, and just use anki to solidfy in the long term! Now that i'm at HSK5, I can actually speed up that process. Since words are repeated regularly in the more challenging levels (the texts get longer), you can get a lot of repetition just by going through the chapters!

[@dandilion7746]

@@bianca.phdinprogress omg thank you so much for the quick and thorough response! I'm just starting out with chinese and your videos and way of learning really resonate with me. When my hsk 1 book arrives I will try out you method for sure!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Aww that’s so sweet!! One thing I would also say is it’s okay to move onto another chapter even if you haven’t mastered it yet! Especially with textbook learning, words and phrases get repeated all the time. I realized this when I went through the later levels (currently at HSK5), but you need to see the words in multiple contexts, and it’s more useful to get it in multiple texts! So I go through each chapter fairly quickly. As long as I understand what’s going on and can comprehend everything, I move onto the next one, even if I haven’t fully memorized all the words and grammar yet! As I go through more chapters, they keep popping up in new ways and contexts! Once I finish a book, I just review each chapter again and all of them make so much more sense and stick much better!

[@dandilion7746]

@@bianca.phdinprogress Thank you so much for all of your help! My HSK 1 book arrived this afternoon so tonight I will start my journey LMAO. Also, i looked up the podcast you were talking about (not sure about the name but it has a red logo) and it's so nice! of course i cant understand a thing, but it's good inspiration and motivation for where i wanna be at in the future. Full fluency here i come!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

So great!!! And LOL YEAH I still can’t understand most things in that podcast. It’s a true native podcast. But I liked the host’s voice so I kept listening! Overtime you’ll start to pick up words here and there and then you’ll pick up parts of sentences!! Keep listening and you’ll understand a decent amount earlier than you probably expect :)

[@myownway07]

11:27 ...Anyway, thank you for this English vocab: Commute: "Walk around" (kind of).

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

LOL commute is basically traveling to work!

[@LeharcBlueHeart]

There are so many Mandarin HSK books. Which ones specifically do you use? I've been trying to learn Chinese and doing terribly despite spending a lot of time and effort and I want to try and copy what you're doing as close as possible and see if it helps.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I’m using the HSK series!! I also made an anki deck that uses all of the HSK vocab found in the books! The cards have the sentence you’ll find in the textbook as examples for peak immersion and spaced repetition! I’ll also be uploading chapter specific folders with notes and answer keys and audio files (with textbook transcriptions to upload onto your phones!) on my patreon! But all you really need to do is keep reading, keep listening, and keep reviewing! Regardless of the resources you use, immersion frequency is the most important thing!

[@LeharcBlueHeart]

@@bianca.phdinprogressthanks so much! I saw a bunch of different HSK books from different brands online but I think I found the ones you have in the video.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

My website actually has an article talking about the different resources I use for learning Chinese specifically!

[@LeharcBlueHeart]

@@bianca.phdinprogress oh I see links to everything in your description now. Thanks so much 💙 there are so many youtubers who make language videos but none that explain things and give resources like you do.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Aww thank you!! I couldn’t find many people talking about which resources were most useful when I started (mandarin has way to many textbooks and learning tools) so I had to do a lot of trial and error to find what works. I probably could’ve learned more quickly if I had a roadmap for the different resources available and their pros and cons! I hope that by showing what worked for me with all of the resources, it’ll help others out with things I wish I had when I first started!

[@fraserlau1854]

Kanye @ 4:34. Thank you.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

You’re welcome :)

[@usmanaziz1679]

I got randomly your channel 🤣 KZbin recommend videos I subscribe after listening complete video

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

aww thank you!! appreciate the subscribe :) hope you enjoy more stuff in the future!!

[@elsieo6914]

Hi! This is amazing! Could you please let me know some of your favorite resources or books?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I just made a video talking about every resource I've used!!

[@rhnie1330]

声音好温柔哦，加油咯💪。神奇的算法推荐

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

谢谢！希望你也喜欢未来的视频！

[@usmanaziz1679]

What should I have to do I always forget in pronunciation Chinese I was thinking Chinese is like English but Chinese is so different than English I always think if i learn Chinese alphabets like English Than i can speak Chinese fluently

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

chinese is very different to english, so unfortunately, learning an alphabet won't work .-. I would say try to learn words slowly and review them regularly. With chinese words you need to remember what it looks like, what it means, how to pronounce it, and what tone to use. So that's 4 things to memorize for each word! As long as you review the words frequently and pay attention to each of those things, you'll be able to learn them really well!!

[@celestialknight2339]

12:08 “I don’t really know what the podcast is about…but it has really great audio!!” 😂😂😂 That cracked me up a bit haha, I love the brutal honesty. Awesome video though, thanks a ton for the helpful tips Bianca 🙏🏼 P.S. I don’t think I caught this in the video, but did you ever have a speaking practice partner like a Chinese Native on Skype or something like that? Or maybe you live in China/the East so you hear the language being spoken all the time? Just wanted your opinion about that method/strategy. Peace ✌🏼

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

LOL what can I say, gotta show ppl on the internet my lack of chinese skills to show them my progress HAHA. And currently i'm not using speaking practice partners but i've heard it being helpful for others. my partner is speaks chinese so I use him as my practice partner when I want to speak hahah.

[@natf1nk]

i’m currently learning 10 words everyday for mandarin (from the 2000 most used) and then I write them in cards and go over them in my free time. i’m not sure what to do after this. I tried watching shows but the words are too complicated for me still. should I just keep learning 10 words everyday until I reach a certain amount of words learnt and then watch shows. I feel like if I don’t understand most of the shows it’s pointless. what should I do?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Thanks for your comment!! Going over words and cards are great, but ultimately it'll be hard to keep motivation since it's really dry. Have you found any content that you like? I agree that tv shows are really challenging, but there's a lot of books that are geared towards more beginner learners. Reading extensively is one of the things that helped me out the most! I actually wrote a blog post about all the available resources that I found, so check that out and let me know if you have any more questions :) but ultimately, do the things that you enjoy. If you enjoy your study material, you're more likely to continue using it. Learning a language is all about consistent study. If you study every day, you'll keep learning something new everyday! biancalearns.wordpress.com/2021/08/31/how-to-learn-chinese/

[@EmadBerno]

Bianca,I used to watch a KZbin channel belonging to a Chinese girl called Kim.I am looking for her videos but I am not able to find it...Have you seen her videos by any chance?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with her. I do watch a lot of other Chinese KZbinrs. What style of videos did she make? Maybe I can recommend someone else making similar content?? Thank you for the comment :)

[@EmadBerno]

@@bianca.phdinprogress Thanks a bunch ,but I needed her email and it could be found on her channel.I suppose she has deleteed the channelllll :'(( Anyway, Merci Azizam

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

@@EmadBerno Ahh sorry I couldn't be more helpful!!!

[@mateusz-mazurek]

I am currently at the middle of HSK2 level. I struggle to find interesting content to watch/read at this level as this is still very basic. Any recommendations?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

that was actually one of the harder things for me to find at that level. The most interesting books were mandarin companion's graded readers or short stories on the chairman's bao and du Chinese. But realistically, I got bored of that and decided to just push through HSK until I got to HSK5 really quickly so that I can move onto content that I actually found interesting. Mandarin corner also has some more interesting videos on KZbin at a wider HSK level which was nice!

[@victorjackson150]

The one thing I took from this was your insight on English. "Speaking British dialect with an American accent will sound pretentious." My parents are from the UK, but I went to secondary school in the US. I use an North American accent as much as possible, but never really could catch the dialect. People often say that I am pretentious in my speech or ask me if I am from the UK. Now, I understand what they mean.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

sorry that people find your accent pretentious! but yeah, unfortunately language do be like that sometimes with preconceived notions about what is appropriate or not appropriate in various settings.

[@MLBB_Luin]

How do u learn reading, is it only learning words and learning individual characters? Im very beginner idk where to start. help pls

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

You can start off with learning pinyin, which shows how to pronounce words in the Latin alphabet before you learn the characters. So a character 那 would be written as “nà” (the accent tells you what tone is associated with that character). Some people prefer to just learn words with the pinyin first and then learn the characters, but I found that it was much easier to learn words a bit more slowly but learn how to read the character alongside the pinyin pronunciation. Reading is a combination of knowing words and knowing how those words interact with other words. So getting a good grasp on both new words and simple grammar is the easiest way! I wrote a blog post with a more detailed explanation and resource suggestions so check it out if you want :)) biancalearns.wordpress.com/2021/08/31/how-to-learn-chinese/

[@MarAdriatnePC]

I want to learn taiwanese because I love their dramas/Series, but It's more easy to find mandarin material :c actually I don't know how to search for taiwanese material like HSK for mandarin. Maybe... do you have any suggest about my struggle? :c

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

that's amazing!! there's actually a few books being taught when students go to foreign language school in taiwan (if you're talking about the taiwanese dialect of chinese and not hokkien!) I would say that in the beginner stages, learning the differences between the dialects aren't very important because they're similar enough that speakers of both dialects can understand each other! That's not the case for another dialect like Cantonese (it's pretty much it's own language at this point). Once you have a good grasp on the language, then you can watch tons of taiwanese content to get the accent, the way people formulate sentences, and sound more like a taiwanese speaker. For textbooks, one option is using the textbook series integrated chinese (it has traditional characters which is what you'll be learning!). It's not made specifically for mainland chinese or taiwanese chinese, so the language they teach you is pretty equivalent. Practical Audio-Visual Chinese is also a book that is used to teach english speakers taiwanese mandarin in taiwan! if you learn from this book, you'll have to use zhuyin (which is the taiwanese pronunciation system; pinyin is the mainland chinese equivalent). I was able to find pdf previews of both books online, so look them up and see which one you prefer to use! once you learn enough vocab and can read/listen to more things, there's tons of taiwanese podcasts on spotify, tons of taiwanese youtubers, and tons of taiwanese shows that you can use for your passive and active immersion!! there are variations in how taiwanese mandarin speakers and mainland mandarin speakers formulate their sentences, what words they tend to use, and pronunciation, but you'll have to learn that from watching and studying a lot of taiwanese content! hope this helps :)

[@MarAdriatnePC]

@@bianca.phdinprogress OMG!! Thank you very much, This really helps me a lot!! So do suggest me start with mandarin books and the books that you already told me in this comment and then move on Taiwanese content?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I’m glad it was helpful!!!! good luck on your journey :)

[@meowgir47]

@@MarAdriatnePC hey, i’m in taiwan studying mandarin right now - the textbook series A Course In Contemporary Chinese is widely used here. the biggest difference compared to mainland putonghua (aside from trad/simp characters) is mainly vocabulary variations, for example pineapple is 鳳梨 here and 菠萝 in the mainland. you especially see this a lot with more modern internet/technology terms. I used the integrated chinese books in college, which do not account for these vocab nuances in taiwan so I highly recommend a taiwan specific publication! it also has both pinyin and zhuyin. good luck!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Thank you for such a thoughtful response! That recommendation should be super helpful to so many people :)

[@javiermarcialcespedesberne8575]

Hola, que tal?, como van?, Los mejores y más cordiales Saludos desde puente piedra, lima, Perú, ojalá que puedas venir en algún momento a mi país y que disfrutes mucho de todo por aquí, con la familia y los amigos; Felicidades por tus vídeos....

[@huishuochinese5486]

Your videos are so clear and well explained. I also made some pinyin videos but mostly for Chinese teachers. Hope we can have chance to collaborate and share teaching tips together. From Hui

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

aww thank you!! send me an email and we can chat!

[@anthonyli4629]

Should I buy a textbook or use a website? @bianca.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Hi Anthony! I personally like using textbooks as opposed to websites. You could find websites that cover a lot of really awesome stuff, but it'll take a decent amount of time to filter out the useful ones! Theoretically, you could learn just from watching and studying tv shows, but that tends to be very challenging in the early stages. Textbooks help ease you into native content over time, which is why I like them. You could find websites that do the same thing, but it'll take a good chunk of time to find good ones at your level and continue to do so! the textbooks that I use are HSK, which I find really helpful! if you do want to go the website route, some great ones i've used to supplement my learning (they're not my primary resource though) are as follows: 1) All Set Learning Chinese Grammar Wiki 2) Yellow Bridge Dictionary 3) The Chairman's Bao Graded Readers 4) Du Chinese Graded Readers

[@anthonyli4629]

@@bianca.phdinprogress Thank you so much:) And is it important to get the exercise book with it or are there exercises in the book?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

There are exercises in the book, but I don’t particularly like them. Fill in the blank exercises aren’t the most useful because it’s not really helping you think in chinese, but rather translate the sentence from Chinese to english, find what word fits, when translate back to Chinese. Because of that I don’t really use the exercises in the book. I find the workbook is actually really really helpful. It emphasizes listening and reading comprehension of full sentences and ideas as opposed to individual words. There’s not enough time to translate so over time you learn to just understand the Chinese! It is basically like little graded readers for listening and reading comp!

[@EDITMODE]

Im 4 years in and my pronunciation still is trash. But reading, writing and listening up to hsk5 is doable now

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

pronunciation is just always going to be an uphill battle HAHA but as long as we're intelligible to chinese speakers, then that's a great start!

[@yjzstudioipadartist2146]

厲害👍

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

谢谢！

[@Magiic098123]

Thank you for the info!! I started learning Chinese like three years ago with a class per week but I couldn’t manage my time between this and university stuff, so I didn’t dedicate enough time to properly learn the language and now I panic when I am asked during class to read out loud, even if they are not really like super hard sentences😂🥲 Now that I have more time and less stress, I feel a little more motivated to take it more seriously, but I have problems with everything 😂 for example I can remember the pinyin or understand the word if spoken but I’ll have trouble remembering the character, so I definitely need to practice vocabulary. Btw do you constantly have conversations with others in Chinese or you haven’t done it yet? Sorry if you have already addressed this or if it’s a repetitive question, I just found out about your channel🥰 if you haven’t, how do you ensure your tones while reading are correct? Sometimes it happens that I listen to how the word is pronounced and then later when using it, I think I said it correctly when I actually didn’t, so my teacher helps me if it’s during class or it could have been that I found out because I recorded myself reading, but I don’t always notice it

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you for the comment!!! stressful situations definitely impair our ability to acquire language. Just think about how much knowledge you retain after cramming stuff before a test... usually very little!! so learn in fun and enjoyable environments without pressure if you can! and problems/confusions happen all the time in learning, moreso in the beginning stages, but you'll also find that in the more advanced stages too! mistakes are just a part of learning, so don't be afraid of them. Mistakes and confusions tell you what areas of the language you need to actively focus on. if hearing/pronouncing tones area an issue, you'll have to listen to a lot of audio and try to pick out what tones are being pronounced. what helps me the most in this scenario is listening to audio where I have a transcript (like a textbook dialogue)! I read through the dialogue first to know what how the words are pronounced and then I listen to the audio while reading the text to see how the tone variations are pronounced by a native speaker. Then I read it out loud slowly, focusing on pronouncing the tones right. During this active type of study, you can self-correct because you're going through the exercise really slowly. When you're not actively studying pronunciation though, mistakes will probably slip through, which is fine! you'll start to notice more areas that you can actively work on, and complete that feedback loop. overtime, all the skills will slowly grow, and your ability to self-correct will also grow!

[@Magiic098123]

@@bianca.phdinprogress thank you for the tips and for taking the time to reply!! 🥰

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

No problem!! Happy to help :)

[@bunny-cq8iz]

6:29 is when she starts talking about how she uses her textbooks, if this is useful to anyone :)

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

c:

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

📚📚

[@tomigrgicevic]

Learning WELL Chinese in 6 months is simply impossible for somebody whose native language is english, french, german etc. I try to understand why some people try to mislead new learners. Do they simply want to have more KZbin followers?? You need many years to learn Chines, including reading. It's so far away from any European language that you simply need years of hard work. No magic solutions.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I completely agree with that!!! it's one of the reasons I really try to be transparent in my videos! I do like to subvert people's expectations though since there's so many youtubers who claim to have learned their language after 30 days, 6 months, and so and so forth. That's really not possible for so many learners! I even made another video showing how easy it is to appear fluent in a language through editing, which discussed the recent trend of youtube polyglots "showing their fluency in x number of languages". That's why in this video I made sure to let people know exactly how much I was able to learn after 6 months of pretty intense study. 1200 words is a lot but it's nowhere near what is needed to be fluent! I still have so many years to go before I reach proper competency, let alone fluency!

[@tymanung768]

Some parts of Chinese are VERY different--- tones, writing, some mom literal translation situations (for ex. Euro languages say a reaction when 2 sneezes, but many Chinese keep quiet) Other areas resemble some Euro languages (for ex. Conditional and Subjunctive Verb Moods closely resemble English--- both use Auxiliary. Verbs and Adverbs (most of times) vs Latin origin languages use of Verb Endings, basic word order Subject Noun, Predicate Verb, Direct Object or Predicate Noun or Predicate Adjective. English idiom applies here--- Win some, lose some.) (All these elements are explained by various youtube channel videos) Hope that these help. Zhu ni, hao yunqi!! (Wishing you good.luck!!!)

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Such a great explanation!!

[@usmanaziz1679]

You are so intelligent in English 😂 editing videos and also Chinese WOW 😲😲

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank youu!!!! c:

[@timothyrooney3457]

Question, Why do you use textbooks instead of simply going straight to Anki? I am only going Anki, Duchinese, and Italki.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

So a lot of the guidance concerning language learning so far can be categorized into two general groups: traditional (textbooks, classes, word lists, grammar exercises), and immersion (finding words by consuming content). I’ve tried both methods with chinese and honestly, both were really frustrating in the beginning. I’ve used the Integrated Chinese series and it had one page of dialogue with 4-6 pages of grammar exercises. Once I discovered immersion, I decided to go all in on that. On the contrary, I also got frustrated with immersion because I didn’t know how to learn Chinese yet. It’s very different from any other language I know (English and Romance languages) and I couldn’t parse through the sentences. It was hard to find content that was at a comprehensible level. So I tried to mesh the great parts about both methods. I use a textbook that specifically puts more emphasis on the dialogues and just skim through the grammar explanations. So it helps me to figure out how to learn through immersion later on! I use the HSK series, and although the beginning books are still fairly similar to a traditional textbook, I got through HSK 1-3 in 2-3 months (exact time is in my first video!). Once you’re in HSK4 it’s incredibly similar to graded readers, and at times even better than graded readers I’ve purchased from mandarin companion. The other benefit with using this HSK textbook series is that most of the graded reader apps, including duchinese, use HSK levels to grade their content. So ultimately, starting out with learning from the HSK series helped transition me into more intermediate and advanced content! HSK5 is also full blown 2 page essays talking about pretty complex topics with natural speech and sayings mixed in (had my native Chinese speaking friend confirm it!). So basically, I used my textbook as a graded reader with some grammar to help me get going in the beginning stages. I try to treat it more as an immersion tool in conjunction with my other immersion and ANKI as well!!

[@javianrotimi8841]

6个月学到这个水平,不错了.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

谢谢！虽然自己学习中文很难，但很有趣。我真的很喜欢！

[@carlosgong9482]

I want to recomend my favourite Chinese documentary 《航拍中国》to you, after you watch it you will know where to trave in China in the future. And I want to rectify that there is no Taiwanese, in fact it's traditional chinese (繁体中文)or hokkien（闽南语）.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

will check it out!! and by taiwanese, I meant the taiwanese accent of mandarin chinese (which includes traditional chinese characters). sorry if that wasn't clear!! thanks for the suggestions and clarifications :)

[@abhinavchauhan7864]

how much hours of total study time you put in in these 6 months?

[@abhinavchauhan7864]

@Josh Peck's Dad why do you say that?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

not sure, but it was a hellofalot of study hours XD I don't wanna estimate a number that turns out to be wildly inaccurate!

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

I'm sad you think so, but its understandable with the amount of click bait language learning that's present on KZbin! this video isn't fraudulent, I just had a really chill job at the time and it was COVID, which allowed me to spend all my free time studying! Nowadays, I barely have any time to study, so my progress isn't as fast.

[@user-wm9qi3tk9i]

This reminds me how i learned my English through movies , video games and talk show . I am a lazy guy, i have to learn through something that interests me or i will fall asleep .

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

learning through movies, video games, and talk shows isn't lazy! It's actually one of the best ways to learn, but it's hard for beginners to handle that much ambiguity!

[@Ennnn.jenn.]

If u are trying to improve when u arl know chinses u can just watch chinses content n variety show coz i did that n my 作文 is a 33/40 im a chinses...

[@gopikalyan4707]

Is there any free resource to learn chinese

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Yes! There are many free resources, depending on what your preferred learning style is. If you do like using textbooks, the HSK textbook series that I use also have free pdf's available to download for all the levels! Here is a link to the pdf: pdfcoffee.com/hsk-1-standard-course-4-pdf-free.html For more reading content, The Chairman's Bao and Du Chinese have free versions, but the content is more limited than the paid versions. Both have levels from HSK1 (beginner) to HSK6 (advanced). HSK reading also has a lot of great short stories from beginner to advanced levels. www.thechairmansbao.com/ www.duchinese.net/lessons hskreading.com/ Purple Culture is a great online dictionary that has everything you need with example sentences! It'll just translate words however. MDBG Dictionary will let you translate sentences. www.purpleculture.net/chinese-english-dictionary/ www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?page=translate Other than that, youtube has a lot of chinese dramas available that can be used to learn if you're at a high enough level! Let me know if you have any more questions!! :)

[@Ahtohallan.]

@@bianca.phdinprogress Thank you tons 💖💖

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

@@Ahtohallan. you’re welcome!!! let me know if you have any other questions!!

[@gopikalyan4707]

Thank you so much

[@peterbayne7227]

6 months?!?! I wouldn't be ale to learn Mandarin in 6 years, lol. Congratulations on getting so far in such a difficult language.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

if you put effort and time, you'll totally see progress!!

[@peterbayne7227]

@@bianca.phdinprogress I've tried several times to learn Mandarin, including over a year of paid lessons with a language school, and got nowhere. So, yeah, I really can't do it.

[@chadbailey7038]

🙌🏾 ⚡️

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

🙌

[@shamadhialarcon9002]

youre fucking cool and smart

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

aw thanks!! appreciate the comment!

[@andyli7598]

you got a Chinese subscriber

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

谢谢！！我希望你会喜欢我未来的视频！

[@lindajohanssen2034]

黑 ｂｉａｎｃａ！不好意思我的中文还不好，尤其我的语法😅。你的中文还在发展吗？你的学习才能太棒了，我学了中文三年了我只认识两千字左右。可是我还不能明白简单的电视节目的句子。这是真失望了，你的意思是如果我学习从HSK1到6我就会了吗？我还没开始学那些课本书。也许我的节目的中文水平太高了。祝你步步高升学业进步！💞

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

感谢您的评论！我的阅读水平高于我的口语或写作水平，所以我会用英语回答！ you've made such great progress in 3 years! 2,000 words is so good! But you're right, it's not high enough to understand most tv shows. what I'm doing is finish HSK1-5 (i'm currently on HSK5) which will get me to 2.5-3k words. Again, that's not enough for fluency, but it is enough to get started with studying native content! you could also study tv shows with the amount of words you know, so maybe the way you're studying the shows is not as helpful! Here's my plan for when I transition to native content! 1. watch an episode with chinese and english subtitles 2. watch an episode with chinese but no english subtitles 3. watch an episode with just the chinese audio 4. go through the episode transcript and study the words (preferably find sentences that only have 1 or 2 unknown words) 5. review those words (in the sentence that you find from the show) 6. repeat with another episode! hope this helps :)

[@user-me5ig3sp2n]

“你的中文还在发展吗？”听起来有一点点别扭，我猜测您的意思应该是“您还在继续学习中文吗？”哈哈😊a piece of advice from a Chinese student who studies English for years but still finds it quite challenging LOL

[@Lsong60]

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

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

Is that a KZbin video? Curious to see what they say!

[@Lsong60]

@@bianca.phdinprogress Yes. Just search this title

[@aoio6448]

*how I learnt Chinese in 6 months* All the kanji: am I a joke to you?

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

LOL yeah.... languages utilizing latin based alphabetical systems definitely give an edge in the learning department. I feel like i'm learning 3 things at once for each word... 1. pronunciation 2. tone 3. character. ripp

[@poolman20001]

My problem is that I’m not as smart as you! 😂. I mean, I’m smart as hell, I own several companies, I currently live in China, and own two Chinese company, and love money! But I have been in China for 3 years and I am only at HSK1. Lol. You are forgetting the most difficult part about learning Chinese for us Americans or Westerners. You must stress this, but first let me simplify and then elaborate. Simplified key points. Tone, syllables and pinyin. Firstly, it’s very important to understand that the English language has about 16,000 syllables of speech. The Chinese language only has 400 with 4 tones. So 1,600 total syllable. Memorize exactly how to say the 400 syllables, then add your 4 tones and you can quite literally speak any Chinese word in existence! I would recommend that any learner study pinyin till it’s mastered. All 400 sounds. Not just how to read those sounds, but also dictation. Make sure that you can listen to Chinese and write it down into pinyin. With enough time and practice, you should be able to do this even though you do not understand the language. You see, most people think that pinyin was invented for us Westerners to learn and read Chinese. But it was actually developed by the Chinese for the Chinese. Because China was something like 60% illiterate just 50 years ago, and had so many dialects, they decided to make pinyin a permanent part of learning Chinese in Chinese schools. Chinese Children spend 2 years studying pinyin only. They do this till it’s mastered. It keeps the country’s dialects similar enough so each can understand one another regardless of the region of China they come from. Study pinyin for several months. Saying each syllable on the chart every day for an hour per day or so. Now Chinese is incredibly difficult. Most foreigners that live here cannot speak Chinese, something like 90% but all foreigners here have tried to learn. The main reason is pinyin and the tones! I cannot stress this enough! Let me elaborate on this because even most Chinese teachers do not understand how important this is to us westerners. It’s the biggest blunder teachers make when teaching foreigners Chinese. Picture American Idol! Picture all of those people singing, those people who think they sound awesome! But yet they sound like total shit! It’s because the part of your brain that hears language tones stops developing at an early age, after your no longer need this ability to learn language! Understand what I mean? So for instance. I think that I can speak Chinese good enough to get into a taxi and tell the Chinese driver where I want to go. So that’s what I do. And nearly every time, the driver does not understand me. If I’m with a Chinese friend, they will tell the driver the same exact thing that I just said, but the difference is that the driver understood them perfectly. I cannot tell you how many times this has happened! Because if the entire Chinese language is based off of 400 syllables, and just a slight tweak of tone changes the entire meaning of the word, it makes the part of your brain that interprets tone very important. However, for us foreigners, this part of the brain is way underdeveloped! This is why pinyin and tone exercises are so important! Age also plays a critical role in this. Many people say that Chinese is the musical language of the world! This is exactly why so many of us fail! Hearing tones for the Chinese is very natural to them, so Chinese teachers usually do not understand this! Even you may not fully understand this unless you lived here. This is a said but true story. I once knew an Indian man who could pass HSK level 5. But no Chinese people could ever understand him! It’s sad, because he has been studying Chinese for years! But it also makes sense. It’s because if Chinese is the musical language of the world, then Hindu is the language of the consonants. The Indian language Hardly has any tone! It’s just a bunch of hard sounding “be da, du, bu, be” It gives them the ability to talk really fast. But it also makes Chinese hellaciously difficult for them. Us English speakers, fortunately we retain some tone! But for most of us, it takes many months to get decent with Chinese tones. Decent enough to be able to pass dictation tests at 80% level. I cannot wait until you come to China(assume that one day you will) and then see your new video about this. This is why on average it takes us foreigners a good 5 years of intense study to learn Chinese. Maybe you are an exceptional learner. But 5 years is standard, even for students attending Peking University (I know a couple, and I can speak better Chinese then they can). That’s an Ivy League school here. Anyways. That was a wonderful video thank you for sharing it. I hope that I did not have too many typos! I am typing in the dark on this little phone at 1:35am.

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

thank you for this comprehensive comment!! I totally agree with you! although as a slight counter, people in taiwan use bopomofo as opposed to pinyin to learn pronunciation, so pinyin, although incredibly important, is not necessarily required to learn tones. However, utilizing a romanization system (either bopomofo or pinyin) is incredibly important to get proper pronunciation. I find that many people, especially coming from an english background, simply don't put as much emphasis on learning the tones because it just doesn't matter as much in english! our ears are not tuned to tonality (although there are tone stresses in english too, it doesn't change the meaning of the sentence, just makes it sound more or less natural). However, someone who's native language is a tonal language, like chinese, will naturally know how to decipher tones. So i totally agree that emphasis on mastering tones in the beginning is INCREDIBLY important. If you're able to train yourself to be able to distinguish the tones early on, it'll help you learn and decipher between similar sounding pronunciations but different tones (ie: 是时使事十市 and so forth). One thing that i've also noticed is hearing tones is different from producing tones. I've really practiced from the beginning to build up the tone distinguishing skill AND the tone production skill. That could be why native speakers have a harder time understanding your pronunciation at times! Sometimes when i'm reading out loud, in my head i'm saying the right tone, but when someone else hears it, it's wrong! I found that having someone correct my reading out loud has helped me identify which tones/tone pairs I have a tendency to confuse or pronounce in an unclear manner. As an aside, I've been playing music since I was a kid, so I definitely think I have an advantage to picking up/distinguishing the tones! I just think of them like different pitches/pitch movements!! My current work flow is to learn a word in context (ie in a sentence or preferably as part of a larger story), make a flash card in ANKI for that sentence, and as I review, first recite the sentence slowly to emphasize each tone/tone sandhi, all the while trying to understand the meaning. Then I double check the tones (which are on the back of the card), and recite it again, with an emphasis on saying the tones correctly. This has helped me to increase my tonal accuracy significantly!! Ultimately, if we put an emphasis on learning tones in context with the word, and practice recalling the meaning, pronunciation and the tones, we'll be better able to produce the right tone when we need to!!

[@smalls5001]

I learnt chinese for 7 years but I cannot speak it

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

if your reading/listening comprehension is high, then all it takes to speak is to practice communicating! easier said than done though!

[@mishia6628]

我中文非常好，如果有興趣可以跟我做語言交流

[@davidlu3929]

妳可以教我中文嗎

[@bianca.phdinprogress]

我的中文还不够多，无法教中文！也许在将来！

[@marcuschen786]

If smart drug and smart chip is popular in future, no one need to learn.

[@unkle_iroh]

Yeah I like 20 years

[@mahonghao9971]

我猜你是澳大利亚的。

[@amjgbaobei]

Just awful. Especially because the very first sentence she said was wrong. And…… she’s learning the Chinese they use in communist China 🇨🇳 👎🏼 as opposed to the Chinese used in democratic Taiwan 🇹🇼👍🏼.

[@jordandavis6709]

Yes she made a few mistakes just like the entire paragraph you wrote has quite a few grammatical errors. Are you going to be nice and give her some constructive criticism or be a dick? Secondly why the need to involve politics into learning languages. This has nothing to do with foreigners. What so just because the CCP is very much corrupt, she can’t learn simplified characters? Maybe she just prefers the accent in China more than Taiwan. Learn to differentiate. Thirdly Taiwan isn’t a democratic country. It’s a multi-party democracy with a semi-presidential system.