Laoma Chris's PERFECT Chinese Learning SECRETS | How to Pass HSK 5 in 1 Year

[@RitaChinese]

Chris and I talked about this all the time - honing tones, individual sounds, stressed syllables in sentences, and intonations are equally important if you want to speak really natural and "fluent" Mandarin Chinese, or any language in fact! Most curricula stop at the very beginning of helping Mandarin learners build up a solid foundation of the Chinese sound system, and it's rare for students to have proper separate training for their pronunciation from traditional vocabulary and grammar learning! BUT now you can join my “Finding Your Mandarin Voice” pronunciation training program on www.RitaChinese.com Hear Putonghua clearly, and speak CRISP Chinese by the end of 2022!

[@skane3109]

Rita’s pronunciation centric approach is unique and amazingly effective. Google translate finally understands most of my Chinese! I’m a native English speaker from the US who started learning Mandarin in 2016 when I was 64. I practice most days and have tried an enormous amount of methods and resources both on and offline. I’m currently 35 lessons into ‘Master Chinese Pronunciation’ course. It delivers results. I love it!

[@kdc22]

Just taking a minute to appreciate the work put into doing all the subtitles for this 45min vid, tones, characters, pinyin... such a great channel for chinese learning!!

[@AshinAsia]

I also agree. Doing subtitles, I already know from experience, takes ages!

[@Metapuff1]

and even writing 这 as zhei!

[@jporfirio_]

I’m not even learning Mandarin but I love watching both of you due to how you guys approach language learning. Amazing content as usual!

[@snslifestyleorg]

Passing HSK5 in one year is impressive. This channel should do more such interviews.

[@TheBulletPointOfASoldier]

You’re right it’s not easy. I had North Korean classmate who passed HSK 6 in less than 1 year.

[@zyloz88]

@@TheBulletPointOfASoldier u what? lol

[@santiagovalencia7709]

Chris is right on the fact that you could still reach most of your goals without a good pronunciation, ...but pronouncing incorrectly will still harm you socially in many ways daily, and the longer you have been mispronouncing the harder it is to correct it later. I learned English at school with teachers that had a strong Spanish accent and bad English pronunciation. Nowadays I'm a dual national holding a British passport and I'm integrated in their society. So, from this perspective you could say that I have suceeded regardless of not having a perfect English pronunciation. However, after many years living here I can perceive I'm "a foreigner" to many of them, daily. In comparison, my German pronunciation is native like, so much so that when I lived in Germany people disputed me that I wasn't a local. I put lots of effort to reach this level. I learned the right pronunciation before everything else, and later on worked a lot on its prosody. After years without speaking it, and even when I have forgotten a lot of it, I still sound native. Needless to say that integrating in Germany was far more easier for me. A language is something requiring a lot of effort and constant dedication across the years, therefore what is the benefit of going through all that effort, spending so much time on it to then decide not to care enough about how it sounds? Every spoken language is sound, its written form appeared as a representation of it. The so much repeated sentence "I'm not so worried about my pronunciation, I just want to communicate" is a contradiction in itself because good pronunciation improves your communication even at subconscious levels - at the listener side, and also at your side, affecting how you feel daily, and the opportunities you're offered, how easy you can integrate, be considered "one of them" and therefore included in their lives, etc.

[@hucancode9]

Agree. My story is somewhat familiar to you. Started with broken English pronunciation, corrected it later, was a pain I have to admit. Then in my 3rd language, Japanese, I focus on getting technically correct pronunciation. Now many Japanese people don't know I am a foreigner until I tell them.

[@santiagovalencia7709]

@@hucancode9 I understand your journey because the reason for me to put so much effort in perfecting my German pronunciation was that I did not want to see myself with German in the same way I saw myself with English. I learned the lesson the hard way so to speak, so I did not want to repeat the experience. The most surprising thing with my case, I believe, that I would say speaks wonders about having good pronunciation, is that physically I'm always related with arabic people, my physical appearance is not that of a blond person with blue and 1.90 meters tall. For example: when I was holidaying in Turkey people talked to me in Turkish (a language I do not speak a word of). So, when in Germany people disputed me when I told them that I wasn't German, for me it was a confirmation that just by speaking the language to native level one can be considered at subconscious level "one of them" (unless people are racist and your appearance is the only thing that counts to them I guess. I never suffered any racist situation while in Germany, everyone was super kind to me).

[@santiagovalencia7709]

@@AJ-fo2pl Thanks AJ, very appreciated. Just to avoid misunderstandings, I've been living in the UK for almost 16 years now. I hold a British passport, and a Spanish one. I'm (or was at some point) fluent in Spanish, English, German and Dutch, learning now Chinese, and have lived in Germany, The Netherlands, Spain and the UK up to now. The only place where I've found to be treated as "a foreigner" after living here for so long is the UK, that's why I say learning good pronunciation since the beginning, in every language you learn, is so important. Not implying the UK has no racism issues, they do, even at MP and PM levels, but my experience cannot be framed under that angle as fortunately I haven't experienced any direct racism. What I describe is the fact that as soon as I open my mouth it's clear I will never be perceived as "one of them". I do not think most people realise how important good pronunciation is.

[@leandrocimarolli3885]

Your interviews are always amazing. Excellent tips (from you and the people you interview) that I am now sharing with my English students. And I've been using them myself with mandarin and my learning process has been less painful than I imagined it would be lol And besides the content of the videos, the chance we have to practice with the subtiltles in Pinyin and Hanzi is great! I always watch the videos a couple times and pay close attention to the tones, consonants and vowels. And even though I'm super lazy when it comes to learning vocabulary, I end up learning a lot! I can't thank you enough for your hard work on these videos!

[@johnsparegrave5996]

As an English as a second language teacher, I have discovered via teaching my special needs classes that have a reputation of being unteachable that insisting on perfect pronunciation helped them a lot. Even in as simple a language to pronounce as English. After only a year, these students can do things that they are not supposed to with ease.

[@farrelfawwaz4879]

太棒了！this is one of the best methood that I ever had in order to improve and master chinese language skills, 非常感谢Fān Laoshi and Masirui chris😊💪👍

[@JoeSmith-db4rq]

Omg hearing him say the sub message for you at the beginning was everything 🥺🥺🥺

[@FilipP88]

Wow my favorite learning material (casual conversation with transcripts) with such interesting topics! Thank you Rita and Chris

[@yeroca]

I really enjoyed this. Some natural conversation is good for my listening skills and also picking up a few new words.

[@akeelalleyne9277]

This video is so great. Really you all hit on so many points about learning Mandarin and learning it well and I was like "wow. actually, my first Chinese teacher did that!" or "Yup, yup, yup, exactly!" Awesome, awesome video.

[@RitaChinese]

Glad you enjoyed it, Akeel!

[@jorasonprecious4269]

Holy smokes!! 这个大哥说汉语说得也太好了吧！wykl!! Most probably the first foreigner I've seen who sounds like a native! Gosh I'm actually so impressed🤯

[@TheBulletPointOfASoldier]

He is impressive可是 把普通话掌握最好的还是是大山。

[@jorasonprecious4269]

@@TheBulletPointOfASoldier 😏😏

[@jorasonprecious4269]

@@TheBulletPointOfASoldier 大山谁呀？

[@TheBulletPointOfASoldier]

@@jorasonprecious4269 是一位来自加拿大的 估计人家普通话讲得比很多中国人还要好。kzbin.info/www/bejne/j2qufZ2vaZyYq5I. Sorry I’m putting the link without asking for a permission from the channel owner.

[@jorasonprecious4269]

@@TheBulletPointOfASoldier 哇，他确实很厉害 #languagegoals 😄

[@petermhart]

Wow! That was long! But so fun. Really enjoyed this conversation between you two. Really inspirational as I have been learning Mandarin for just one month. But I definitely want to get the pronunciation right.

[@OlmoLungring]

非常感谢！I'm glad Laoma is here and I can hear him slow down a little bit. I sometimes quit watching his channel because it's too fast for my poor level, but maybe he could do more videos with a speed more like this, oriented to learners. Thank you very much for your hard work with everything and also the subtitles, but Rita老师, if it's not asking too much, could you please provide the Chinese subtitles as CC on KZbin, instead of embedded on the screen? (since you already do the hard work of including them, CC should be actually easier). There are many readers, software, etc like LingQ that can be used to import CC subtitles, and therefore it's a more useful learning tool.

[@andrewbyrnes6389]

It feels like he is trying to speak as fast as he can. Not sure why

[@chrisfrye5153]

BTW, thank you for doing this. I've been interested in the story of how you learned and lessons learned for a while now.

[@BrockMak]

21:17 Before I fixed my English, I somehow worked out the little rules on the ways to speak Cantonese more correctly by reading the old fashioned dictionaries, but even now, I can't really explain how the "ing" in Mandarin is different from Cantonese. Two examples: If you ignore tones, 菱 (ling)and 寧 (ning) are both spelt the same in respective "pinyin's", yet they still sound different.

[@BrockMak]

It was the same when I moved to NZ and really set and fixed my accent. I lived in HK, so I was fine in spelling and grammar, but my pronunciation was all over the place. Once I set out to try and default to modern RP instead of Kiwi accent (18:12 I even tried the modernized BBC standard accent, but when I listen to others who also has he same accent, it sounded a bit fake), it just made understanding other Northern English accents a bit easier. But because I aim for clarity and accuracy before fluency, since I don't speak very fast even when I speak in my mother tongue (Cantonese), and my voice tire out easily, even now in my new job, where I'm constantly talking on the phone.

[@Tech_Publica]

You are an awesomely interesting and nice person, Chris, and you know something...? I really think you should teach Chinese online besides English. I usually think very strongly that languages should only be taught by native speakers, but in your case, due to the high level of your Chinese and how quickly and effectively you were able to learn it I think that sharing and in some way "cloning" the best of your Chinese learning journey with other people could be invaluable and a real gift to the community of Chinese learners! Maybe a course taught in tandem with Rita would be the perfect combination.... Think about it!

[@grimfang4]

Really great interview and insights. The circumstances aren't quite possible for everyone, though, as not everyone is in a place in life where they can take that amount of time and expense to study.

[@BrockMak]

19:31 I once got to a point where I learnt jargons from emergency services. I didn't watch medical dramas like ER or House, but actual reality shows or talk shows like Ambulance Australia, Paramedics, Dr. Oz to build the vocabulary in that field, so at the very least I could volunteer as a translator or interpreter in hospitals. While I didn't end up doing that, it made me talk more succinctly when I have to call for emergency services, and I can slip in the lingo a bit. I can at the very least read and understand my own blood test results without help.

[@QuizmasterLaw]

Ustedes son uno equipaje muy bueno, des modellos; mi espanol no es tan bueno. 你们太帮偶！ 真好课堂! You're both great! Love learning from you, language power couple!

[@cinstinasrenatou]

Yesterday I had a first lesson with a new student who took lessons for a year at the Confucius institute... We had just a very basic introduction to Chinese pronunciation... and the student told me she never heard any of it, that her previous teacher (from China) never told them anything about pronunciation... Maybe she read the book from Beiyu :))

[@reinamartinez-max5341]

I love this interview! I learned a lot listening to You both❤

[@eddyc9159]

wow Rita should be a professor at a university or the very least have a job as a journalist. i have never seen anyone able to dissect a conversation and at the same time make it positive. I am deaf and growing up teachers never bothered to correct my mistakes so i grew up thinking i was "Okay"

[@calmontes651]

Rita’s course is amazing 🎉

[@robert-antoinedenault5901]

Salutations from an retired French teacher It's weird to hear that Asian teachers generally never took into account the positioning of the tongue and the "proper" mouth opening. Whereas when they (Asians and any other immigrants) come to the west those "techniques" were especially taught in French lessons (even for us nationals😵‍💫😮‍💨). As elocution, clarity, intonation and pronunciation are the back bone of the French language. French is a language with conjugations, flexions, opposition between masculine and feminine, articles, singular and plural… Words (verbs, pronouns…) can have different forms according to their function in the sentence. Hellish to say the least. Chinese has it's simplicities as English does but as an agglutinating language (a morpheme = a word) it's syllabic writing system and the fact that it's a tonal language (which means that tone plays an huge role in creating new meanings) therefore good pronunciation is key for proper understanding of what is being convey. Both languages are fascinating. But don’t try to learn a language because it is easier. Every language is demanding, if you want to speak it on a good level, put the energy you need to and not the one you want to. All these efforts will be compensated by the lively interactions that our international world has to offer. ☺ 我真的很喜歡這個視頻。 通過克里斯的經歷向我們展示，只能幫助其他人理解一些非常重要的東西需要注意 Ce fut un plaisir, continuez à nous fournir de l'informations positives. Merci.

[@polyronin]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! 辛苦了! 这种视频十分有用，好建议不少。👍🙏

[@kimsanlim1520]

great to see a collab!

[@ralphjuvency1086]

太棒了！我非常喜欢你们俩个，加蓬以来

[@christian.dewanto7498]

7:27 8:42 9:08

[@paulina461]

Very interesting! Thank you! I follow both Rita and Chris and always enjoy when they present together. I could not find the Speater on Google Play Store or on Apple Store. Could someone give me more information about this app?

[@乔木-k5i]

*我现在在冲击中文发音的巅峰-演绎级别。中文配音实在是太难了。老师说我嘴懒，还爱吞字，有很明显的北方方言（极有可能是因为被北京女朋友带跑了😂）。我觉得学中文还有一个好得方法就是去猫耳FM听广播剧。跟播音主持不一样的是，配音表演在中文发音至少一乙的水平以上（几乎都能达到一甲）同时还要自然，就像在生活中说话一样。但类似新闻联播里那种一甲水平虽然是普通话水平中的最高水准，但却是“不说人话”（虽然近些年播音主持也越来越讲究自然、生活化，但是依旧不能与配音表演相提并论）因为在真正的生活中，没有人会像播新闻一样说话（很少有人会在现实生活中保持一甲的水平说话）。*

[@QuizmasterLaw]

the best tactic for tones, i think, is to take them seriously, they are VERY important BUT to learn them experientially, passively, with lots and lots of repetititious listening to native speakers producing sample sentences or content in context. I just don't think there's any effective, let alone rapid, way to internalize tones through e.g. rote repetition Maybe repeating out loud the word when filling in a character worksheet? but that's not how i learned hanzi nor would it be how i recommend to learn the characters. i'm really fucking lazy, just learn passively by CONSTANT passive repetitive listening and reading.

[@FFFF-ct6oj]

I watch Caso Cerrado to improve my Spanish.

[@型爽]

乐乐中文不错❤

[@BrockMak]

19:45 "focus"

[@taokaiji7021]

Very great video

[@kresnic02cr45]

Me corresponderá aplicar éste método a ver si mejoro, me identifico mucho con tu esposo en ese sentido hasta centroamericano soy jaja. 谢谢呀。😁

[@christian.dewanto7498]

9:08 the word jin 3rd tone Jinliang , did laoma say jinliang Jin with 3rd tone or 1st tone? my ear feels like hearing jin on the 1st tone rather than 3rd🤔

[@lewis-m]

我喜欢你这个视频的缩略图！快笑死我了

[@RitaChinese]

哈哈希望看完视频也让你这么高兴😆🙌

[@egistbalegistbal7720]

Hi,could you please upload more lecture videos to your channel?Thanks.

[@RitaChinese]

I'll be making a lot more content so make sure to keep an eye out! Thanks for watching!

[@egistbalegistbal7720]

@@RitaChinese Thank you very much

[@wushantao]

对我个人而言，英语进步最有帮助是两个阶段，第一个阶段是一个外企，大家用英文交流，我敢张嘴了。第二个阶段是国内开始流行看美剧，第一时间的话是没有中文字幕的，我又喜欢追新就硬着头皮先看一遍英文字幕的，之后等几个小时，中文字幕的来了，我再看一遍，这次中文字幕再看一遍，我就会知道哪里理解有问题，哪些单词是什么意思。现在我已经脱离语言环境很多很多年，日常用到的也仅仅是看电影看美剧……很多年没有任何进步甚至在退步了……听说读写用1到10的话，不用辅助，自我评价写2分，读4分，说6分，听7分

[@chrisfrye5153]

Umm.. what did you actually say for mouth at 20:30? Seems like there was an extra syllable compared to the transcription...

[@Rianyeryer]

He just added a 這個 after 口腔裡

[@chrisfrye5153]

@Rianyeryer Thanks. I listened to it again and I can't even hear what I thought I heard before. When I listen to it now, it seems to be as you said, 这个 follows it. Thank you.

[@ardianafandhi]

i need mandarin teacher from indo, who can teach me mandarin using Indonesian as the basis of communication... Can Rita speak Indonesian?

[@manuelgomez4508]

This guy speak Spanish too. He is latino. His mother is from Honduras.

[@RitaChinese]

Yeah he speaks Spanish at home, and I'm trying to learn a little bit now 😎

[@manuelgomez4508]

@@RitaChinese 👍. Hola

[@adrianhanz3649]

我只是好奇。我是个华侨。我缺点可能就是。。虽然我写作没问题，但我发音就有点南方的味儿。我也是受英文教育的。在新加坡长大。用的是美式英语。我从小就接触台湾中文。。你的课能不能帮我修改，或纠正我的发音。。。我自己本身也有天津朋友，在网上跟我聊天帮我。。我本身也有紧跟着靳东，田雨，当然也关注了马斯瑞的发音。我就跟着他们的标准。谢谢你的答复。

[@guangyang547]

没关系，很多国内的人也说不好普通话。

[@fangyuezou5798]

有南方的口音没有任何问题 并不需要纠正啊

[@zcris796]

港澳台地区和国内的中文多多少少有点区别，不影响交流就好

[@gaelookair]

英语界有类似侯宝林和丁广泉的人吗, 不止一次发现有人推荐侯宝林了, 我感觉我离学好英语就差一个英文侯宝林

[@daoyanjoe6447]

想你们俩了

[@bingolittle8725]

You should ask 乐乐法利

[@willhartmandarin]

果然我就是要开始练绕口令了 哈哈哈

[@leticiabravo1034]

I'm beginning in chinese but too fast🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@RitaChinese]

Good luck with your studies! Just take it step by step.

[@cccb2878]

吓我一跳，我还以为是乐乐法雷那厮...

[@lindaliu5148]

I swear that is Phillip Chbeeb

[@RitaChinese]

😆

[@tomigrgicevic]

I don't really understand this obsession with pronunciation. Imitation is the best teacher to learn how to pronounce well. Children do not learn to pronounce well with a phonetics teacher. I have lived for more than 30 years in Canada (Quebec - French-speaking part) as a European immigrant and I have met thousands of immigrants who have learned French. There's one thing I've noticed: if an immigrant immigrated and started learning French before the age of about 15, he won't have the accent of his native language when he speaks French. If he learned it after 15 or 20 years, he retains, to a different degree, the accent of his mother tongue. If in language teaching, little emphasis is placed on the positioning of the tongue and mouth during pronounciation, it is because this method is very ineffective. My humble advice is to simply listen carefully to how native speakers speak and try to imitate as much as possible. And, anyway, it's not that bad at all to keep the accent of your mother tongue. What is important is to be able to communicate well, to make yourself understood well and to express what you want to say well. All non-French-speaking immigrants I know in Quebec have an accent when speaking French, with the exception of those who immigrated as children with their parents. And they can communicate very well with native speakers.

[@aloner9496]

谢谢你们 我得走了 练习发音

[@tettoibattibamon4251]

Chinese girls look super cute.

[@TheBulletPointOfASoldier]

It’s sad to know this is all you got from a 45 mins video everyone benefited from.

[@odu6918]

@@TheBulletPointOfASoldierright?! So weird

[@anjinhogreen_eyes393]

40:09 -14🤣🤣🤣

[@tomigrgicevic]

He speaks so fast! Not easy to follow if you are in learning process.

[@leeren_]

wtf he got to this level in 1 year???

[@JustinTsang168]

夫唱妇随 可以

[@aoeu256]

Him passing HSK5 in one year is a lie I think...

[@TheBulletPointOfASoldier]

Not necessary a lie. It depends on the environment and how much work he puts . I had a North Korean classmate who passed 6 in less than 1 year.

[@QuizmasterLaw]

i just figure that people with thick foreign accents (any country any language) are inexperienced rather than lazy or thoughtless. i don't think a proper or bad foreign accent is repulsive or endearing in and of itself.

[@luckytiger311]

老马不是之一是第一，何威现在和老马并列第一😀

[@alexkwok394]

亲一个