This Lie is Stopping You Reaching Fluency

[@son_o_day]

I'm learning Vietnamese atm but I always watch your videos because I think the tips you give for learning Mandarin can also be applied to any language!

[@willhartmandarin]

That's great! Best of luck!

[@SassMode]

Getting into the habit of talking to yourself because you start practicing the idea of filling in what I call “the potholes” or the parts of language you either don’t know or need to revise. You can then make lists of new words, use flash cards, practice them with your tutor, build on your vocab and improve significantly.

[@willhartmandarin]

Awesome points, totally agree! Thanks for sharing!

[@thekhokirov7871]

威哥，你不是个疯子 其实你的这个第三方法实在很有用的. 我刚开始的时候也是这样做，结果口语进步了不少. 跟我校的其他相比，我口语说得相对不错. 我已经1年多在关注你，小哥😂，我使用了很多被你提到的建议。谢谢，有缘再见

[@willhartmandarin]

谢谢你呀！一起加油！

[@Reflekt0r]

你的视频越来越好了！

[@willhartmandarin]

谢啦！

[@DanielLeoSimpson]

Hi Will - I decided to 'add' the mysterious part 3 after watching your video this morning. When I went downstairs, I took my iPhone out of my pocket and asked Talkpal how to say whatever it is I'm doing - washing a cup, drying a cup, etc. If I notice it's a sunny day, I ask Talkpal how to say that and Emma gives me audio, pinyin and correct Mandarin, then generally makes a comment of encouragement and a "followup" question which I do not focus on... I'm more interested in learning the phrase I want to master. Just between then and 3pm I put all in a Notepad file which I'll start a habit beginning tonight to review each sentence before the day ends. This means I use snips of time to learn Chinese, and learn relevant expressions that I can easily remember and master. Thanks Will! 我在洗杯子。(Wǒ zài xǐ bēizǐ.) I'm washing the cup. 很不错！你喜欢喝什么？ (Hěn bùcuò! Nǐ xǐhuān hē shénme?) Very good! What do you like to drink? 我在洗杯子。很不错！你喜欢喝什么？ I fill the cup with water. 我把杯子装满水。很好！你喜欢喝水吗？ 上楼来。你要做什么？ I’m going upstairs. What do you want to do? 我明白了。你要去楼上做什么呢？ How do I say in Mandarin? I’m going upstairs. 你可以说：“我上楼。” (Wǒ shàng lóu.) 很好，你学得很快！ How do you say in Chinese, I'm going downstairs. 你可以说：“我下楼。” (Wǒ xià lóu.) 做得很好！你学得很快！ 我喜欢学习汉语。(Wǒ xǐhuān xuéxí hànyǔ. ) I love learning Chinese. 太好了！你真棒！ 学习汉语很有趣。 Great! You are awesome! Learning Chinese is fun. 你喜欢什么汉语内容？ 非常好！你在学习汉语方面进步很快！ (Fēicháng hǎo! Nǐ zài xuéxí hànyǔ fāngmiàn jìnbù hěn kuài!) Excellent! You are making great progress in learning Chinese! Are you done? 用中文怎麼說? 你可以说：“你完成了吗？” (Nǐ wánchéng le ma?) I’m bringing the coffee upstairs 我把咖啡带上楼。(Wǒ bǎ kāfēi dài shàng lóu.) 非常好！你喜欢喝咖啡吗？ (Fēicháng hǎo! Nǐ xǐhuān hē kāfēi ma?) It's a sunny day. 用中文怎么说? 你可以说：“今天是一个晴天。” (Jīntiān shì yīgè qíngtiān.) 很好！天气很好时你喜欢做什么呢？ Hěn hǎo! Tiānqì hěn hǎo shí nǐ xǐhuān zuò shénme ne? Great! What do you like to do when the weather is nice? Last week it rained. 用中文怎麼說? 你可以说：“上个星期下雨了。” (Shàng gè xīngqī xià yǔ le.) 很好！你喜欢雨天还是晴天？ I'm washing the coffee pot. 用中文这么说。 你可以说：“我在洗咖啡壶。” (Wǒ zài xǐ kāfēi hú.) 做得很好！你喜欢喝什么咖啡呢？ Where is the bread? 用中文怎麼說? 你可以说：“面包在哪里？” (Miànbāo zài nǎlǐ?) 很好！你喜欢吃面包吗？ Last week it rained. 用中文怎麼說? 你可以说：“上个星期下雨了。” (Shàng gè xīngqī xià yǔ le.) 很好！你喜欢雨天还是晴天？ I'm washing the coffee pot. 用中文这么说。 你可以说：“我在洗咖啡壶。” (Wǒ zài xǐ kāfēi hú.) 做得很好！你喜欢喝什么咖啡呢？ What did you buy yesterday? 用中文怎麼說? 你可以说：“你昨天买了什么？” (Nǐ zuótiān mǎi le shénme?) 非常好！你昨天买了什么吗？ I want another piece 用中文在做什么 你可以说：“我想要另一块。” (Wǒ xiǎng yào lìng yī kuài.) 很好！你想要什么呢？ I like to eat a banana every morning. 用中文说什么? 你可以说：“我每天早上喜欢吃一个香蕉。” (Wǒ měitiān zǎoshang xǐhuān chī yīgè xiāngjiāo.) 真棒！你还喜欢吃什么水果吗？ I want to go brush my teeth, 你可以说：“我想去刷牙。” (Wǒ xiǎng qù shuāyá.) 很好！你喜欢刷牙吗？ I am washing the dishes, 你可以说：“我在洗碗。” (Wǒ zài xǐ wǎn.) 做得很好！你喜欢做家务吗？ How do you say I am washing the dishes in Chinese 你可以说：“我在洗碗。” (Wǒ zài xǐ wǎn.) 很好！你今天还做了什么呢？ How do you say I am drying the dishes in Chinese? 你可以说：“我在擦碗。” (Wǒ zài cā wǎn.) 做得很好！你喜欢做这个吗？

[@willhartmandarin]

Daniel this looks absolutely awesome! Always love hearing your Mandarin learning updates! 加油！

[@magdolnavida2717]

I also do the 3rd tip by myself...Just i often dont have the vocabulary to express myself...and the other important thing is : maybe I overpractice something which is not correct but there is noone to tell me about it, so wrong grammar or wrong method will be stuck in my mind which is more difficult to re-fix it. I ve got some online Chinese friends and we chat fluently about daily life...but the problem with that is they rather let you use wrong grammar and understand you,than correct you. But it causes the problem that you are going to think,wow,my chinese is good,we are talking fluently,I can express myself well so lots of expressions stuck in my head wrongly 😢 so...good advice, Will, but a controller is also needed!😊

[@willhartmandarin]

Totally agree! Really good points!

[@magdolnavida2717]

@@willhartmandarin thank you very much for your answer!🙏 😊I feel appreciated!

[@melonmind.eng333]

Thank you for the tip! Can you provide more context for the following? 1. How does listening passively create learning? Could you point me to the science behind it or explain it? I am really curious, been hearing it everywhere! 2. How do you "think in the target language" ? I"ve been trying to do this, but every single time, I need to resort to translating my english thoughts to the target language, and then thinking it or saying it out loud. It's a very slow process, and I am wondering if you were doing the same thing when first learning Mandarin. Is what I'm doing considered normal? Is this what you do too?

[@phen-themoogle7651]

1. Your brain is a pattern-learning machine, like how you listen to music and can sometimes remember the rhythm/melody/words from just listening, it's the same thing for languages too! We just remember bits and pieces when we listen and you might not even remember a full word the first time, but the more you do it the more your brain says "Oh yeah, I remember hearing that" even if you don't remember hearing something multiple times, you'll auto recall things the more you have exposure to them. (There's comprehensible input sites/channels that teach languages this way too, it's possible to learn languages even as adults without studying vocabulary/grammar, if you have enough input that you can understand in context..even easier if people are pointing to the actually objects when they say the words for you or a combo of visual and audio can go pretty far if it's targeted at the right level of learners, but in the end all immersion will pay off) 2. I'm fluent in Japanese so I know how to do this in Japanese (and overall kinda), and intermediate in Chinese /Spanish/Portuguese atm, thinking in the target language can be tricky if you're still at the beginner level, and don't have enough immersion/words and patterns flowing through your mind often. Yes, it's a slow process at first, you just collect certain sentences you would normally say in your native language often and then translate them first, and then try to think of the sentences in the target language after you know the vocab and until they become second nature or come out first before your native language (Try to have words represent pictures than other words). It becomes easier with more immersion, but you can start with the most common words and you think in the most simplistic terms or ways than super long or hard sentences. I recommend starting out with 2-5 word sentences or something short that you hear often too! It's a lot easier than translating a paragraph and just memorizing a paragraph at one time. As he mentioned, you break things down into smaller pieces, and they eventually naturally come together if you are consistent overall. Don't worry, what you are doing is considered normal for most learners. Even if you don't understand anything though, I highly recommend what he's saying to boost your listening input time. it's really hard to do output if you don't have enough input, children are a good example of that, but at least as adults we only need a couple thousand hours of input to potentially get fluent. (could be years in both cases though still) And there's a plethora of ways to study and learn, which can make it confusing and hard sometimes. SO I feel your pain and struggles too! xD

[@melonmind.eng333]

@@phen-themoogle7651 thank youo for the detailed response! Glad to see that our brain is doing the work in the background. I will start with small sentences in the thinking aspect :)

[@timbradshaw5481]

@@melonmind.eng333 I don't know if this is helpful, but apparently what you learn about before sleeping gets coded into your brain very effectively. The last 2 months, I read for 20-30 minutes a chinese story every night aloud before sleeping. And I think that definitely helps my pronunciation, word recognisition and sentence patterns. I also think it's way more useful than passive listening, because that can be tuned out so easily. I don't know how effective it is, but I imagine it's mostly useless compared to active activities.

[@Wolfgam]

Your channel is very good. Love your content, keep going. The best I've found about chinese content for now.

[@willhartmandarin]

Thanks, will do!

[@xuexizhongwen]

Great tips for getting more passive listening and speaking practice. Good reminder to use well the limited time we have. I can speak fluently within the domain of daily life, but I don’t speak as eloquently as you do. I think for me I mostly have to get a lot of words from passive to active vocabulary, so they will just roll off the tongue. Like in this video, you used some words like 一來二去，可想而知，預防針, that I can understand but have never used in a conversation.

[@willhartmandarin]

Yeah I think that's the hardest part about learning Mandarin, you can hear something a lot of times but it can still be quite hard to get it into active vocabulary

[@sargentopimienta5190]

视频剪辑越来越棒了，内容也挺不错继续加油！我也会继续看你的视频咯 😎

[@willhartmandarin]

谢啦！

[@chingizberikbaev]

You are a good man. Sorry, if I am not able to do the right things. It also about relationships between student and teacher

[@idittaibi1757]

非常好视频，谢谢你☺️

[@chingizberikbaev]

I feel nervous when somebody always show agression to me

[@thaa472]

I want to ask you, when I'm listening to Chinese while doing other tasks, how can I remember what is being said? And how can I remember the vocabulary? Moreover, should I listen to many podcasts, or just listen to one podcast multiple times?

[@willhartmandarin]

If you can, when listening, note down a small number of phrases that you want to learn and put them in anki later on in the day and you'll remember them! As for what to listen to I think a combination of the two methods that you've suggested would be good

[@thaa472]

@@willhartmandarin So, if I listen to a podcast, can I listen while also looking at the transcript? Will this method help improve my listening skills, or should I listen without the transcript?

[@Blitzcheweif]

TYSM!!! I still have one question tho... I'm currently learning chinese through vlogs on yt, but I always have to pause the vid, cause my brain isn't used to the chinese language just yet, so the only way I can understand anything is whenever I take the time to read the characters thoroughly and translate it all in my head. Wouldn't it be counterproductive if I just listened to chinese without thinking the whole time, or would you still recommend it to a newbie like me? (I just started learning three months ago :) btw I always talk to myself in english when nobody's home haha

[@magdolnavida2717]

the same with me！ good question！😊

[@PlaguevonKarma]

自言自语对我非常有用，说了这样1年了很快地进展，到HSK4级似乎5了。可是语法还是很糟糕…… 谢谢你的视频～

[@willhartmandarin]

不客气！谢谢你的评论 :)

[@Asdfjglqeertuiiop]

If I’m studying Japanese, should I be studying Chinese too? I’m taking the N2 JLPT this year but I wanna improve my Chinese and I’m afraid my listening skills are gonna slide if I stop

[@Thejeffe258]

Keep up a good work!

[@willhartmandarin]

Thanks, will do!

[@chingizberikbaev]

I can't work with agression to me

[@LinJunli-b7p]

When I watch videos in my target language on Netflix or whatever, should i have the subtitles on too? For the target language or in native? Im not at a stage where I could watch (and understand) without subs.

[@Conner-sp3qh]

I was wondering the same thing. 🤔

[@willhartmandarin]

I would suggest only target language subs if possible

[@jackbombay1423]

If you don't understand the language, it's pointless to watch it. So, use your native language subtitles; otherwise, you will just be hearing 'noise,' wasting time, and you will eventually quit. Many people advise the contrary, but that approach will make you stop at every sentence to look up words and get frustrated. I don't know how that would work, to be honest. If you try using target subtitles, let me know how it goes or how you make it work-I'm curious. I've been watching with native subtitles in Russian and French. I don't know if using target language subtitles is more efficient because, after two years, I'm still not fluent, but I can understand A LOT. I started from zero and haven't opened a book to learn grammar or vocabulary. So, if you're wondering whether you can learn a lot of vocabulary this way-yes, you can. I also download the audio from the series or films I watch to listen to the language without any context from the visuals. This helps test if you're actually improving or just fooling yourself, and it works. With each iteration, I rewatch the same series or films from time to time. Every time, I understand a bit more and pick up something new I missed before. So, I think this method works, but it's slow. I'm still not sure if there's a faster way, but I know for sure that using Anki for vocabulary isn't the solution. Don't worry too much if the transcription isn't 100% accurate-you will eventually catch up, and it's an ego boost to understand that the dub and the transcription, even though they express the same thing, often use completely different words. I also tried 'dual' subtitles that I created myself (target language at the top of the screen and native language at the bottom, or vice versa), but honestly, I think they are mostly useless. I'm now planning to watch everything with target language subtitles because, nowadays, I can understand a lot and want to see if that approach helps me improve faster. If you're wondering: even though I haven't practiced reading a lot, I can actually read French and Russian. I'm not sure how that happened, but it seems to work for languages with alphabets. However, for languages like Chinese, this method probably won't work unless you intentionally learn the basics of the writing system. I also talk to myself a lot-I always have-and I sometimes find myself thinking in either Russian or French. I think this comes naturally once your brain is immersed in the language. That said, I feel like I only truly speak one language because I mix all four languages together. Anyway, good luck!

[@jackbombay1423]

@@willhartmandarin I'm curious. How can you make that work if you don't understand the language?

[@son_o_day]

@@jackbombay1423 I think that's why It's recommended to watch tv shows or cartoons aimed at children or a younger audience in your target language at first because it often uses simpler language that you'd be more familiar with as a beginner. Save yourself watching the latest Netflix show like Squid games until you're at least B1 level in the language I'd say. Whenever I meet people who speak english as second language and I ask them how they got so good, most tell me that they learned english by just watching lots of tv in english.. so it obviously works..

[@amodingmacy314]

谢谢

[@5098056a]

自言自语，如果遇到不会的单词或者表达应该下一步怎么办？

[@XianFeng-b9d]

谢谢老师

[@XianFeng-b9d]

从缅甸坚持您

[@willhartmandarin]

不客气！

[@safahill4779]

❤❤❤

[@yuenatv]

you always break down tips so well (u‿ฺu✿) listening a lot really helps with the third point (mystery!) because it kind of brainwashes u HAHA ～i did this with chinese yesterday and this morning i put on a podcast and was SHOOK i knew more words than usual. crazy

[@willhartmandarin]

I'm so glad it's been helpful!

[@amber9290]

有时候我对我的狗用汉语说话。他们一定会觉得我这个人很奇怪

[@AnnaHans88]

あ、同じ！ よく猫に日本語を話しますw

[@willhartmandarin]

我以前也经常跟我们家狗说中文 哈哈哈

[@thedinobros1218]

这会给我音调的能力吗？

[@chingizberikbaev]

What lie?😅

[@lushinasmr]

The "lie" he is referring to is what he mentions in the beginning! He explained that a lot of people think you need to move to a country where your target language is spoken to be able to be in a proper environment for learning, but you can just create your own environment with whatever resources you can think of at home