6 Personal Advices to Learn Chinese Efficiently

I studied the Chinese language 40 years ago and it took me 9 months to reach a level where I’d translate newspaper from English to mandarin and from Mandarin to English, interpret for pole and read novels, I did this in the period of the tape recorder, long before the time of internet, Chinese learning apps, YouTube, online dictionaries and other tools.

If I reflect on what I did, I find that were 6 main things that helped me a lot to learn faster than other students who were studying Chinese with me. Below I am going to share with you each of these tips on how to learn the mandarin language which you might want to apply to your studies.

Listen to Chinese as often as possible 

The primary month or maybe 2, just focus on listening to mandarin! Start out focusing on mandarin listening. Just get used to the appropriate sounds, you’d read suchlike you’re listening to, but do so using a phonetic writing way, such as Pinyin, in order to get a proper sense of what you’re hearing. You’ll have to understand the Chinese characters ultimately but you can leave the mandarin characters out at first, and instead, try to get a slight momentum in the mandarin language.

It is very hard to start learning characters when you do not have any sense of the mandarin, what they sound like, or how they actually work together. A new language can sound like an undifferentiated tone at the starting. The primary step is to become accustomed to the individual sounds of the mandarin, to learn the different characters from each other, and even to have some words and phrases reverberating in your mind.

My first intro of Chinese was listening to Mandarin Dialogues, intermediate lines with no characters, just Romanization, in this case, the Yale version of it. Today, Pinyin has become standard from a Romanization for Chinese. In Mandarin dialogues, the narrator spoke quickly I thought he was torturing us. But it worked great. After one month or so I was utilized to speed and had a send of the mandarin language.

As ab aside I think it is a fine idea to start learning a language with intermediate-level words that include a lot of repetition of vocabulary, rather than overly easy beginner texts. Audiobooks and Podcasts are good for this purpose. The Chinese mini-stories are an instance of the type of point of view stories, with a huge deal of repetition of extreme frequency verbs that are available now. These were not available to me. Watching TV shows and films is another great way to get lots of Mandarin listening in.

With a sense of this existing new language and a few aural comprehension, my motivation to learn the Chinese characters grew. I wanted to understand the characters for the words that I had been listening to and getting utilized to.

So that advice No.1, to focus on listening to Chinese and Pinyin for the first couple of months.

Give Time to Memorizing Mandarin Characters

The study of Mandarin is a long-term project. It’ll bring you in touch with it and the Chinese culture of well over 20 percent of humanity and a major influence on the history of the world. For this reason, I forever recommend learning mandarin characters if you’re going to learn Chinese.

Once you decide to learn characters, work at them regularly. Give half an hour to an hour each day just on learning Chinese characters. Use whatever technique you want, but set aside dedicated Chinese character learning time each day. 

But why daily?

Because you’ll forget the Chinese characters almost as fast as you learn them, and therefore need to relearn them continuously. You might want to use cchatty tools and flashcards to understand characters. I had a set of 1k small cardboard flashcards with the most regular 1000 Chinese characters. I had a sheet of squared paper to practice writing these frequent Chinese characters.

I’d pick up 1 card, and write the character ten times down 1 column on the squared paper and then write the pronunciation or meaning of few columns over. Then I’d pick up another flashcard and do the same process. Very soon, I ran into the meaning/sound of the earlier mandarin character that I had written there.

I then wrote that out again multiple times, hopefully before I had forgotten it. I did this for the first one thousand characters. After that, I was capable to learn them by reading and discovering new Chinese characters, and randomly writing them out by hand sometimes.

As we progress, learning new mandarin characters becomes simpler because several elements repeat in the characters. The mandarin characters all have Radicals components that give a hint of the meaning of a mandarin character. There’re also components of the mandarin characters which suggest that sound. These Chinese radicals are very helpful to understanding the characters, though not at first.

As with so much in Chinese language learning, too much explanation upfront is a distraction of getting the language. I found that the key efforts of professionals to explain these and other components at the early phases of any learning were not to got avail. I did not understand them. Only after enough exposure, did I begin to notice the components and that sped up my learning of the mandarin characters.

Advice No.2 is to put a constant effort into understanding characters.

Understand Patterns Rather than Rules

Focus on patterns. Do not get caught up in complicated grammar explanations, only focus on patterns. When it was learning we had a wonderful Book by P.S. Ni and Harriet Mills. It was called intermediate readier in Chinese. In every single lesion, they introduced patterns and tome that how I sort of got a sense of Chinese language worked. The patterns were the frames around which I’d build what I desired to say.

I’ve absolutely no sense of grammar or terms, yet I’m quite fluent. I’ve seen books that introduce some special grammar rules for mandarin. I do not think they’re necessary. It’s great to get used to the technique of the pattern that mandarin natives use to convey things that we convey in English using English patterns. Mandarin has rather uncomplicated, one of the pleasures of learning mandarin. There’re no conjugations, genders, declensions, complicated tense, verb aspects, or another source of confusion that are found in several European languages.

Advice No.3 there’s to focus on patterns, write them out and say them to yourself, utilize them when writing or speaking, and watch for them when you read and listen.

Read Mandarin more than you can handle 

Read mandarin a lot. If I learned faster than my fellows 40 years ago, it’s because I read all I’d get my hands on. I read much more than others. I’m not just talking about special words for learners, but rather a huge range of material on subjects of interest to me. I was assisted by the fact the Yale in Mainland had a great series of Chinese readers with glossaries for every chapter.

We started with learner material, Chinese dialogues, and then graduated to a graded history called Lectures on Chinese Culture. This was a fascinating option for me to learn about Chinese culture and history while learning the language.

The book consisted only of contents and glossary, no complicated explanations, no questions. When it looks at a few of the textbooks available now aimed at intermediate and even advanced learners, they’re complete of boring content about fictional people in Mainland, someone at university, who met his buddy or went to the barber or went skating, followed by drills and explanations. Not a great idea unless you’re interested in these subjects.

I graduated from lectures on Chinese culture to intermediate readers in current Chinese out. This was a reader with real texts from modern mandarin politics and history. Every lesion introduced patterns and kept explanations and drills to a minimum or maybe I just ignore them. 

Before the arrival of online dictionaries, it was very hard and time-consuming to consult a mandarin dictionary. Since we forget most of the things we see up in the dictionary, this was a huge waste of time. I built my vocabulary using these and finally was able to read a book without vocabulary, just ignoring the mandarin characters and words that I didn’t know. After 7 or 8 months I read my 1st novel, Rickshaw Boy which is a very famous novel about life in current-day Beijing during the turbulent first half of the twentieth century, written by Lao She.

Advice No.4 is to read mandarin as much as you can. This is much simple now. You can find material on the internet use online dictionaries and tools.

Get the Rhythm of Mandarin to Expert to Tones

Focus on mandarin listening, I tried to whatever content I was reading, reading helps you learn Chinese vocabulary, but listening helps you link with the language and get prepared to speak. Listening comprehension is the core ability essentially in order to engage in discussion with people.

One of the challenges of the Chinese is the tones. We learn the tones of every character as we get vocabulary, but it’s hard to keep in mind these when speaking. It’s vital to internalize the tones as part of phrases. Listening to the native Chinese speaker. You cannot learn it theoretically.

In particular, I found listening to conventional mandarin dialogues, 相声, Xiang Sheng, the best way to get the rhythm of the language and the Chinese tones, since these performers exaggerate the intonation. Currently, you can find these on the internet, including transcripts, and even import them into the system. This was not available in my time.

There’s a huge array of listening material available for download on every possible subject, or you can purchase CDs if you’re in China. In current time, all material you can easily find on the internet, or material you might find on CDs, can be converted into downloadable files which can have with you wherever you go on a mobile or MP3 player. Regula listening, even for small-time 5 to 10 minutes while you are waiting somewhere, can dramatically boost the time available of learning any language. Including Chinese.

Take benefit and listen to Chinese whenever you can. That’s Advice No.5.

Speak a lot and do not second guess 

The primary sound of Chinese is not hard for an English speaker to make. The Chinese tones are a different story. You’ll need to practice as much as you can, both speaking to yourself and speaking to others. Practice imitating what you’re listening to. Find lines for which you have the audio to listen to a sentence or phrase, then try to imitate the intonation, without worrying too much about individual sounds.

You might even need to record yourself to match up to. If you can get connected with the rhythm of the Chinese language, not only will your control of tones enhance, but your choice of Chinese words will also become more native speaker-like.

When you speak, do not second guess your words on tones, or any other aspects of the language. Just let the Chinese words and phrases you’ve heard and practiced flow out, mistakes and all. Each time you use mandarin you’re practicing and getting used to it. If you enjoy interacting in Mandarin, if you enjoy getting in the follow, singing to the mandarin rhythm, then your Chinese will continue to improve.

Do not worry about mastering pronunciation at the starting. We can’t pronounce what we do not hear, nor imitate sounds and intonation that do not resonate with us. To develop the ability to hear mandarin and to feel the tones of the language, we simply have to listen for thousands of hours and let the brain get used to the mandarin. You cannot rush this process. Instead, you’d trust the fact that you’ll gradually get better. Therefore whatever phase you’re in mandarin, just speak without any fear and trust your instincts. If you continue your listening and reading process, and if you continue speaking, your speaking abilities will naturally boost.

At the same time, you can check out those tips from some great experts:

Learning Languages Tips and Advice from the Experts