Mandarin Chinese is one of the hardest languages to learn for native English speakers. Yet Mandarin Chinese is now a really popular and demanding language around the world. Despite being among the hardest languages to learn we can master Mandarin the quickest way possible if we study hard in a smart way. The quickest here I mean as quickly as possible but it still requires a lot of time and hard work. You have to accept that learning Mandarin is a marathon, not a sprint, it takes time to digest but you can speed up the process.
For the purpose of this article, I will detail the way to learn Mandarin at home with low budget spending and not required to go to classes. I will write about an efficient way to learn Mandarin along with your class in future articles, but not let's get going with our self-learning process!
Set things clear and write down your purpose for learning Mandarin
This is the first step you need to define your purpose of learning whether it be for work, for communication, for pleasure, or for any other purpose. This could set you to focus on speaking, listening, or writing depending on your purpose and it could boost the speed of learning. You have to remember the purpose that you want to learn so you won't lose track or give up. Having a purpose is also a motivation to keep going on so it is a really important step.
Another important thing is to know whether you want to learn to write Chinese or not. Because learning to write in Chinese takes way much more time in your learning process. I recommend only focusing on writing if it is really really necessary.
Tips for learning Mandarin on Youtube
I made a lot of mistakes learning Mandarin on Youtube, and one of the biggest mistakes is that I try to watch any video coming in the feed. I learn from many Youtube channels and it really slows down my process and I couldn't catch on well. If you plan to learn from Youtube you need to find only one channel that has the following series in order that fits your level that's how you can see the progress. You also need to commit your time and have a notebook to highlight the important things and remind that later. Don't just watch one video to the other do it one by one. You need to understand each video before moving on.
Learning Mandarin with Textbook
There are plenty of Mandarin textbooks I learned from HSK textbooks so let's use HSK for example. Learning along with the text really helps structure the way of learning I can track every day of my progress and know what level I am in.
Tips for learning Mandarin with textbook
To be more effective you also need the workbook along with the textbook ( For HSK it contains the textbook, workbook, and audio CDs ). For learning through the textbook you should:
1. Listen to the dialogue and try to understand
2. Read the text and try to recognize the characters
3. Look at the translation of the text
Learning with a textbook requires a lot more listening so you need to find the audio for the book ( For HSK the audio is also available on Youtube ). Whenever you have the time you should listen to podcasts, watch Mandarin shows, listening to songs whether you don't understand much but you will get the tone.
Find Buddies to practice speaking Mandarin
If you have Chinese buddies who you can practice with, it will be a good boost. But if you are like me with no Chinese buddies there are online communities to find friends to practice the language. An example is Language. exchange and there are plenty out there you can find. But if you are still like me an introverted person who finds it hard to connect with people or they are not interested in you then the choice is to practice speaking out on your own and listening and watching a lot of Mandarin shows.
Anyway finding buddies to practice the language is really important to boost your learning (It's optional for people like us) you can connect with them by WeChat or QQ as most Chinese have these Apps.
Set Schedule of Mandarin Comprehensible Input
Comprehensible Input is the language that is intelligible to us so that we can understand the meaning but we have to understand all the single words or grammar. This is like a baby that learns a new language through listening to and watching his/her parents or relative talking. We all have done that in the past when we were babies so why can't we do that again for a new language?
We don't have such a time with our parents so we can practice that through TV shows, podcasts, and watching movies on Netflix or youtube anything convenient to you.
Hope this helps you with your learning Mandarin journey from home. Remember that learning a new language should be fun and you should enjoy the process that how you will achieve your goal.
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