So you want to learn Chinese fast? I have wasted so much time trying different ways to learn Chinese and here are my tips: what I wish I knew when I first started learning Chinese.
You can do it!
Do you want to learn Chinese for language, love, or work? It is important to really understand your why.
Whatever your reasons, know that You can do it! It’s not that difficult, it’s all a matter of your mindset and focus. It’s just a matter of investing the time (and money). It is so amazing to have a new language and skill that you can use. Keep focusing on that goal of how amazing it will be. How valuable will it be for you?
Enjoy it!
However you’re learning, you’ve got to enjoy it, because otherwise you’ll just give up. So have fun in your learning. Find fun and interesting ways to learn. A trip to China, social activities with Chinese friends, Chinese movies. The more fun you are having the better.
Find a great teacher
This is the most important thing when you are starting out. You need to find a great course or teacher so you can learn the basics quickly. It’s much more time consuming to learn a language 100% by yourself compared to a great teacher.
You can enroll in a Chinese course, or a 1 on 1 teacher can be quicker. Maybe a combination is better. It doesn’t really matter, just choose one which you will enjoy.
For me, I took trial classes with many different teachers to find the best ones.
Important Tools
Get ready for your learning with these essential tools:
– BLCU 1 on 1 Classes – learn Chinese online with this Chinese university
– Italki – find a tutor online here and get learning!
– Anki – the best app to learn Chinese characters
– Google extension – hover over Chinese characters to see their meanings
– Google Pinyin – for writing Chinese
– Google translate – for understanding text
– Pleco – dictionary
– HSK Online – a great fun way to learn Chinese
– Peking University HSK course
– Youtube – such as Mandarin corner
– Chinese podcasts and audio and movies. – the more experience you have the better.
Try lots of other apps and have fun when you are doing it.
Set a Goal
If you want to learn Chinese properly you need to set a goal. What is your big goal? Something exciting, and then your why, and then set up smaller goals.
The best goal is a daily goal.
You need to set up a daily goal and keep studying each day. Your knowledge compounds over time.
A great daily goal can be:
– study for 1 hour each day
– learn 30 new Chinese words everyday
– listen to an audio podcast each day
– have 1 Chinese class per day
It is really important that you study everyday. If you study intensively for 1 week, then the next week you will stop studying Chinese, you will start forgetting and your level will go backwards.
This is inevitable – other things and priorities come up. But it is so important to keep studying everyday.
Learning Chinese is not linear
You will have times where your Chinese improves quickly, such as the start, but then you will have times where you are still studying hard but no progress or even you get worse.
It is easy to feel motivated when you are learning things fast and have the feeling of growing and improving.
But when you are working hard and not seeing any improvement it is demotivating. It is the most important time when many people give up. That is the time when you need to just continue what you are doing, or change what you are doing. Don’t give up!
How long does it take to learn Chinese?
They say it takes about 2,200 hours which is 5 hours a day for 440 days that is studying full time. I would say that is probably about right but I think you also need some time to rest, so I would say you can learn for around 2,200 hours in about 2 years.
However there are definitely faster and slower ways of learning. Some people might be able to learn very quickly, but others might be a lot slower.
If I was going to learn a language again, I think I would be able to learn it much faster with my experience learning Chinese. I already understand the journey and what it takes. I would be much more consistent in my learning and divide it into clear stages.
Beginner – I think you need to spend 100-200 hours for learning the basics with a great teacher, and doing it intensively would be much better. In that you can learn the tones, characters, and basic grammar (chinese grammar is quite basic)
I think Chinese characters learning should form the backbone of your learning. It’s one of the hardest parts, and if you focus on learning characters then everything else is so much easier. It’s also quite frustrating when you don’t know a certain word.
It’s a journey and it’s important to have milestones – the HSK is a good way to measure how far you are on the journey. It might be motivating for you. Each HSK level requires a certain number of vocabulary.
You could also have other milestones:
– Having a basic conversation in Chinese
– Reading a newspaper in Chinese
– Understanding a movie in Chinese
Have fun!
P.S. find a Chinese girlfriend / boyfriend
