Re: How did you learn Mandarin? Any tips?

HomeForumsGeneral DiscussionHow did you learn Mandarin? Any tips?Re: How did you learn Mandarin? Any tips?

#24104
Avatar photoVincent
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It all just drops down to how motivated you are to learn and how much time you put in. Some people live here for 5+ years and don’t have a clue, others are pretty impressive after only a few months.

Tips IMO, learn what you want to learn. Don’t spend your time studying words you would probably barely use, just skip those. Start with simple things you’ll use every single day: numbers, hello, thank you, waiter, yes, no, want, don’t want, I, you, this, I also want this, the bill please, how much does this cost, too expensive, very beautiful, saying where you’re from, where’s the toilet, dish names, beer, a bottle of water please, I have a really weird rash on my genitals, …

The most important thing before you learn any Chinese word in my opinion is to read about the 4 different tones and practice those until you really understand how they work and sound, so you can start reading pinyin. IMO this is fundamental and probably the most efficient way for getting good pronunciation right from the start.

Invest your time wisely

Just my two cents

Also worth checking out is this article by tim ferris “how to learn any language in 3 months