Slow but Surely Learning Mandarin

Mandarin Chinese is a beautiful language in literature, history, and philosophy. The language itself has impacted many parts of the world in diplomacy, linguistics, and pop culture. I knew that this was going to be a long road, but boy is it tough. Because of my ability to speak Vietnamese, the tones of Mandarin were not a huge obstacle to overcome which allows me to focus most of my efforts on other challenges such as: (1) reading ping yin, (2) reading characters, and (3) learning the prosody of speech.

Even with all of these obstacles, I am proud to say that I have made great progress given the amount of time I spend on the language. I am determined to reach at least an A2 level by the end of this year, and I will share my method of reaching that goal.

1. iTalki

I have 2 iTalki tutors that I spend 1 hour each with throughout the week. They have their own method of running a class. Kitty lives in Shanghai, a huge metropolis, and conducts lessons with 3 sections of the class: (1) culture/information, (2) conversational practice, and (3) reading practice. It is not always 20 minutes for each section, and that’s the beauty of having a private tutor. They can go at your pace while also driving the lesson so that I gain something out of it. Vivian is more vocabulary based, and because I had Vietnamese lessons with her before, she offers cultural insight between Mandarin monolinguals, Vietnamese monolinguals, and Mandarin-Vietnamese bilinguals. It is always interesting to learn anecdotes about communities around the world.

2. Duolingo

Honestly, I think the pace of iTalki tutors would have dragged on if I did not start with a free language learning app like Duolingo. I spent a good amount of time earning level 5 in the first two units which gave me a strong foundation to understanding basic grammar. If you can find free resources before you pay for a tutor, I highly recommend doing so. You can download the Duolingo app here:

3. Chinese Zero to Hero

I have tried the free videos from Chinese Zero to Hero. They are amazing at giving natural Mandarin conversations and grammar lessons so that you can have a better grasp on the language. I am using up their resources on their YouTube channel first before I purchase their HSK1-5 package on their website. I truly believe that they can efficiently boost my lifetime goal of reaching a C1 level of Mandarin.

Overall, these are the current steps that I am taking so far with more to be added in the future. Mandarin is such a rich language that can connect to all parts of the world. Furthermore, after learning Mandarin, I can explore other Chinese languages such as Cantonese, Shanghainese, and many more in rural China. This will allow me to effectively gain competence about a culture that is familiar but not yet completely known to me.