Tag Archives: LearnMandarinNow

Guest Post

Guest Post: Learning Chinese in China

Image 15 Comments

Hello everyone and I have to excuse myself for missing several blog articles this month. My next full blog post will be coming this weekend and in order to shorten the wait for you I present a very interesting infographic by LearnMandarinNow.

This infographic gives anyone who is interested in studying Chinese in China a very good overview. You can see here where you can study, the slight differences depending on the country, the different study programs, how long it might take and also how high the costs might be of the whole experience.

Did you ever go to a country to study the native language there, or do you plan such language study trip?

Guest Post

Guest Post: Three ways to learn Mandarin Chinese effectively

16 Comments

Today I have another guest post by Learn Mandarin Now.  It is not the first one by them and you might remember for example the infographic about the Top 10 Ways To Learn Mandarin Chinese or the Mandarin Phrases and Traditions for New Year. So here you go and I hope some of these tips might help in your studies.

 

With more people around the world planning to learn Mandarin Chinese, people are frequently asking for advice on better ways to learn the language.  To help more people improve their fluency in Mandarin Chinese, we are always looking for ways to bring you new ideas, suggestions. Today, we’ve put together three tips to help:

  1. Making the most of immersion learning

Learn Mandarin Now_1

 

If you really want to learn Chinese fast, going to live in China to learn Chinese can be highly effective.  A common question from many who are considering immersing themselves in Chinese culture to improve their language skills is how to make the most of time spent in the country?

 

Travel to a second tier city

This is becoming one of the more popular pieces of advice from many students of Mandarin Chinese.

We’ve talked with a number of foreigners who have lived in Chengdu, and they will tell you there are more opportunities to practice speaking Chinese in an area like this compared with being in a first tier city.  Larger cities are great for sight seeing, but people in big cities are more likely to know at least a bit of English.  Besides this, the cost of living is significantly lower in second tier cities.

If you enjoy spicy Chinese food, you’ll enjoy some great Chinese cuisine in Chengdu as well.

 

  1. Getting the most out of time with a tutor

Learn Mandarin Now_Tutor

 

If you aren’t quite ready to take the plunge into Chinese immersion, many students agree that one on one tutoring is more effective than learning in a classroom.  It’s also more fun to find a teacher that you really click with.  But what can you do to get the most out of your time with a tutor?

  • Ask for feedback

If you’re talking a lot in the lesson and your tutor is just smiling and agreeing with what you are saying, then maybe something is wrong.

Be sure to stop and ask your tutor questions about what you’re saying.  You might ask if there’s a better way to say something, or if the way you’re saying it sounds awkward.  You might also ask if there is anything else you need to know on the topic.

Feedback is where your tutor can provide you the most value and is crucial if you want to improve.

  • Try to use other tutors occasionally

If you have only one or two tutors, you only get one or two approaches to the language, and only one or two ways of advising you and correcting your use of the language.  If you can seek out different people to work with, at least occasionally, then you get exposed to a variety of accents and ways of using the language.  Sometimes, one tutor may disagree with another.  Don’t let this confuse you, just remember there are many ways to speak a language, especially if the people you talk with are from different areas.

 

  1. Choosing helpful learning resources

Learn Mandarin Now_2

 

There are many different ways to successfully learn Mandarin.  Besides classes, tutors, and immersion, there are also books, audio files, websites, and learning apps.

What works for some people may not be going to work for others, and there is no tool or resource that is guaranteed to work for every student. The best piece of advice is to try lots of different things, use what works, and ignore what doesn’t.  If you are just starting your learning adventure, take a look at our research about how to learn Chinese for a great list of resources. You will find that it is not always necessary to spend a lot of money to learn Mandarin Chinese. In fact, many of those resources are free.

 

Again many thanks to Timo for letting us to share this with you! We believe the tips will help you learn how to speak Chinese more effectively. Feel free to visit our site to get more advice from others who have been where you are now.
Happy learning!

 

Have you tried any of these methods already?

Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts.

https://www.facebook.com/CrazyChineseFamily

https://twitter.com/CraChineseFam

 

Guest Post

Top 10 tips how to learn Chinese on your own (Interview on LearnMandarinNow)

28 Comments

Last week an interview with me was posted on LearnMandarinNow. I wanted to write about it earlier but it didn’t fit into my blogging schedule (yes, I actually have one). LearnMandarinNow is a website giving you all kind of tips on how to learn Mandarin. There are many other interviews with people learning Mandarin and I must say that there are some tips which are also useful to me such as listening to vloggers (after learning Mandarin now for 5 years!). I might be not the perfect person to be interviewed regarding learning Mandarin because I am far from perfect but I do hang in there and study every single day for the past years.

Here a little snippet of the interview:

If slow progress sometimes frustrates me, how can I improve my Chinese quickly?

The best way is of course to be in China and to be confident enough to just start talking. The next best thing is to sit down every single day, go through the study books, learn the vocabulary/ characters and try to just watch Chinese TV shows. Sure, it is much work but when you study every day you will quickly see results. Very good can be also tandem language learning however I never tried this one out.

Check out the rest of the interview here. Be sure also to read through some of the other interviews and materials if you are interested in learning Mandarin because there might be few things you haven’t tried yet.