Comments on: 8 tips for learning Chinese as an introverted student

By: Fabíola

Fabíola — Sun, 16 Oct 2022 00:14:03 +0000

I’m starting to learn Mandarin and my goal when learning this language is to be able to listen to videos and read explanations related to my area of study/work (art). I think practicing tones and a little bit of word pronunciation will help with listening comprehension, but I don’t think it’s necessary to focus too much on that, in my case. English is my second language (my native language is Brazilian Portuguese). I started to learn English in school with more basic exposure to the language and its grammar, but my understanding of English only improved when I forced myself to read a lot of texts on personal development and art, and then listen to a lot of videos even though I didn’t understand 90% of the pronunciation at first. Now I’m reviewing some grammar topics so I don’t suffer too much when forming sentences, but I can understand well what I read and listen. I rarely spoke to anyone in English, except for a few comments on the internet lol
I hope to be able to do the same in Mandarin, but I have doubts about learning vocabulary. As a beginner, the impression I have is that if I listen a word several times in a video, I will be able to understand it by context and learn the meaning, but how will I know its written form? Can I only find this out by searching? ‘Cause in the case of learning English as a Brazilian, having the same type of alphabet makes it easier for me to guess how a word I heard is written in English (it seems that our writing system more directly represents the sound of words, but I don’t know if it’s just a beginner’s impression of Mandarin).

By: Rayna Mcclain

Rayna Mcclain — Tue, 10 May 2022 10:33:00 +0000

It’s a little late to write here but thank you for this article! I started learning Chinese four months ago, and many people told me to start speaking with someone to boost my talking skills. But I didn’t want to do that. Thanks to your suggestions, I can circumvent this without any loss. I’m studying at the university now, but I decided to learn Chinese after one year, and it’s so hard to mix. So I found an excellent service on this review resource which helps me with my educational papers. It allowed me to spend more time learning and practicing Chinese, but not staring at books and doing some papers for the university.

By: Carol

Carol — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 04:40:56 +0000

Wow, I enjoy reading your blog, I am a new Chinese teacher, I will share this post to my Chinese students and friends! Thank you for providing such a great article!

By: Danielle

Danielle — Thu, 10 May 2018 17:05:51 +0000

In my 7 years of learning Chinese, I finally feel like someone else understands the anxiety and difficulty I have had. These are all excellent tips and one additional tip which has worked wonders for me is to watch movies with subtitles and repeat what is said. I’ve learned so many new words and phrases which I use by using this method.

By: Gary L Hepner

Gary L Hepner — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 03:02:05 +0000

Great suggestions. Even in my native language (English) I don’t go out of my way to talk to strangers unless there is some specific reason to do so. I live in Taiwan so I’m surrounded by Mandarin 24/7. One thing I found successful in spurring on a conversation is practicing my writing at my favorite breakfast shop in the morning. I do this every morning and without fail passers-by and workers in the shop comment on my writing, start talking to me etc. Of course Taiwanese are VERY supportive to anyone learning their language, so it’s a learning-rich environment, even for someone who is a little hesitant on starting up conversations.