Learn Chinese — Honest Guide and Tips for Newbies
The thought of learning Mandarin might intrigue you, considering that it is one of the hardest languages to learn, with tons of unique characters and 4 tones. And it is the most spoken language on the planet.
As challenging as it is, learning Mandarin comes with a huge advantage.
Yes, you read it right!
If you are a newbie and completely unknown to Chinese, I am going to share my secret tips and tricks that, as a newbie used to become fluent in the Chinese language.
But first!
Why you should learn Mandarin?
Learning Chinese is a very useful skill to use both for your career and your personal interests. Chinese is one of the most spoken languages on the planet with more than one billion native speakers. Any profession or career, particularly in political science and business, will be massively enhanced by being capable to communicate in Mandarin, even if it is only at an intermediate level.
Several people end up moving to China to teach English, and going to China on Business tours, or traveling there for fun and enjoyment. Your time in this country will be much more fun if you can communicate with locals.
Studying a 2nd or 3rd or 4th language not only expands your mind, but it assists you to develop a solid mastery of your mother language. Those who can fluently speak multiple languages enjoy enhanced cognitive abilities and enhanced memory and grow attention span.
Finally, learning Chinese will impress your family and friends as well as yourself. Several people perceive Mandarin as a difficult language, and therefore they’re more impressed by somebody learning mandarin than someone learning Latin.
You’ll also amaze yourself as you start to have a simple discussion and write sentences with Mandarin characters.
How Difficult is it to learn Chinese?
Chinese is famous for being difficult to learn the language.
I would not lie and pretend to learn Mandarin is a breeze, but once you learn how the language works, you’ll pick it up rapidly.
It’s daunting to initially understand mandarin, particularly, when the Chinese grammar structure and writing are so hard from your own language.
Though, you’ll find that it’s simple to start to build your vocabulary and communicate using simple and basic sentences.
One of my favorite aspects of Mandarin is that there’re no conjugations. Gone is the time of Spanish or French where you hard to learn to conjugate charts of verbs. In Mandarin, the verb will forever stay similar regardless of the pronoun. There’re also no gender precise nouns.
Chinese also doesn’t have any tenses. Words will not change based on if it’s a present, past, or future acts.
Yes, it is right!
Overall, learning Mandarin will be challenging, but it’ll not be as hard as you’ve been taught to believe and find a great source to learn.
Basic Grammar Structure
Mandarin is known as a tonal language. And it has 4 tones plus 1 neutral tone. These 4 tones are imperative to speaking mandarin rightly. Using the wrong tone can sometimes lead to big miscommunication.
Let me explain!
Each character in Chinese is a single syllable, and the tone slightly affects the vowel.
Let’s take for instance the word “ma.”
1, The primary tone is a high and level tone which looks like this: “mā”.
2, The 2nd tone is má is which has a sensible rise in pitch.
3, The 3rd tone, mǎ that is a tone that starts high but drops extremely, almost angrily.
To the untrained ear, these might sound similar, but any of these tones do sound different and each represents a different meaning and word.
For instance, mā means mama whereas mǎ means horse.
If you mix up these it is not the end of the planet, Chinese people can learn context and understand that you mean you purchased a horse and not that you bought a mom. At other periods, although, using the wrong tone can really add slight confusion, so practicing and speaking with the right tones from the starting is a must.
Chinese’s basic structure is Subject Verb Object. For instance:
We play games. I eat apples. It is pretty easy. When you add in time, it turns out to be Subject Time Verb Object. Because Mandarin does not have any tenses, it’s often vital to say when an act happened because you cannot simply change the tense of the verb.
It is very easy to understand, let me explain to you!
You tomorrow purchase food, I yesterday go to school. He right now sews dresses. There’s more sentence sentences structure to understand, but these basic ones will take you the way in communicating with others.
A vital aspect of the mandarin language is particles. And special characters are added to the last of the words and sentences to include further meaning. The most well-known particle is ma 吗 that’s put at the last of a sentence to turn it into a query.
You go school ma? >你上学吗? turns a basic command telling somebody to go to school into a question asking if they’re going to school.
This tastes great ma turns this tastes great 好吃 into. Does this taste great? 好吃吗? Other parts are added to the last of the sentences to show surprise, to turn a request into a suggestion, to add importance, and many more.
Radicals are the developing blocks of Mandarin characters. There’re just over two hundred radicals. These are very useful to known because once you understand to recognize them, remembering how to write Chinese characters will become a lot easier.
All is clear? If not here is the example to understand deeply.
女 means female and can easily be found in words such as old sister (姐), Younger sister (妹) and mother (妈). 饣means food can easily be found in words such as drink (饮) and rice (饭).
HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test)
Mandarin has developed a standardized proficiency test. There’re 6 levels to it, and it’s made to test the listening, speaking, and reading proficiency of non-native Chinese speakers.
This test is most helpful to foreign learners studying in China also for those hoping to work in China. Though, several people take the test easy to test themselves and to know how far along they’re in their path of fluency.
The 1st test level, HSK 1, tests how well an individual can understand and utilize easily phrases. The 1st HSK test expects a test takes to understand one hundred and fifty words.
Every subsequent test expects the examiner to know to understand more and more words. And the highest test, HSK 6, covers 5 thousand words, and passing the HSK 6 means the individual can simply comprehend speak and write in the Chinese language. There’re official lists of what words are required for every exam, and the tests can be taken in most parts of the world.
Though, I think the HSK tests are a valuable tool in assessing your skill and helping you reach your targets. I believe the list of words in HSK shouldn’t be the only one’s studies, and that passing HSK 6 test doesn’t mean a person has finished learning Mandarin. I mention the HSK tests because for the rest of the blog I’ll bring up HSK test preparation and its levels.
Challenges of learning Mandarin
One of the hardest challenges are the tones, these are hard to get used to. It’s a challenge that most other languages don’t have to deal with, and it can be a huge settlement for newbies.
As you learn new Chinese words, practice saying the tones out loud. Listen to the audio or watch videos of native speakers using the words you’re learning.
Another huge challenge with learning is that several people pick to skip over learning to write and read. Though this is a great idea if you need to learn Chinese rapidly, this is not the finest idea in the long run.
When traveling in China, speaking the local language will be very helpful, but not being able to read will seriously hinder you while attempting to order a meal at a restaurant or read signs. While traveling and late living in this country, I discovered that most of the foreigners living in could not write or read Chinese.
Native speakers were pleasantly surprised to see that I, a young non-Chinese guy, couldn’t only speak mandarin, but could read also. This made purchasing items, signing up for mobile plans, and discussing with local associates, friends infinitely simpler and quicker.
I extremely recommend cchatty a reliable source that each person who’s learning Chinese learns to write, speak, and reading.
How do learn to speak Chinese fast and efficiently?
A few people need to learn to speak mandarin quickly and efficiently for an impending move to China.
Here’re the steps to learn to speak the Chinese language quickly and efficiently:
Learn to read Pinyin
Learn to read to pinyin, it is the Romanized approximation of how Chinese characters are pronounced. There’re certain laws for pinyin. For instance, the letter Q makes sounds the same as “ch.” The letter C makes a “ts” sound. The pinyin system for the Chinese characters to say hello (你好) is Nĭ hăo. Learning how to pronounce and read pinyin will be vital for the next part.
Get a Beginner’s Textbook
Either get a textbook for a newbie or make a list of simple but vital Chinese words using of online Chinese dictionary to know. These words will include pronounces numbers, days and months, foods, transportation, verbs, and conjunctions, etc. A fine place to find these words will be online tools.
Make Chinese-flashcard
Make a set of printable flashcards on online. On one side write down the English words, and on the other way write the mandarin word in pinyin only. Listen to the audio and watch videos to ensure you’re pronouncing these rightly, and then study these Chinese words in small groups over and over until you’ve them memorized.
Practice Conversation
You have to find somebody to practice having a discussion with. It’ll make no difference if you can speak 5 hundred words if you’re unable to understand speaking mandarin.
Learn Grammar Structures
Once you’ve a fine amount of Chinese words memorized, you’ll need to start learning basic grammar, learn how to utilize conjunctions in a Chinese sentence, learn how to ask questions in mandarin, and practice putting the entire of these words you’ve studied into Chinese sentences.
Review and Learn New Chinese Words
Always keep on reviewing old words, learning new Chinese words in small sections, practicing simple grammar patterns, and speaking mandarin with a native or near-fluent speaker. As you follow this procedure and study extremely diligently and consistently, you’ll be capable to converse within a matter of months.
This focus completely on a huge vocabulary with only easy and simpler patterns and study at all of the Chinese characters, and such this’d only be pursued when time is of the essence. After the first need to be able to speak rapidly passed, you’d go back and learn how to write and read some of the Chinese characters and start learning more complex words. For all this, I recommend using Chinese-flashcard and Chinese-copybook-generator at cchatty.
How to Learn to Write and Read?
Finally, I’d like to share my technique of learning to write and read Chinese. Of course, this needs a bundle of knowledge of Chinese vocabulary words. This is a procedure I’ve used for years to learn how to write and read Chinese characters.
Before starting to write, you’ve to learn the proper stroke order to writing Chinese characters.
Trying to write a character in the incorrect order will be difficult to write than if you follow the standardized technique. Once you learn this, you’ll be able to simply write any character you see without being shown. There’re plenty of sources that teach stroke order.
1, Get a tablet or small whiteboard that you can simply write on as well as erase.
2, Using a list of Chinese vocabulary words that you’ve already learned, and divide them into eight groups. Write each of the Chinese words in English on the left section of your paper or whiteboard in one column.
3, To the right part of every English word, very carefully draw the mandarin character, being certain to use the right stroke order to write it as nearly as possible. Now write each one many times before moving on to the next so that you can utilize it to writing it. Once you’ve written each mandarin character many times, erase all of the characters leaving the English words on the whiteboard.
4, Try to write every character from memory to the right side of the English word. Once you’ve written all of the Chinese characters, erase them and start writing again and again from memory. Carry on writing each one and then removing it over again and again until you can write each and every character next to their English word in column a few times without any checking.
5, Start this similar procedure again and again with the next set of 8 characters. Once you’ve those 8 memorized then practice writing the primary 8 in addition to the newest 8 all from the mind. Do this process until you’ve memorized anywhere from 24 to 40 words. Repeat the procedure the next day with new words, and carry on reviewing old characters. Eventually, these will add up and you’ll soon have a fine amount of Chinese character memorized.
I’ve been doing this procedure for years, when I first started, it took me very close to an hour to memorize how to write 8 Chinese characters. Over time I got utilized to writing Chinese characters and soon it only took me 10 minutes to memorize each new batch of words. This had added up to me being capable to write and read well over 2 thousand Chinese characters.
Now, on to You
Learning the Chinese language has been a rewarding experience for me, and I hope it’ll be for you as well. With the tips and resources I’ve laid out, you can start your learning journey of this beautiful language. 祝你好运！
