6 Hacks for Learning Chinese

I am going to talk to you about 6 hacks for learning Chinese. Basically based on my experience when 40 odd years ago within a nine month period I went from scratch to where I could read novels and translate diplomatic documents in Chinese. Both English into Chinese and Chinese into English.

For Chinese content you can use to study, please check out the LingQ Blog:

[Thelinguist]

My Language Learning Resource:

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Social Media

[miarakoly]

1. Pinying
2. learn characters
3. Focus on patterns
4. Reading
5. Listening 🎧
6. Focus in sounds (should shadow).
Tips for myself ❤️☕

[qnjgcfs]

oh my 佛祖，this man is a professional language learner，he is so fluent in Chinese that even as a Chinese native speaker lke me cannot find a mistake in his speech.

[ahmedttarek]

When you talked about that boring book and threw it away, I actually laughed out loud :D You are a great man

[billshepherd]

I'm not a fan of shadowing, either. But from my own experience, when I was listening to a podcast, there were certain pieces of the audio that I truly enjoyed (a saying that was truly meaningful, or a piece of a speech spoken by a speaker with an attractive voice) and then I tended to keep rewinding that part and repeat along the speaker (usually trying to imitate their intonation and accent, too). But the point is I didn't deliberately make an effort trying to repeat after every single piece of the audio. I did that whenever I felt like to. Again this comes down to one important factor of language learning like you usually said, "Do what you like doing! "

[silvousplait]

If you want to study a language by writing down words or phrases down in flashcards or something, write them in bright colors. This helps with not only language, but also Math, Anatomy and basically everything. Reading, Listening to Programs in that language and reciting is also extremely important with Dedication und Motivation.

[justakathings]

I would suggest shadowing to content you’ve already watched bc it doesn’t hinder your enjoyment and you already know the words. It’s worked great for me for Japanese.

[amyshi]

I'm already Chinese I don't know why I went here😂😂

[e-genieclimatique]

in brief:
1. **Focus on Pinyin**: For the first month or two, focus on listening and Pinyin, which is the Romanization of Chinese characters. This helps you get used to the sounds and makes it easier to learn characters when you have meaningful words to refer to.

2. **Study Characters**: Once you decide to study characters, go at them full time, meaning at least half an hour a day. Develop your own memory system for this, such as using flashcards or a spaced repetition system. The goal is to learn the first thousand characters.

3. **Focus on Patterns**: Don't get caught up in complicated grammar explanations. Instead, focus on patterns in the language. Kaufmann recommends using resources that introduce patterns, as this helps you get a sense of how the language works.

4. **Read a Lot**: Find interesting things that you want to read. Reading a lot helps you familiarize yourself with the language and its patterns. Kaufmann suggests starting with lower intermediate books and gradually moving on to more advanced content.

5. **Listen to Things You Like**: Listen to a lot of content in Chinese, preferably content that you enjoy. This could be anything from classic Chinese literature to modern novels. The goal is to get your brain used to the sounds of the language.

6. **Try Shadowing**: Shadowing is the process of mimicking the speech of native speakers. While Kaufmann admits he hasn't done much of this himself, he suggests it could be a good way to get used to the "music" of the language, especially the tones.

[cynthiasadlermusic]

some of these hacks are great for learning any language (listen and read things you like, spaced repetition). that said, I will try applying these hacks to learn some Mandarin

[grimnny]

hello steve, this video is very emotional. i cried while watching this. your over 40 years of age, i feel you man. im 69 years old.. im also 80. i always wanted to learn china. this helped me learn it fast and speedy like a snail. thank you so much steve. i hope you will live a bigger life so i can watch more of your amazing amazing amaizng videos. love of love micheelle heart

[saiwenya]

Love these tips! I’ve been using duolingo to maintain some of what I learned in high school and college before I decided I couldn’t fit it as an academic priority, but now in quarantine on summer break I’ve found that interest again since I think it’s probably way easier to maintain than to forget and then relearn. Even just doing some fun matching on duo every day, the things you said about shadowing is very helpful for getting the most out of short casual lessons. I mimic the audio as closely as I can and it becomes muscle memory. Sometimes people forget how much easier it is to get comfortable with speaking or anything else when you just copy the experts to the best of your ability until you get better. Maybe it’s because I’ve done music for most of my life but leveraging the skill of internalizing and replicating sounds made a big difference for me learning Mandarin, which is like music itself!

[Vajew]

I find that when I do any kind of lengthy reading in Chinese, like if I'm using Lingq to read an article, it's very helpful to read it aloud. It gets you familiarized with using new words and is a good substitute for speaking with a native speaker if you don't have that opportunity/you're too shy or insecure with your speaking.

[IsraelMVega]

This video deserves more views, greetings! Chinese learner right here

[rosalieo]

The book he mentions at 4:07 is called Luotuo Xiangzi by Lao She

[Naturmuslima]

Oh i missed your Videos. Thanks so much. This Polyglot idea changed my life so much. Language is simply a key to soooo many things. It pushed me to an extend İ couldnt dream of before. And just by the way İ even learnt to love my native language German, which I didnt before.

[JPinToronto]

Thank you for making this video! It was short, concise, and very helpful.

[ramonkroutz]

Of all the horrid content surrounding Mandarin, this made the most sense. Concise, and logical. Thank you sir.

[Grazia]

Very useful tips. I'm trying to learn Chinese . Before starting I thought it was 'a mission impossible', now I think 'you can do it if you reall want' + very good tips. Thanks a lot.

[TanerNilluhktaf]

When I just started learning, luckily, I did do it according to your first hack, 1-2 mo just listening and pinin. It worked very well. And only then I approached characters. After some time, I came to study the language in China. Education was just classical. You have comprehensive class, listening and speaking, and reading. It think methods of teaching are outdated and everyone is using those crappy books.