How to learn Chinese

I asked this Quora question when I arrived in China and was struggling to learn Chinese.  I've recently turned the corner and can now have day-to-day life conversations with Chinese people.  Although I'm nowhere near the level of proficiency I desire, I have found a process that is working for me and feel bit more qualified to answer my own question.I moved to China in the Spring of 2012.  It was a hard landing for me, much harder than I expected.  In America I spent about 6 months studying part time with software products like Memrise, Chinesepod, and Anki flashcards...

Many audiences often ask me: Hey Jing, how to learn Mandarin Chinese fast? Maybe in 3 or 5 days? Me: Are we talking about A.I. or something? Questions like this tells me that there are some misconceptions about learning a language. Since there are too many “fast-food” language-learning advertisements around us, we are easily misguided into believing that learning a new language can`t be easier and faster. I can confidently say that learning Chinese as a second language is not a three or five-day thing. Of course, it is not considered mastery if you just know “你好(nǐ hǎo)”, “谢谢(xiè xie)” and...

Learn Chinese: The Ultimate Guide For Beginners Have you always wanted to learn Chinese? Or have you started learning it but found yourself running into a brick wall? If so, then this article is for you! Unfortunately, learning Mandarin Chinese has a reputation for being exceptionally difficult... But the truth is, it's not as hard as you think! In this article, I’ll show you how to: Learn Chinese the smart way Avoid common errors made by others ...and provide you with the exact steps I suggest you take when starting to learn the language. Although there are a number of dialects of Chinese,...

I studied Mandarin Chinese 50 years ago. It took me 9 months to reach a level where I could translate newspaper editorials from English to Chinese and from Chinese to English, read novels and interpret for people, I did this in the age of the open reel tape recorder, long before the age of the Internet, online dictionaries, language learning apps, mp3 files and Youtube. If I reflect on what I did, I find that there were 6 things that helped me learn faster than other students who were studying with me. Below I list each of these tips on...