Is Chinese Hard to Learn? What Mandarin Actually Requires
Is Chinese hard to learn? See what Mandarin requires for tones, characters, typing, vocabulary and grammar, plus a practical first-month routine.
Category: Language Hacks
Can You Sound Like a Native Speaker? What Actually Matters
Can you sound like a native speaker? Learn why context changes what listeners hear and how to improve accent, clarity and conversational ease.
Benny’s 3.25 month video: questions that waste your time
Watch Benny's Mandarin interview after three months and one week, with an honest look at his progress and the comparisons that waste learners' time.
Benny travels China: the real point of the mission to speak Mandarin as quickly as possible
Follow Benny’s Mandarin mission as he travels overland through China and later Taiwan, using the language to connect with people along the way.
When climbing any mountain, focus on the steps, not on how steep it is
Big goals become less intimidating when you focus on the next step. Benny draws a practical lesson from climbing Huayna Picchu with sore feet.
How to get over a plateau stopping you from making progress: how I’m doing it with my Chinese
Break through a language-learning plateau by identifying the biggest problem you can act on now, then changing your strategy to tackle it directly.
Free Irish Language Resources: Learn Gaeilge Online
Use these free Irish language resources for dictionaries, dialect audio, television, radio, reading and speaking practice at any level.
Unnecessary elitist standards: get rid of them and fluency is yours for the taking
Let go of unrealistic standards for fluency and focus on communication, progress and the skills that matter for your own language goals.
No Pain, No Gain? A Language Mission Diary
A preserved 2012 language-mission diary about difficult Mandarin calls, discomfort and what practice looked like before fluency.
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