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
Why getting mistaken for a native speaker is much easier than you think
Someone thinking you are a native speaker of your target language is the holy grail of language learners. It’s something many of us dream about, but then sigh to ourselves that it’s just never going to happen. Well, today I want to burst that bubble and tell you that many people genuinely thinking you are […]
Benny’s 3.25 month video: questions that waste your time
Here you go! My 3 month and one week Mandarin video! [Video also available on Youku. Click CC to enable captions in English, Simplified Chinese, or Traditional Chinese] My interviewer is John Pasden, who writes at the 10-year-strong blog dedicated to all things Chinese-learning, Sinosplice. He is a co-host at Chinesepod (which I’ve been listening […]
Benny travels China: the real point of the mission to speak Mandarin as quickly as possible
It’s time to announce my next 3 month project, while clarifying what the real motivation behind my Mandarin 3 month project has been! I am going to travel deep into China – beyond 1,000km inland – by land (no flights), over the next two months, and then travel through Taiwan (outside of Taipei) for several […]
When climbing any mountain, focus on the steps, not on how steep it is
Back in December, I hiked a segment of the Inca trail over several days to eventually end up at Machu Picchu. This photo is of me looking on to Huayna Picchu (in Quechua, literally “the young peak”, where Machu Picchu is “the old peak”); about 400m (or 1,300ft) of vertical hiking that I still had […]
How to get over a plateau stopping you from making progress: how I’m doing it with my Chinese
One of the biggest questions I get asked by people already deep into their language learning project relates to how they should get over the plateau they are stuck in. There are many different types of plateaux you could be looking at. Maybe you have learned some basic vocab but can’t muster up the courage […]
Free online Irish language learning resources and cool videos
This weekend is St. Patrick’s Day, the background of which I discussed in this post a year ago (while insisting that Americans do NOT call it “Patty’s day”) Another thing that happens this week is Seachtain na Gaeilge [literally, Irish (language) week] – an awareness initiative aligning with the week leading up to or around […]
Unnecessary elitist standards: get rid of them and fluency is yours for the taking
When discussing language learning with people who have unrealistic standards for what they must have in their second language before they consider their level good enough, I’m left amazed at the screamingly obvious issues they don’t seem to be aware of: The elitist standards you require are something that we may not even have for […]
No pain no gain
I’ve spent 3 hours today looking like this, and currently have a splitting headache. To contrast with yesterday’s post, where I talk about comfort in the language in the pre-fluency stage, I thought I’d give you another glimpse into the huge amount of discomfort I’m also going through a lot of the time. Since I […]
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