Working for a Chinese language school for foreigners, I hear it over and over again: “I’m not going to learn the characters. I’ll just learn spoken Chinese. That’s enough for me.” To put it squarely, trying to learn Chinese without learning the characters is generally not a good idea. The good news is, you have […]
MOREHow to Say “Family” in Chinese: An Ultimate Guide to Family in Chinese Culture
Family in Chinese is 家 (jiā). This can be translated as “family” or “home”. But it’s also much more than that. “Family” is a big concept in Chinese. Let’s take a look at what it means in this ultimate guide to family in Chinese. If you’re interested in learning Chinese, learning about family will give […]
MORETeen Learns Chinese in 3 Months: One Month Update
Teenager James Corl is on a mission to learn Chinese in 3 months with the Add1Challenge. This is his update after one month. It is hard to believe that I am already one month into my Mandarin mission! The days are going by too quickly for my liking, and I am nervously awaiting the day where […]
MORETeen Learns Chinese: My 3 Month Language Mission
A few years ago, when I was in the sixth grade, I was met with an interesting elective choice at my middle school. Every other day, I could forfeit a study hall, and attend a Chinese enrichment class instead. The teachers were directly from the Chinese mainland, and they taught the language at a local […]
MORELearning Mandarin Chinese as Explained by a Peace Corps Volunteer
A few years ago, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in China. I joined the Peace Corps with the desire to travel, help the world, and blog about it. Along the way, I learned a ton about Chinese culture, and I traveled a lot. Most of the adventures I’ve had in China wouldn’t have been […]
MOREI Messed Up Learning Spanish… and Now I Speak Chinese
“I’ll never learn Chinese. Spanish was hard enough for me and that’s an easy language. Learning Chinese would be impossible.” I felt defeated by my attempts to learn Spanish. I had just come home to Michigan after three years of living in Latin America. I was preparing to move to China when my brother asked […]
MOREYoyo Chinese Review: Learn Conversational Chinese
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When I first started learning Chinese, there was a lot about the language that was brand new to me, even as an experienced language learner. I scoured the web for resources that would help me tackle some of the more challenging aspects of Chinese, like tones. In my search, I stumbled across Yoyo Chinese and […]
MOREHow I Learned to Speak Mandarin Chinese while Living in Kansas
If there is one language where it is important to speak to natives regularly, it’s Mandarin Chinese (or any Chinese dialect really). The reason for this is simple: you must practise Chinese tones if you want to be able to speak the language! A year ago I was in a pretty difficult situation: I had […]
MOREWhy Chinese is Easy: The Smart Way to Learn Chinese Tones
Tones. A huge issue people have when learning Chinese is the fact that it’s a tonal language. Let’s start with the bad news. If you don’t get tones down well, it will be really hard for native Mandarin speakers to understand you. Now for the good news. Getting tones right isn’t nearly as hard as […]
MOREImproving Mandarin for Singapore visit [video update]
![Improving Mandarin for Singapore visit [video update]](https://www.fluentin3months.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/singapore-visit-150x150.jpg)
Since I’ve decided to reboot my Mandarin learning project, I got into regular Skype lessons and was aiming to use it while in Singapore. The video below shows this process of de-rusting my old Mandarin and reaching this first minor milestone! An overview of the video: 00:00 – 01:27 My first lesson back into Mandarin […]
MOREMandarin level up mission (Singapore edition)
After devoting the majority of this year to meeting aspiring new language learners to give them my best advice face-to-face, I can now get back to focusing on my own goals! I am a strong believer in intensive missions at the start of language projects – it skyrockets us forward at what is undoubtedly the […]
MOREEncouraging quotes, Chinese proverbs with original translations, and inspirational thoughts for language learners
I asked those following my Facebook, twitter and G+ pages what their favourite encouragement quotes or short inspirational ideas were, to inspire language learners and got some real gems! I also did my own research online and tried to include some sayings on this blog that people have really enjoyed. And finally, I searched long and […]
MOREInterview in Mandarin with TV presenter and Chinese teacher Yangyang
Time for another video in Chinese! This is actually part of the summer project of improving many languages, and as such it is the first in a series of many interviews with natives of the languages in my list of 10. Yang Yang works as the Mandarin speaking presenter for the TV show “Hello Hollywood”.
MOREDid I Really Learn to Speak Chinese in 3 Months?
The big question regarding my Mandarin project that a lot of people have been asking is How well can you really speak it Benny? I’ve been saying it’s about a B1 (lower intermediate), but I’m sure self evaluation (even though I have indeed sat so many CEFRL examinations ) can lead to some scepticism, so […]
MOREKung Fu: My experience learning about it in a Chinese farming village
[Click “CC” to activate subtitles in either English or in Chinese simplified/traditional. Those in China without a VPN can watch it on Youku] After getting a train over 2,000km through China, chatting with random people and seeing pandas, meeting a Buddhist monk, and even climbing a mountainside staircase to a Buddhist temple to try and […]
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