Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips

Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!

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Benny’s Top Resources for Learning Chinese

I’m a firm believer that the best way to learn Chinese is to invest in your language learning – that could be travelling to a Chinese speaking country to get full immersion, spending quality time studying Chinese, and picking up a world class Chinese course.
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Here are my favourite Chinese courses and resources:

The Fluent in 3 Months Challenge – Have a 15 Minute Conversation in Chinese after just 90 Days

With the Fluent in 3 Months Challenge, you’ll learn a new language to conversational level in 3 months – and it’s very popular with Chinese learners. At the end of the challenge, you’ll be ready to have a 15-minute conversation in Chinese with a native speaker.

Follow this link to get on the Fluent in 3 Months Challenge waiting list.

Benny's #1 Chinese Course

ChineseClass101 is my favourite Chinese course, especially for developing my listening skills. It’s also a top pick among the Fluent in 3 Months team.

With ChineseClass101, you start by selecting your level, and the audio course adjusts to you, getting gradually more complex as you progress. It goes right from absolute beginner to intermediate and advanced levels.

You can sign up for a ChineseClass101 account here.

Benny’s Top 3 Chinese Resources

ChineseClass  ChineseClass101 is my favourite Chinese course – and it covers all levels from absolute beginner to intermediate and advanced Chinese.

MimicMandarinMimic Method Mandarin helps you master the “sound system” of Chinese, so you’ll improve your pronunciation and sound more like a native speaker. We all learn our first language through sound, so why not learn Chinese through sound too?

WCIE Why Chinese is Easy is my in-depth language hacker’s guide to Chinese. It’s not a course, rather it will give tips and hacks so you can learn Chinese faster and smarter.

Start Speaking Chinese – Beginner-Intermediate Chinese Courses

Conversation CountdownCC – Have your first conversation in Chinese in just seven days. This is one of my most popular courses, and with good reason, because you’ll get results fast.

The Add1Challenge is a big hit with Chinese learners. At the end of the 90 day challenge, you’ll be ready to have a 15 minute conversation in Chinese with a native speaker.

 Master MandarinMasterMandarin, John Fotheringham's guide for Mandarin learners, is a gem that cuts through the piles of Chinese-learning resources on the Internet, and tells you straight which you need and how to use them. If you’ve wished for just one place to go for all the best info on learning Chinese Mandarin, this is it.

Yoyo Chinese is all about learning Chinese as it is actually spoken in the real world — not as you'd learn it from a textbook. Shannon Kennedy recently reviewed Yoyo Chinese for us — she rated it 5/5 and said “Yoyo Chinese is perfect for those who want to work at their own pace. It’s incredibly thorough in scope and I just love the way the material is broken down.”

Confident Chinese Pronunciation

MimicMandarinMimic Method Mandarin helps you master the “sound system” of Chinese, so you’ll improve your pronunciation and sound more like a native speaker. We all learn our first language through sound, so why not learn Chinese through sound too? With the Mimic Method, you'll learn to “see the matrix” of all human sounds, making you a better all-round language learner.

forvo Forvo lets you find out how any Chinese word is pronounced. Just type the word you’re looking for into the Forvo search bar in Chinese, and you’ll hear it spoken by a native speaker.

Get a Chinese Tutor – Have Real Conversations in Chinese

 italki:  The best way to learn a language is to speak from day one. That’s why I love italki  — because it means you can find an affordable Chinese tutor for on-to-one lessons, and start speaking right away.

Chinese Vocabulary and Grammar

Glossika uses audio repetition training with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make sure you're learning Chinese at the pace that feels right for you. I especially like Glossika's focus on listening and speaking. You get to watch your fluency progress live with each audio “rep”.

LineDict Line Dictionary is very simply the best dictionary for sample sentences in Chinese.

 

pleco Pleco is a must-have mobile dictionary. It uses optical character recognition (OCR) to read and translate any Chinese text you scan with your phone. Essential if you're visiting or living in China.

Chinese Writing

Skritter Skritter is an app that teaches you to write Chinese characters. You can use it to improve your traditional or simplified Chinese in a gorgeous interface. All characters are presented in a spaced repetition system.

Resources for Intermediate and Advanced Chinese Learners

LingQ immerses you in a world of compelling Chinese content – with 1000s of hours of Chinese podcasts, audiobooks, interviews, courses and more. Then anytime you come across a word you don't know, you can save it for review using LingQ's SRS learning tools.

Clozemaster Pro answers the question: what's the next step after Duolingo? Clozemaster helps you rapidly expand your vocabulary by learning Chinese in context. You’ll use the Cloze method to fill in the missing word for thousands of sentences in Chinese. The sentences you’ll learn are much more relevant to the real world than those you’ll learn on Duolingo.

The Chairman's Bao is the most comprehensive online Chinese news site for Chinese learners. Each news story on the site is graded by ability, and over 1,600 new lessons are added every year.

 
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