I have to admit I tend to have this fear of judgement all the time. At university, when professors ask us something and I do know the answer, I hesitate about whether I should say it out loud or not, or that "what if I'm wrong?" thinking. And it's soo frustrating because I blame myself always for knowing the answers but not being able to give them. Thank you a lot and I will try harder to step out of this fear!
Her video editing and design are incredibly impressive, which is saying something considering she's learning such a difficult language while working as a doctor. For someone of so many technical talents, she has an incredible eye for camera angles and makes these videos super engaging. I'm not even learning Chinese but I can't help but watch her videos!
There are plenty of challenges with learning Mandarin, one of the more evident challenges I have (had?) was focusing on a verbal sentence with the anticipation it could end in a particle (such as "ma") which will essentially convert what I believed was a statement into a question. When trying to focus on each word and it isn't until the very last word that the particle occurs, it can be daunting to listen/understand. Though I found it allows speaking the language to be easier as one only has to focus on the statement knowing they can just add a particle on the end to ask a question, change the tense etc.
Knowing your struggles in learning Chinese brings me new insights into how to learn English effectively as a Mandarin speaker. By the way, your Mandarin is great. You can express yourself well in Chinese. Thank you for your sharing.
Recently, I usually watch some your videos on RU-vid to improve my English listening skill, I'm a Vietnamese, but my grandpa is from China, therefore, I decided to start learning Chinese two months ago. I want to connect and interact with Chinese people to know more about Chinese culture and tradition. Thanks for your useful videos!
I love your videos sooo much! I’ve been following your channel for almost a year now and you videos really speaks to me and inspire me because I’m a medical student learning Mandarin too! I really enjoy watching your video, like a lot. I really like your voice in the video, it’s very calming😻 For this video, I noticed a change in editing style and to be very honest I enjoy the original style more🥺 but your video content is still very good and motivating!
Thanks so much for the support!! 🥰 hope both medicine and mandarin are going well for you! And thank you for the feedback on editing, I really appreciate it 😊 what aspects of the editing before did you prefer? Still experimenting so would love to hear your thoughts! 🥰
Thank you! On editing style, your video normally have lower background music volume and doesn’t include gifs effect. Both of which I found kinda distracting from your voice (and your gorgeous accent🥺) and the video content.
Yes absolutely! i've been learning Mandarin Chinese for almost two months now, and I'm really tracking all my progress. I've been working hard to learn and I can say that I've improved hehe coz I'm able to construct basics sentences without translating. I really avoid translation. except for the speaking skills ofcourse who on Earth can speak fluently in just 2 months. You're really helping doc. Izzy you know ♥️ all your methods and techniques of learning are all brilliantly effective. just wanted to say to my co-learners my few steps (just sharing) Avoid translation, improve your language sense, and learn to think in Chinese! I know that's the last was mentioned above but I've using this tip since day 1 so yeah! that's all sorry for the long nonsense
@@yamingyang3046 谢谢你♥️ fighting. I know my reason is worth it and my learnings would be pay off. If I'm confident enough to do so I will have Chinese friends in the future hehe
Extensive reading 📚 let go judgments or criticism, negativity, embrace the mistakes, counterproductive, express communication. Use a second brain. Not solely predict by years, intensity, come to place, optimize individual needs, own journey
I love your shiny smile and, your unbelievably beautiful accent, and your language-related content in particular. Keep up the good work and keep shining❤️❤️. I wish you all the happiness in the world princess Izzy🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻.
😂😂😂You used the phrase "water off a duck's back" It doesn't stick at all! It's so funny.🤣😂🤣😂 Also love the funny pictures inserted throughout the video!❤
Very practical advice. Also had to learn them the hard way as I used to do word-for-word translation all the time while studying English. Had to point out that word-for-word translation does help when trying to understand the meaning of something in the language, but the key is not to do this 'computation' with the brain during practition.
The extra brain for a new language is so true but it also takes very long to develop one. And even after many years it can be quite difficult. In German, my native language, I usually can write very long texts without having to think about it much. In English it takes me a lot longer, even though I know all the needed vocabulary and grammar
Depends by what you mean by long. I learned chinese for 1 year. And I’m pretty conversational fluent as such I dont need to think in english and then translate it to chinese.
I’m legit the opposite lol English native, my German brain is pretty good to go, but I lack the correct grammar and often straight up vocabulary. Maybe to do with different learning styles. Did you study English in a structured formal education system?
Thank you so much for this video. I m afraid to have a native chinese speaker to practise with because the first one i found was laughing at me the first time we had a chat. That s maybe worth it to try again.
Wow, Izzy speaks awesome Mandarin with nice tones and goodness the confidence she carries. She kinda sounds like Eileen Gu when the words came out but softer.. How could she be so young, talented and looking gorgeous
Hi DR Lizz, This video is inspiring me a lot, basically, you have answered most of my self-doubt questions on continuing my Chinese learning. give me good confidence and impacted me to relook at the approach and methods of my Chinese learning. Like you, I started learning Chinese and french during the 2020 lockdown by myself to keep up the time in a useful way and continued last year with online tutors but I hardly reached pinyin and tones. always find difficulties recollecting the sentences learned in class. My work schedule is demanding, always have less time to focus on learning I used to worried about my progress like a snail always lagging behind on goals so I ended up thinking of my abilities to learn any new languages hence quit my learning from June but today after watching your video, especially you shared your experiences, lesson learned, the fact reason for your slow progress, identification of problem areas and the strategies you adopted to achieve fluency overcome fears, truly impressive and I decided to start my learning again! thank you once again, Lizz for showing some light focus areas and planning techniques! much appreciated keep up the good work as you do always
Thank you Izzy. I totally agree with all your points especially the first one about having a different brain. Cantonese is my mother tongue and learning Mandarin has been extremely difficult, painful and slow owing to the closeness (yet very different) of the Cantonese dialect to Mandarin; this all changed one day when I switched my 'Cantonese Brain' off and stop thinking and translating to Cantonese. As for the 3rd point Dr Sealey :) , I have yet to formulate a plan, not to mention setting too high an expectation. Slowly picking up your tips and techniques though. Thank you again for spending the time and effort in sharing your learning experience which I find extremely useful and to the point.
Try the Canto to Mando Blueprint she recommended in her last Chinese video! It's specific to Cantonese speakers (or those going from Cantonese to Mandarin)
I found this video very helpful as I started learning French whilst during pandemic but is now not learning as much, if at all! As someone who was born and raised in China - up to 4th grade, sometimes I still have to make sure that my sentence/pronunciation/flow makes sense lol... Maybe I'm rambling at this point but nevertheless, I enjoyed the video!
Maybe someone else has already suggested this but I recommend starting a channel on bilibili (Chinese version youtube). It will submerge you in Chinese environment. You don’t even need to create new content. Just upload the same video to both YT and bilibili.
I have been passively learning Mandarin from my Singaporean wife over the last 20 yrs. The greatest roadblock to my progress is my inability to remember a words assigned tone when speaking AND to discern what tone is being used when spoken to. I can't bridge the gap from no assigned tone in English to the five (including the "no") tones of Chinese. It limits my Chinese to conversational only. Wo ting bu dong! I also haven't learned to read Chinese characters, I just use Han Yu Pin Yin.
I can definitely relate to all your three points because those are the three areas that I had to deal with learning English when I first came to the US very very long time ago. I think I’m a bit linguistically talented. Looking back I believe I was able to pick up the language pretty quickly and now I’m try to pick up the British accent: the modern Received Pronunciation. I’ll be sure to watch all your videos to practice my British accent. Ha ha
@Izzy Sealey You're really amazing teacher. I really like the way you inspire people on hard work and being strategic. I am Tanzanian boy who learns Chinese for some months now. In the beggining I felt like I was going to give up learning Chinese but. You have really changed my attitude on Chinese. May God blessed you. Aamiin.
Hi Izzy! A new subscriber here. I’m Chinese and your Chinese is really great! You do have a British accent even when you speak mandarin hehehe. Chinese is really hard (even though Chinese is my first language) so you’re really amazing already! English is my second language and I hope I can learn Korean or Italian as my third. Your videos have really inspired me to start learning a new language and to just keep on trying and trust the process.
Thank you for sharing. I'm learning chinese too and by myself. I really enjoy your mandarin related videos and I think it would be great whenever you speak chinese you could put the pinyin as well in the video, so we all can learn the basic sentences and phrases 🤗👍👍
Thanks to share your experience learning Chinese. I am starting and it's difficult for me. Now I know another experience and I know that I have to walk step by step ✊🏻🐥
You are so beautiful, Izzy!! I watch a lot of Chinese films and you remind me of one of those beautiful Chinese actresses!! You are a drop-dead gorgeous girl!! Greetings from N.Y.!! Take care!!
Personally, I do not like the idea of "thinking" in another language because thinking, feeling and even communication itself is beyond words or languages. I prefer seeing languages as tools for expressing what is convenient. Maybe learning new languages seems to create new ways and connections in ourselves, and it helps not only to explore what appears to be new perspectives, but also to enjoy every other view in novel terms. As I learned and practised English throughout life, it made me appreciate more my mother language (Portuguese). Learning languages, the stranger, the better, is so satisfying when considering this. I would not say second brain, though. I would prefer comparing it two new branches or roots of a plant. Anyway, it is a pleasure to watch you.
Such a great summary and experience.. it was quite difficult to find a channel that have some similarity (especially in medical graduate person), big Thanks for shared it in youtube.. Hope the channel will be inspiring to other medical doctors for learn other thing outside medicine #greetings from Indonesia
Nice to meet you Izzy, 🐥:I am a Chinese national born and raised in Japan. Izzy is good at British English. Because I was listening to the short wave broadcast of the BBC World Service. American English is prevalent in Japan, so if you master Japanese, you can teach Chinese and British English to Japanese people. 🙇 Please consider it.🙋
I speak Roumanian language, Russian and English. of course, my next target is........... spanish. ufff. Well, I wish you all the best in your Chinese. :)
Thank you again for sharing your experiences with us. Your content is concise, organized, and useful. Now that September 17th has passed, please do a new study plan video with your doctor schedule! Since as you said, the old one did not go to plan :)
Hi Izzy, I just noticed that I love learning English is because I love the way it pronounced, the same as people like listening to music, I like listening to English. And speaking English to me is as enjoyable as singing. Do you have the same feeling? Because your Chinese pronunciation is so good, I guess you must do a lot of work on achieving the "perfect" accent and pronunciation.
分享 作詞：姚謙 作曲：伍思凱 編曲：伍思凱 時間已做了選擇 什麼人叫做朋友 偶而碰頭 心情卻能一點就通 因為我們曾有過 理想類似的生活 太多感受 絕非三言兩語能形容 可能有時我們顧慮太多 太多決定需要我們去選擇 擔心會犯錯 難免會受挫 幸好一路上有你陪我 與你分享的快樂 勝過獨自擁有 至今我仍深深感動 好友如同一扇窗 能讓視野不同 與你分享的快樂 勝過獨自擁有 至今我仍深深感動 好友如同一扇門 讓世界(變)開闊 Making good friends is like opening a window to our life. Learning another language is also thank you the video.
You know what's funny? As soon as I learn a few words of a new language I start trying to think in that language, which is incredibly frustrating because your thoughts get stuck SO often because you don't know words. So, thinking in another language (for me at least) is only really possible once you build up a basic vocabulaire Edit: how many hours you can devote to studying Chinese. More like: how many minutes XD
#2 paralysis fear of judgment, that's my biggest problem. My mom and aunties all speak Cantonese and it's embarrassing trying to speak. My mom has a great sense of humor so I'll just keep rattling off incoherent phrases and hopefully I'll get one right. Thanks Izzy!! Who is your favorite Mario Kart Character?
Love your videos, you're a big inspiration to me to keep learning chinese. the editing and format of your videos are done incredibly well. On an unrelated note, i'm curios as to what the song you used at 2:51? Keep up the content and good luck!
@@dreamer_1019 你知唔知粵語有自己嘅方法寫字？Cantonese has their own way of writing. But since the dialect of Mandarin became the official language, it uses Standard Chinese characters. All Chinese languages are dialects in a way which means they are derived from Chinese, it's that Mandarin is the official now.
I want to improve my English, and I am Chinese, who wants to make progress together with me and improve our second language skills? It's great for me to make a friend with you!
actually, my problem is I'm in the 3 years I'm learning Chinese but I found that I know just a little bit I was shocked and bored because I thought I'll be great ! but I see that I have to change the way I'm learning
I just hate feeling like a moron. I learn calculus faster than this. Over and over i see people saying "I learned Chinese in six months! You can too!" The vocab is a constant sieve, with word after word getting learned and forgotten and learned and forgotten and learned and forgotten
Tal vez deberias intentar aprender un idioma mas similar al ingles como el español, de tal manera te darás cuenta que el chino es bastante más complicado y es normal que el aprendizaje lleve un tiempo significativo.
I am a native speaker of varieties of Chinese languages, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and Hakka. And I've been learning English since elementary school. The fact is the tones and the syllables of Chinese are quite different from any Romance languages. Chinese is exactly one word one syllable, every word has a tone. but English(especially spoken Eng) is a combination of liaisons, contractions, and reductions, which is not a common phenomenon in Chinese.
David, are you Singaporean? My SG wife is fluent in all those languages (born Hakka) and the fact that you have learnt English since Elementary school. The differing tones (and their meanings) in Chinese are what stump my English mind. I struggle to discern them in conversation unless listening to a newsreader.
Nice video. Have you seen the Youdao dictionary pens? They are awesome, my child uses it for her Chinese homework and they translate Chinese and English instantly. Maybe can help you with learning Chinese. Good luck!
I like reading because as I read and figure out sentence structure better while looking for words, i'm also looking up less as I go so it feels like a nice visual progression that's very satisfying. Same with movies and shows, and I can give stuff a scene with more context to attach the language to as well. Anki, I wish I could use it but sadly I just retain nothing from using that software, just doesn't work for me:( (I can only remember a word if I see it first when using Anki, that's the only skill it teaches me)
The second mistake is made worse when the person you are talking to is like, "what?". Like they can't make out what you just said. It is so embarrassing 😢
