HOW TO LEARN CHINESE FROM ZERO // study tips, textbooks, recommendations and FAQ 

i like how everything is summarized in the description box

"Study a couple hours a week, don't overload yourself" Well i study _a couple_ (15? 20?) hours a week and i love the language, I'm not overstressed. Thank you for the advice!!

Finally, a video that teaches us how and where to start learning Chinese. I've been super confused, and I've been putting off Chinese for so long because I had no idea where to start. Thanks so much! I found this a very helpful video!

This is an expensive "studying tip" I have been using but if you're into VR and really VRChat you can join Chinese speaking worlds. I've been doing that and generally native speakers tend to gather around me and are curious why I'm learning and just want to learn about my country as well. A lot will have their mics off but I think most of them are willing to talk.

I have watched some videos how to start learning Mandarin easily, however, this is the most comprehensive practical advice. The best thing is that she also shared some of her past experiences in making mistakes while learning as a beginner. And she is very generous to let us know all recommended materials and resources to follow her successful story in learning Mandarin. Thank you so much ! It is really a blessing to hear lots of invaluable insights of hers.

Thank you so much! Super helpful for me, a brand new learner. Will take your tips to heart and follow them. You’ve given me a great path to follow!

Love it! I'm a new learner and I take all your pieces of advice. Thank you. Ni hao! from Argentina! 👍 👍 👍 👍

Very nice hints. As I lived 5 years in China, working there, I learned most at the beginning from hearing and asking, but couldn’t read at all. Now I try to learn the characters, but to me it’s much harder to remember them, than the Pinyin/ spoken word. Now I find it very helpful to learn the radicals 部首. At least the most common ones. This way signs turn out to be put together from simpler parts and the story in it makes it much easier to remember. Like this one for example: you take the roof Mián 宀 and put woman nǔ 女 under it and it’s then 安 an, which is like protection. Woman under a roof= protection. I learned the radicals from a book, which has really neat explanations and drawings to it, to let you see and remember, where the radical came from. Like 子 has a drawing of a young male child, the legs bound together with a blanket. So zi is like child or son. The book is from Edoardo Fazzioli. It is translated into many languages and is very helpful. In German it is called „Gemalte Wörter“ which is like scetched words. In English it has a different name, you gotta look it up by the author. Parallel I worked with the „227 radicals of Chinese“ on Wikipedia, because you see better different ways of writing some radicals. And of course I had my radicals on flash cards, which really helps. Of course radicals like 龜 for turtle are quite complex already and are not very useful, but simple radicals, which make up most of the words are helpful to learn first, like 人 口 儿 力 ... and so on. Also on Apple store there is a free app to learn HSK 1-6 called Daily Mandarin. Unfortunately I haven’t seen it on Google, but I don’t know. Also Leo (free) is good for translation and looking up the correct order of strokes. You can listen to the sound as well watch the stroke orders.

This was so informative! Thank you so much!

Really helpful. Thanks 😘. Love to hear ur accent 😍😍

Grateful for this video! Thank you. ❤

Wow thank you for providing a text book we can download I will start learning now

I LOVE YOUR PERSONALITY!

Great video, very useful. Thanks.

You helped me a lot, excellent explanation. Thank you 😘

Melhor orientação para iniciar! Eu estava perdido com tantos materiais, agora vou seguir este caminho. Muito obrigado!

I love to write the characters!! xD

i started doing some duolinguo lessons, worked just fine

Thank you so much, for this useful tips 👍👌

I just wanted to say, thank you for everything, ur time ur tips, I'm happy that you're trying to help ppl thx

Very good point about learning characters as you learn the vocabulary.

Really great finding this, moving to Beijing in a few weeks after 3.5 years in Hong Kong. Hope to share my journey on my RU-vid channel too. 😊 Lived 4 years in Shanghai but only got to HSK 3-4 something. Definitely aiming at 4 and then 5 coming year. Great content here! Greetings from a Swede in Hong Kong ☀️☺️

Just subscribed, please carry on! Don't stop 🙏

Tbh I find characters to be the easiest part of learning mandarin Another tip I find really helpful: study the character’s components (their origins, what they signifie,…) this way you might be able to guess what other characters or words mean

Great video, thank you for all the tips ! :)

Love your videos, please post more! :)

Qué hermoso este videoooo, literalllll, muchas gracias \:D/

Key is to Learn. Master. Use. Same here, my speaking is not good but I’m able to read 😅😄 never knew there was anything like HSK Online, I’m gonna check it out! Thanks for sharing😊

Excellent, and funny too. Thanks !

thank you so much that was so helpful I'm still struggling with pronunciation and tones also I find it too hard to recognize the characters

Thank you this is really helpful ❤

谢谢 💛。this really helps me a lot .

Amazing content, thank you!

Very clear and comprehensive. I love that you don't beat about the bush. I just started my mandarin journey and am trying to compile resources. Thanks for your information.

Excellent video very informative

Yes, Listening to podcast, movies/shows, and songs I find help me and hearing the words and knowing what they means excites me..lol it shows the progress I have made and I feel cool.

Thank you for your advice. I have started to learn mandarin and your tips make sense. I agree, that there is a lot to learn and one thing that I like to ignore is the stroke order, because if you get the character right (others can read it without difficulty) I really don't see why it matters.

谢谢 for your video and description

Very helpful thanks

Thank you!

Good evening! 😊 can I ask where did you buy the said book (HSK) ? Or is there any sites or link where I can find or buy the said book? Thank you so much ☺️

Hello, i want to learn Mandarin Chinese..any book you suggest? Thank you so so much

I was 3 years in China. I can speak and writing but can't really know how to read because the character is really a lot. But since now I'm back to my country I almost forget everything. I'm so stressful now..I need to start from basic now. The thing is I don't have somebody to talk with..

可以的。加油哈!

很棒啊，中文我觉得还是写字比较难，学习语言环境很重要，我学习英语自己一个人在家背单词提升不是很高，现在主要是看英文新闻和小说学习了

i’m taking mandarin for one of my alevels and i wanted to get ahead before i start as i know how difficult it will be! do you think following these steps will be helpful for me?

trainchinese - is the good dictionary, it has a characters, you can see how you can use these words in your speech and also ( I think this is very useful) you can see how to write characters sequentially. moreover, it has both website and app💕

Really informative vid

谢谢你😊😊😊

加油🥰🥰

Do you have any recommendations for textbooks if you are learning with traditional Chinese characters? :)

This is the kind of video I was looking for but maybe if you explained in a little more detail how you studied for the first few months, the first year, the 2nd year... etc. But your advice made lots of sense thank you. I'm trying to cash in on the early honeymoon period I've been studying 10 days now, where I'm totally motivated, by studying every minute of the day that I can squeeze in. Several hours a day currently. I'm focusing on sentence flash cards with Anki Chinese Spoon Fed and I found this wonderful book called Chinese Grammar Wiki (it cost money but I thought Wiki was free.. lol but it's great). The Anki cards show the sound and pinyin on side 1 and then side 2 includes the characters. I am doing my best to pay attention to the tones but I don't specifically test myself on them. The same goes for the characters. I studied a lot of Japanese and the characters were pure hell and I tried and gave up many times on learning to write the characters and settled for just reading them and being able to copy them off my phone if I absolutely have to write something. Even in Japan that was almost never except for my address. And yet the HSK test forces you to learn to write them?? What will you use this skill for except for the test?? I was interested in taking the test for fun as a way to prove my progress to myself but I know writing characters from memory is just terrible.

Hi Liss. thanks for the video. its motived me to do the selflearning. but i have question. i have the HSK 1 textbook do i also need the HSK 1 workbook too? thank you in advance. :)

Where can I buy a HSK book?

Interesting video! Many thanks to the author of the channel for the recommendations! The problem with many people is that they want to take a "magic pill" or get "secret knowledge" and immediately have skills and abilities. However, the truth of life is that knowledge, skills, and abilities do not come by themselves. You can't learn a foreign language without doing anything, without wasting your time and effort, just like you can't learn to ride a bike lying on a comfy couch, listening to lectures and watching videos about "modern methods of learning" on a bike. To really learn something, you have to really practice every day. You're going to fall down while you're learning, and you're going to get bumps - that's normal! The ups and downs of learning are an integral part of our lives. Motivation from success and depression from failure will always be your study companions. However, every student has problems in his or her studies that he or she lacks the knowledge to solve. It can be: poor memorization of words; no progress in language learning; the student can speak, but does not understand speech by ear; misunderstanding of grammar; incorrect pronunciation, etc. Agree that a problem you don't know how to solve is very demotivating. In order to find the answer to our question we have to spend a lot of time to read videos, articles and books by polyglots. In today's world, we have to solve problems as quickly as possible. I don't have time to study and analyze a huge amount of information. My goal is to master the basic knowledge of a foreign language as quickly as possible and already start earning money effectively in the international arena. I settled on the practical guide by Yuriy Ivantsiv " Polyglot's Notes: practical tips for learning foreign language". This book is always in my bag. If I have a problem while learning a language, I quickly find the answer in this book. There are many different techniques and tips for learning a foreign language in Polyglot Notes. I have made my own individual schedule and plan for language learning. Now I know what I am going to study, how I am going to study, when I am going to study and what results I am going to achieve. No problem could stop me! With an effective language learning plan my professional skills are more and more in demand internationally every day. Friends, don't stop there! Everyone has talents that millions of people around the world need! Learn the language and make your ideas and dreams come true! Thanks to the author of the channel for the informative and useful video! Your videos motivate me.

Where i can buy that textbook?

I’m what they call a false beginner and that makes it very hard to find a course that works for me. The HSK1 and 2 books bore me because I already know just about everything they teach but anything else I’d like WAYYYY over my head. It sucks.

Where it I download it?

great video. sr but im using diz for learning english

Love your content. Can I take a lesson with you?

TQVM where to buy HSK book ?

If am not mistaken, to get HSK 6 you need to know 5000 words

study and practice the tones from the very beginning

How much is the book?

Chinese is really a hard language i dont know if i can handle this so ı started learning korean korean is super duper easy for japan and chinese i suggest!

Hello maam...how can we prepare for hsk exam from home????

I watched dramas and after finishing them and heard chinese it was like hearing my own language 😂😂

Where do you get the textbook? Amazon doesn't seem to have that one for immediate order. Please advise. Thanks! Also, great breakdown. This helped a lot!!!

Hi love your vids I wanted to ask if the Chinese book is in simplified or traditional chinese

How can i get hsk 1 pdf free download

Could you recommend us some books to read? I read 牛郎织女 already and I am with a foreign version of 西游记, but I really don’t have almost any material more. Thank you in advance

I bought the HSK book, where is the audiofiles? Is there a place on the web you can find them or what?

It’s going to take forever to be fluent in mandarin considering i want to learn the formal and informal ways/characters🥴😭memorizing so many characters too...omg

I am American. With the captions turned on, I can understand you.

english is only my 2nd language and i think im probably 50% fluent in english, im worrying that im gonna have a harder time learning madarin thru english.

Can we download this standard course book online?

Thank you for your video. Very good tips to start studying chinese. Where can I buy HSK 1 Standard Course? I am in Panamá.

I just bought my hsk1 but I don’t know how to start . Do you have some tips for a beginner that doesn’t know nothing about Chinese ?

There is *REALLY* useful Udemy course for beginners “Chinese Mandaring Language for Beginners: Make Big Progress“

Sing more Chinese songs 🎶

You should check out the channel "Grace Mandarin Chinese". I love her videos but I'm a beginner so I don't know if her chinese is 100% standard, I know she's from Taiwan.

whats mean madrerain chinese!

Have you ever worked with Pimsluer?

How to remember tones of every Chinese word?

Ni hao Liss, where I find this book?

Does HSK cover Mandarin Chinese and the mainland characters?

4:18 Haha 😂 very British „Bu(h), I forget tones...“ Yeah, you dropped the „t“ from But as well 😂👍 Just joking, I know what you mean..

No short cuts? I turned the video off at 35 seconds. Not really. Great tips!!

Can u tell me plz from where I can purchase these books?? Plz reply

I can not for the life of me tell the tones apart when listening normal speech. Not the super slow textbook speaking, but like normal people speaking normal Chinese as they do. I just can't tell which tone is which.

Is there HSK in German?

English with Lucy intro, who knows, like

123 go the video is going to start

If anyone wants to learn chinese and can teach me a new language I’d be very happy to help! Currently learning German and is interested in French and Japanese, and anything relevant

我要听你说中文话和我要看到你写中文话。

ngl 8:16 is why im here

Please give me tips for writing chinese characters it's so hard for me

Hello can I borrow your textbook cause I don’t have money to buy for it but I really love to learn chinese. 谢谢

Hahaha.....， I'm here to learn English.🙉

Nìhâo