as a mandarin native speaker,i have to admit your chinese level is outstanding,both your accent or fluency.if i talk with you without your image,i perheps conclude that you are a chinese northman.i wish your experience of learning language could be a contrast to improve my english level.appreciation for your sharing.
I'm so excited for your next video. I want to start incorporating your sentence mining/anki routine to my studies. After I saw your video with Rita, I was like "I want to try his study routine". I've been learning Mandarin for the past 6 months from a textbook, and I would like to start studying more listening comprehension and speaking exercises. I feel like I'm learning all these words, characters, and small phrases but I still can't express myself the way that I want. Your such an inspiration for how much you've accomplished in such a small amount of time. Thank you for your videos!
I believe from a specific level you automatically think in Mandarin. For the 2nd part - get as much exposure (from multible sources) as you can get. With 2 hours a week you will never get there.
this is actually true I am seeing an improvement with my chinese ever since, and it quite bafles me I did not come up with this idea before as it is actually what I did with my english ( I am a spanish native speaker)
Hi there ! I would like to say thankyou for these videos, this genuinely is so much better than the many of the popular chinese learning videos on youtube right now. I have been learning chinese for 7-8 months now and I been using glossika (very similar to anki), spending 1 hour + everyday listening to sentences. I have had less time for saying my sentences out loud and less time for talking with Chinese speaking friends, but I am very much trying to recreate your learning methods. I am looking forward to the next video because I am wondering how you do your anki sets, and whether you also type in the sentence as well ( as I find this very inconvenient ).
Thanks so much for your comment, it's honestly so kind of you and really motivates me! Yeah I'm definitely gonna make a video on how I use anki soon and I'll try and answer some of your questions there
Hi, I am from China, I originally wanted to find an English teacher on itaki to learn to speak English and have paid conversations, but if you want to learn Chinese and you know English, maybe we can communicate without paying
An excellent and constructive video. I’ve been self learning for 6 years as I have a Chinese wife. Initially with whatever I could find on RU-vid. It’s been a struggle but more recently I’ve had more success with Pimsluer over the last few months. I’m an avid watcher of Chinese TV dramas with sub titles not just for the language but for an insight to the culture. I find now I can understand much more than I can speak and this goes the same for my wife’s learning of English. The bottom line is we are both reluctant to talk for fear embarrassment. It’s not rocket science I guess. Just got to do it. Thanks again. You have a new subscriber.
Yes, I agree with your tip here. As it is the same thing I did and still do when I was learning English. But I am limited by my current knowledge. I could try to force it and make lots of mistakes. As a self-study, what I am afraid is that those mistakes will stick with me and become too hard to change.
Hello Will, love your videos. Do you have any advice on how to improve speaking ability? Like they do with GCSE Make you write answers and learn them did you do something similar here? Speaking is impossible to sound like a native, thx
I would say firstly, try and expand your active vocabulary as that is basis of speaking. Then from there it's a case of lots of practice with native speakers and getting lots of feedback from them
Excellent advice. I learned Mandarin in Taiwan - reasonably fluent spoken but can't read. Since then, I have moved to Thailand and solo studied Thai while in Shanghai- I can read and write low-intermediate Thai. It is still very difficult to just go out and practice a language- apart from simple questions in the 7/11 or while getting coffee. I was lucky in Taiwan to have many Taiwanese friends that I spent most days with ( this really helped). In Thailand - you would probably have to join a group of sorts to be injected into a language-friendly atmosphere.
In Thailand you have an alphabet that you can learn in a day. That really helps a lot. And some people argue that mandarin gets easier when you also learn the characters, I agree, reading is an important part.
I have been living in China for over a decade! its so embarrassing for me to say that i cant have this level of fluency yet! i am in my late 30s, i am not sure if its a age thing or i just cant get it into my brain! but i wanted to find a way that suits me to learn mandarin and Cantonese. If anyone having similar experience as me, or have some tips, kindly help! thanks
Hello sir am 14 years old I started speaking Mandarin Chinese at the age of 12 and I speak a little bit of it but it's nice meeting you because you're very fluent in speak Mandarin Chinese I wish you can be my tutor , xièxie ni
These videos are "priceless" to me - already had subscribed and had the "Bell" on to get this one and looking forward to the next one - thank you so much Will for sharing your experiences and strategies with us. Continued success to you!
these tips might help me with the third language I am learning. Though, I still think in the target language I want, but, I do other things like create sentences with the new words I learnt and etc 😞 though, I hope Mandarin doesn't give me a hard time
Thanks, for shared this valuable Thoughts. For any reason what i don't know, it makes sense in my mind. Thanks for permit me to know these chunks of wisdom.
Also, Pimselur method teaches you how to speak and respond in Mandarin by teaching you useful phrases in segments and then running them together for a complete thought. I found this very helpful as I learn Mandarin. Not only does it teach you a standard pronunciation, but your response becomes almost like a reflex. You don't have to thing about it. I listen every day on my way to work (1hour) and home again (1hour), so I get a total of 2 hours a day, plus i have Chinese class 2x per week for 1 hour. I only advance on to the next lesson when I thoroughly know the content of the current unit.
The aspect I find most difficult is that when you speak to yourself in Chinese, you may not necessarily be speaking correctly. Like your 搭配 could be completely off and then you cement all of these bad habits.
Will, you run the best Chinese language learning channel that is really by a non-native speaker, would definitely recommend your channel to my Chinese learning students ❤
Im at my first year of college taking fine arts yet im inspired to learn a language. Ive had my progress from a year now, sadly it came to an end. As of this jan 2024, ive started to learn again from scratch, hence, this is my earliest stage of learning chinese. I usually use duolingo and gradually repeating slow sentences in youtube and podcasts. I could already see my progress when ive heard how i pronounce words. As for this day, i wantvto learn techniques from others who learn it as well, and one of your videos with Grace, really amaze me so i went on your channel to watch this video and it never fails to inspired me to really outlearn the simple ways ive take. This was a really great video on tackling that specific areas when learning chinese. Ps. I want to keep learning it as simple as possible as to not compete it with the things im currentky busy into such as my college studies. Do you think daily learning for about 20-40 mins or so dedicated to increasing my proficiency would help much in the long run?
Yes definitely, 20-40mins a day of dedicated study is a brilliant idea. Make a good habit doing this and in a few years time you'll definitely thank yourself ! Good luck :)
Hello buddy! I was stunned, really... Probably because of the accent you sounded like native almost. I've watched it earlier and was really stunned. I'm currently learning Chinese and it's my day 18 today and I'm really tracking my progress (hope it will be) Chinese is a beginner stuff to me and I wanted to be as rich is vocabs as you have already. (I hesitated to comment but I did hahaaha, sorry for improper words) thanks anyway
Hey mate, love the videos. Just wondering how you would approach the creating flashcards using Chinese words in context. I.e would you have the english definition on the front and then the word with it in a sentence in the back. Or the opposite of this? Thanks so much.
Hi Will i've been following your videos ever since i saw you for the first time on Rita laoshi's channel, you are so amazing and you inspire me everyday. I've seen that you got the special prize on chinese bridge competition England congratulations i will also be representing my country in the global competition
i get so happy to see that youve uploaded haha! i grew in a partially chinese-speaking household but i started seriously learning chinese 3 months ago and im still too scared to try speaking myself cus my brain cant put sentences together since ive never practiced that before so instead i have just been learning as much characters as possible and just reading stuff. i will try to implement ur tips from now on though thanks for the awesome videos!
Probably. But even so, I mean I'd have to read from a script myself regardless of the language I speak if I wanted to make a coherent and concise video. In any case, even in reading you can tell he's gotten down a lot of the rhythm a native speaker has and uses the right filler words / particles to make it sound natural. He really wasn't kidding when he was saying he studied 語感 (language sense). Extremely impressive.
Hello. Actually i simply wanted to be able to undertand and apeak chinese. So do you think it will be possible or learning to read and write too is important? What do you think? Xie xie...
Hi, I am from China, I originally wanted to find an English teacher on itaki to learn to speak English and have paid conversations, but if you want to learn Chinese and you know English, maybe we can communicate without paying
谢谢你的视频,这对正在学习英语的我作用也很大!最近我刚读完 word power made easy 这本书,学到了很多单词,但大多数都不会用,现在我才意识到是因为我没有联系上下文,怪不得作者也时不时要在章节之间强调要大量阅读并且推荐了大量不同门类不同领域的书籍,看到一个如此成功的语言学习者的经验我才终于明白作者的良苦用心,感谢这个视频!
Hey Will, can I ask you a favor? Since you already do a great effort to make Chinese subtitles embedded on the screen, could you please do them as CC subtitles on RU-vid instead? (or maybe both, since you already type them anyway). That way we can export the CC file and study it in more detail using readers and software like LingQ.
Hey there, the chinese subtitles are automatically added using the editing app so this would be a bit difficult for me to do. But I could add a link to my notes that I use which are very similar to the subtitles if that would help?
@@willhartmandarin Another advantage of making soft CC, is that Chrome extensions could automatically add pinyin(or zhuyin) on the top/below the hanzi. Currently, though your videos have hanzis, it cannot help learners on reading them. If there is a pinyin or zhuyin on top of your hanzis, learners can read along with your videos. Chinese words separator Chrome extension can automatically add pinyin(or zhuyin) on top/below your video's hanzi if your hanzi subtitles are soft CC
Hello Will Hart .. thank you for this video... I'm from Kenya and i was learning Chinese language on my own and it's was so hard for me..but i haven't give up..but when i see this video it has make me to be strong and and to believe in my self i can do it.... Thanks you😊
Hello. I've self-studied mandarin using HelloChinese and some of the methods you mentioned, for example I learnt to think in chinese, to talk to do self pracical conversations. I also had many chinese friends (that I never met) who helped me a lot. I listened to a lotta podcasts in what was interesting for me and made huge progress. Keep going!
...After I saw you in your interview with Rita, I was hoping that you'd have youtube channel I could follow your progress on. Someone who had reached such level of fluency in Mandarin in only 1.5 years couldn't just stay in the dark, that would be a crime. ...You'll see what I mean in a year when your channel will explode. Today you have 400 subscribers, but once your incredible skills get out there, you won't believe the number of people you're going to attract and deeply inspire as you did with me. ... I'm at my 10th month with Mandarin and I hope I'll reach your level of fluency one day, even if it takes me twice the amount of time it took you; and one day, we'll have a conversation together in perfect Mandarin. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much, it's people like you who make me have the motivation to keep up doing the channel. I look forward to that day too, wish you all the best with your mandarin journey!