Me After 1 Year of Learning Chinese 

i think i spend more time watching videos about how to learn chinese than actually learning chinese lmao

Peppa Pig is by far the best series for learning a language, because of the easy structured sentences and the easy vocabulary

I would only add: do waste time on writing. It actually really helps to solidify new characters and words in your memory. If you spend time deliberately writing down a character, it helps to focus on the components the character is build up off and just the mere physical interaction and movement of your muscles will help your memory. the more senses you involve with learning, the better the retention. It has helped me a lot in distinguishing characters that look similar, when writing them you become more aware of their differences.

If you learn to read the Chinese characters , you will be able to read the Chinese novel and trust me , its the gate to another galaxy.

I love Andre's strategic tips like listening to Chinese media, getting a language exchange partner, reading material at your level, etc. I've found all those things crucial as well. My one addition would be singing along to Chinese songs! It really builds flair for tones and vocabulary.

I don’t why I feel somehow happy to see mandarin learners suffering. 😂 because I see myself in you guys. It’s just for me it’s learning English but the pain is the same.

English is complicated for Chinese people too😂😂. There are so many grammar rules!!

My experience is that -no matter how much you've practiced your pronunciation and tones, when you use it they don't understand you even when you are certain you've said it correctly. But when I speak quickly without worrying about correct tones they understand me. This was advice I got from an American I met whose Chinese was quite fluent. When I speak slowly they never understand what you say. I don't know why this is but I've seen this with others too not just me. The problem with this is that when you speak fast the response is fast from the native.you're conversing with. You can ask them to speak slowly but one minute later they are back to speaking normal speed. For character memorization I find that staring at a character for 5 or more minutes solidifies it for me. You may forget how to pronounce it but you'll remember the shape, a bit like recognizing a face.

Haha, I watched Peppa pig to learn English many years ago:)

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us! I had so mich fun watching your video❤

Thanks for the episode. You are absolutely right

My daily Chinese homework as a 3rd grade student: read a new passage-write down the new words-look them up in dictionary and write down their meanings-find 10 synonyms for each-write them for 10 times

I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture, and many years studying Chinese culture. My native language is Chinese. I teach Chinese in humorous way and with cute pictures. Hope somebody recommend my videos to those who want to learn Chinese.

I admire folks that can learn to read hanzi without handwriting them. I would never be able to distinguish between similar characters such as 己 and 已

Thanks Sir. This inspired me a lot to be fluent in Chinese!❤

Thanks Andre! I love your content and had to follow immediately! :D

You are an inspiration man

Best of luck to you and I love the enthusiasm! That said, I do think writing is worth it. Writing Chinese every day has helped my reading a lot and also transformed my brain in a sense. I think it's worth it.

Props to your dedication from Denmark! 你做得好，谢谢

I loved your video Andre...you give really great advice which also serves for learning other tough languages.😁😁😁

Very impressive Andre!

Hey Andre! It's so impressive and inspiring seeing you learning Chinese as a foreigner! Chinese is one of my native languages, and your Chinese is great, keep it up!

I love writing. I like it way more than learning. Haha. best feeling when you get the perfect stroke you were going for.

This is very helpful, thanks very much

I’m so glad to have found your channel. I’ve got a year left in my English Ed degree, I’m going to then teach 11th and 12th grade English for a few years to save up some money, and then go spend a year in China learning the language so I can also teach English abroad. Cheers!

Thank you! I'm learning Chinese for the past couple of months and I love it, even though it is difficult at most of the time. I feel like I don't see a progress to my studies (and tbh I can't say I spend so much time on it outside of my school curriculum, but still I'm trying my best) I was feeling a bit demorilazed about it and your video made me feel better

Very nice experience sharing! Like your video.

Good job thanks to share your experience good luck .

你真棒❤👍🏻 成功的秘诀就是”坚持”二字！ 你一定可以的，看好你 ✨

Great job sir thanks for uploading such informative knowledge ❤

Well, you’ve made an excellent video here, so I hope this gives you some motivation to push through some of your biggest challenges with the language. Your Mandarin sounds awesome, btw 🏆💪

It really takes time to acquire this language, the most important thing is trying to enjoy your study journey and make something you learned practical by any means.

English and Chinese have much in common, because they are both analytical languages, where parts of words don`t change so much to show the relations between the words. In Chinese it`s just more obvious. And I wouldn`t agree that writing is a waste of time. It really helps me to memorize characters and recognize them afterwards. I am also finishing HSK 4 after one year of study from zero

in brief: The video titled provides insights into the creator's experience of learning Chinese after living in China for a year. 1. **Introduction**: - Andre marks one year since he moved to China and shares his experience with learning Chinese. - He mentions the challenges of learning Chinese, especially for native English speakers, due to the vast differences between the two languages. 2. **Challenges**: - Chinese is often considered the most difficult language to learn, especially for English speakers. - Learning Chinese to fluency requires approximately 2,400 hours. - Pronunciation is tricky due to similar sounding characters differentiated by tones. - Chinese doesn't use tenses like English; instead, it relies on word order. 3. **Motivation**: - Initially, Andre was motivated to learn Chinese because of the unique experience of being a white person speaking Chinese. - However, motivation fluctuated, especially during challenging times. He emphasizes the importance of having a solid motive. 4. **Experience in China**: - Upon arrival, Andre knew only a few phrases but felt like a "helpless child." - Over the year, he adapted to life in China and found speaking even intermediate Chinese very helpful. - Despite China's focus on English education, there's limited English information available, especially in smaller cities. 5. **Learning Tips**: - Living in the right environment helps. For instance, living in a third-tier city where fewer people speak English can be beneficial. - Engage with Chinese communities, even in your own city. - Listen to Chinese audio and video content. - Having Chinese friends or partners can aid in language learning. - For reading, choose material suitable for your level. Andre uses a translator pen to help with unfamiliar characters. - Focus on speaking, listening, and reading rather than writing. Typing in Pinyin is more practical than writing Chinese characters. - Andre recommends apps like Pleco, Quizlet, and Hello Talk for learning. 6. **Conclusion**: - Learning Chinese is rewarding, especially as foreigners aren't expected to speak it. - It's fulfilling to communicate with locals, understand their culture, and connect through their language. - Andre encourages viewers to have a genuine interest in learning for success and thanks them for watching.

Hey, thank you for shooting this video. I hope to reach intermediate level in a year

If don’t be stressful, practice writing the characters will be useful. But it is right to spend more time in listening and speaking.

I will be moving to Sichuan in two months, Your videos helped me plan my tours, Chinese learning classes and much more🙂 thanks bro. hope to meet you one day

I live in Changzhou! I am from Russia and I am studying Chinese ❤

100% agree. Total immersion is the best way to learn, especially if you're a lazy person like me. It motivates you more, and you very quickly get used to the speed in which native chinese speakers talk. If I was in Shanghai or Beijing I'd have let my laziness get the better of me and resort to English whenever I encountered a problem. At least here I have to use Chinese if I want to see the doctor, dentist, order meituan, buy things etc. And locals are very tolerant and willing to help you improve.

I've found it's better NOT to get yourself too much in a twist over learning and understanding. You train yourself to be in this overhyped drive to "learn it fluently" which just works against you. You have to relax and trust your brain is working it all out even though it doesn't seem like it. Sure you need to focus, getting too relaxed doesn't work so well either, but when learning your own language you are relaxed and are never in this hyper state to force it, except on rare occassions maybe. If I miss phrases I miss them and don't get in such a twist, and just look things up, move on, and just keep learning and getting input.

The intro was so relatable. 😆

As a Chinese, I fell the same way when I studied English,English is soooooo hard to learn

I have started learning too but I procrastinate a lot so I haven't even reached hsk1 as I'm still learning the tones.

It helps me when I write characters, and understand radicals, depends on preference.

I've started learning chinese a few months ago, about 3-4h per week. As I have an excellent visual memory, it does in fact help me a lot to write the characters. Obviously I know I won't ever write a letter in chinese or stuff like that, but without writing the characters it would be much harder to remember them.

Seeing him watching Peppa Pig on TV made me laugh. He even shook his head trying to emulate a kid 😂. Nice guy

When I learned English in university days, I listened and sang a lot of English songs too like the ones from Westlife boyband 😂😂😂

谢谢你，说的很好呀！

Just watched your changdu traveling video. Really like it

Im a native speaker and I honestly think the hardest part is really just writing. I always thought speaking was actually not that hard, except the tonal part. Its the writing thats a nightmare. If you thought Kanji was hard, well the entire mandarin writing is just Kanji everywhere in essence. But maybe because Im so fluent I have a hard time figuring out why ppl have hard time learning it. I think its also worth mentioning most ppl probably learn thru hanyu pinyin which i didnt. I learned zhuyin instead.

English and Chinese use the same grammar structure, that's so huge

谢谢您 分享经验。 有帮厨的

江健， 不错啊！ 😅😅努力努力再努力

Achieving HSK 6 after 1 year is crazy haha. Been living in China 5 years and just started HSK 6 half a year ago

the Peppa pig part was too relatable 😂

I learned Chinese and the best way to learn is to have Chinese girl friend who is NOT interested in learning another language! Learning Chinese Characters is difficult but I wrote some years every day 2 or 3 hours characters. It's like meditation and really relaxing. There are books which explain the structure of the characters and how they are developed. You will see the picture in the character, for example riding is a man sitting on a horse. If you do not learn Chinese Characters you are lost outside Chinas big cities. One day in the morning in Beijing I was surprised I dreamed in Chinese. That's the point everything changed. Do not think it is difficult or could be wrong. Chinese is one of the easiest languages on earth. No difficult grammar, everything is simple. That's the reason they need the characters to explain something in books and newspapers. High level languages using only a few characters and difficult grammar. Never judge a language by characters!!!!! During school my English teacher offered me, if I quit English lessons, he would rate me medium grade. But if I would continue to study English, I would fail. I was so proud and happy to learn Chinese later, because it was much easier than English. Visual learning is my favorite way of learning and I always struggle with grammar. Korean characters are world heritage because they are so simple and easy to learn. Korea used Chinese Characters before. So is Korean easier than Chinese? No, absolute not! You can learn all Korean Characters in one day! But the grammar is so difficult it needs years to understand a conversation. They can express emotions, sarcasm, irony, complex situations with grammar and it needs no additional characters like in Chinese. I'm learning Korean now for more than 5 years but still Level 1 or 2. It is horrible. BUT why could they use Chinese characters earlier? One of my friends in China told me, in his hometown people speaking similar to Korean. 56 minorities living in China and they have their own languages. Chinese we learn is a language created to communicate with all minorities based on the characters, which are unique for whole China. Minorities are speaking Putonghua because this is needed during work and daily life. But there is always a level behind this, where they use their local language in thinking and speaking. That's the reason in Chinese TV you always have Chinese subtitles in movies and shows. If you can not read and write Chinese characters you are lost outside of large cities. Even you can speak fluently Putonghua, you need the characters in poor areas where people speaking local dialects. Chinese Characters in Korea were difficult to learn, so many many people couldn't write or read and the country was poor. The best decision was to create characters, which are easy and fast to learn. In Korean Characters there is always Consonant - Vowel - Consonant - Vowel - Consonant - Vowel .. This is so easy to type on computers and smartphones and connects logic of computer systems with language. It's a reason why South Korea is developing so fast in modern technology. Compared to Korean, how difficult would it be to use Chinese Characters for computer programming? How easy would it be if there is a key with a picture of a man and a key with a horse? You would press the horse and next the key with the man and everybody would understand riding something. Next you press the key with a car and everybody knows you riding a car. But it needs too many keys. Putonghua is not a high developed language. Sure, spoken dialects could be. But Putonghua is the simplified way to make it possible to communicate between them. Maybe someone knows the bells in China. In ancient time they are also simplified and used in daily life. There is no clapper inside. Why? The volume of the bell could be used to measure liquids. The weight of the bell could be used to weigh the grain or fruit at market. And the sound for tuning instruments. The goal, like writing, was to achieve standardization in society. That was a good idea 2000 years ago. But today it is no longer appropriate. The Chinese have a problem understanding irony or complex jokes. Pie in the face is still funny.

these two language are so different in many aspect，when Andre said"it will cost almostly 2800 hours to speak mandarin fluently. for a native English speaker",i realize as a chinese native speaker,so do i.i can accelerate the retention by costing more hours per day，but this procession still needs approximately 5 years.

你说的太对了

My native language is german and I thought having german or english as native language would make no difference in learning chinese but then I just looked at that ü and that ü looked at me and I knew I had a small teeny tiny advantage

Keep at it, jia you!

First learn as many survival phrases as possible, second learn as many survival phrases as possible, third learn as many survi......it helps your mental health and gets you out of the terrified helpless feeling, which can hold you back. 4th learn the radicals and characters you see everywhere especially near home and work, after a few months you will see them and just process the meaning...no translation to English, this grounds you, reduces the alienation feeling which is a huge mind trip . When I lived in Chongqing the dialect was a daunting task, often characters were the only safety net but in Xi'an it was way easier to understand people. 5th Go on walks , spend time in busy areas, just listen to the conversations all around you. 6th You don't need to write thousands of characters, but the first 200 in HSK are a massive help, and it's really not about the writting it's remembering and recognizing them. And no matter what you do you will be unbalanced, like you might be good at reading or listening and struggle with speaking...at some point one of these areas will hold you back. Because of smartphones pinyin is important, I only see the older generations 55+ drawing characters on their phones, young people use pinyin and select the character from the many options that pop up on screen.

The most important part of learning Chinese is listening, then reading and speaking😊

I'd say if you don't have to write the language, you just want to use Chinese for conversational purposes mostly relying on Pinyin, it's not that difficult and you can achieve fast results. Writing the hanzi, reading and passing tests are another thing though.

非常好，太谢谢你了🙇

Hahaha ups!!! I focus all my time on writing 😂😂😂

Great video and I watch Peppa Pig, too! 😄It has to be an effort of love to learn Mandarin, cause I agree….it is very, very hard ❗️🤦🏻‍♂️😖.

Just started learning mandarin and knowing Japanese kinda helps with the characters since I’m familiar with the meaning. The tones are super difficult

Hi, thanks for the video. I am learning Chinese for three years now and next year is my first travel to China. Could you please tell me, where to buy the book you recommended (that for children)? My Google search was not successfully ;) Thank you :)

bro. im half chinese but i live outside china. i have studied chinese since kindergarden till now highschool. thats a little over a decade. and i can only barely pass hsk4.. my ancestors would be crying blood rn

If you need any help with Arabic ! I am here mate! And good job👌🏻🥰

HSK 4 in one year is a remarkable achievement.

I've been following your channel since thinking about teaching in China and I'm about to move to Cixi next month. Have you been? Whats it like learning Chinese and how is it living in a smaller city?

good job my friend

Can you tell us more about the translator pen you use?

Now I'm learning English but I'd like to learn Chinese soon, I find it a very interesting language.

is that Changzhou? I literally saw my home in the first clip, near the stadium.

Nice! How are you going nowadays? PS. I learned handwriting, and I have to somewhat disagree with you on this: I use it for taking notes (although I have to admit, there are successful students who don't learn handwriting).

Hello, keep pushing to HSK 5 and read a full novel. You’ll make leaps of progress then. (This comes from someone who does psychotherapy in Mandarin as his second language).

было бы круто если бы они перевели Три Кота.) Прикольно наблюдать за тем как взрослый дядька сидит и внимательно смотрит детский мультик, но за этим скрывается другой глубокий смысл )

Don't sleep on that Peppa Pig 😂 I still watch it and I'm 4 years in.

Dude knows more about Chinese language characteristics than a native speaker like me~! tbh I didn't even realize Chinese had grammar lol

Hi can you tell me how you have learned Chinese because I need to learn Chinese language

Totally agree.

I am like that, after 10 minutes of learning Japanese 😂

It’s quite often that even the Chinese native speakers forget how to write the Characters correctly, let alone foreigners. That’s because the formation of hanzi has nothing to do with it’s pronunciation, which is unique in the world. Basically, the Characters are like the irregular Symbols and you have to rely on rote memorization.

加油！

you know what, the hardest part learning Mandarin is if you r traveling to China for improving your Mandarin skill, Chinese people rather practice their English with you😅

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.

Recently I've been watching a Chinese Anime about a woman who helps people and ghosts it is called "Fairies Album " . It has English subtitles and the spoken language is Zhongwen . I catch some of the words and this makes me really happy as I must have learnt something along the way . I guess my motivation to learn Chinese is just because I find the language and culture of China so intriguing . It is the very differences to English that I find most intriguing and I'm really in no rush to gain any proficiency , I'm just enjoying the journey . 🤔😊

That Peppa Pig is so funny because it's one of the only American children shows I can find on RU-vid in Arabic 😂😂 I wanted to watch animes like Pokemon, play games like Metal Gear V, watch Disney movies, but it turns out for religious/cultural/political/technical reasons that those translations often just don't exist. Most of the media I consume in English would probably be banned in the countries that speak Arabic in my target dialect. Most virtual game stores like Steam and most video game engines like Gamemaker or Unity just don't seem to support Arabic. Rarely you'll get subtitles, but 80% of the Arabic entries on Steam probably have 30 words in their UI and that's it. Shoutout to Minecraft for having not just Arabic but Pirate, lolcat, Shakespearean, upside down English, Esperanto, Georgian, Lojban, Low German, Quenya Elvish, Klingon, Ukrainian, and way way more. It's just simple items but it's so satisfying to recognize words like "carrot" and "bread" and "dog" from duolingo, and also to learn "stick" as well as how they classify all the trees.

I also plan to go China by start learning Chinese. Don't know when I can start the journey.😢

大兄弟，加油鸭。

Thanks Andre for your advices. But isn't difficult to read and remember characters without trying to write it?

I'm 14, learning Chinese. It'd probably take me 10 years to be fluent, the way I'm crawling T_T

哈哈哈哈哈,我突然想到开心的事

加油！To tell you the truth, as a native speaker of Chinese, I found Japanese most difficult to learn(who can believe that? There so many Chinese characters in Japanese, right?) Today also marks one year of me begining to learn Japanese as well, yet I fould myself not much improved...But like you said, if it takes 6-7 years to learn a difficult language to fluency, so be it. Let's go!

Thank you for your suggestion.

Changzhou is definitely a enormous city. But yeah, it's not very developed nor international. I think tier-3 is actually quite accurate here. But I remember people in China wouldn't regard it as ltier-3. Since we have multiple types of tier-1 like super, pseudo, secondary, etc.

As a Spanish speaker, I'd ssy that English and Chinese have many similar things regarding grammar. Think of "do", "do not", invariable adjectives, almost no conjugation, tendency to short words of one syllable or two (Chinese go farther but English is trying hard). "I will do it. What do you want to do?" is pretty "Chinese-spirti" in my opinion.

2:20 English also has aspect and mood in addition to tense. Language learners often say "tense" when they actually mean one of these, because we're not strict about this terminology in English e.g. learners of Spanish often whinge about the subjunctive.....that's the subjunctive MOOD, not the subjunctive TENSE; there are different tenses to use in the subjunctive mood (You might have heard that "get scrod" joke about the pluperfect subjunctive.....)