In July of 2014 I decided to learn Mandarin as a language learning project. The project lasted for four months, and the posts in this category are a diary and articles of research and learning for that project.
So I’ve come to the end of my intense concentration period on Mandarin. The following is an overview of all the tools I’ve used, my progress to date, what I am going to do next and all sorts of other wonderful insights from yours truly. My Progress with learning Mandarin Chinese I have been learning […]
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Previously, we’ve covered animal names in Chinese and basic words you need to know. Today, we’re going to continue along the vocabulary learning route by learning Fruits in Mandarin. Fruits in Mandarin This is another quick article, and the reason for it’s brevity isn’t anything to do with my schedule. I want it to be […]
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To continue with the vocabulary lessons on stuff you will actually use in Mandarin, I figured I’d relate this article to Wednesday’s post about animals. Chinese animal names: The most common. māo = Cat gǒu = Dog Those are the two most common pet names. If you have a different animal for a pet, (that’s […]
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Having written an article previously on Mandarin words you’ll actually use, I decided to continue on a theme and write about Chinese verbs that get regular use. After all, it is useful for readers, it’s practice for me, and it is better than going to google translate with a random list. 10 Chinese verbs you will use […]
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Should you learn Simplified or Traditional Mandarin? Ricky at the fluentin3months forum asked the following: “Simplified Mandarin as they say is used and spoken in mainland China. But traditional Mandarin is used on signs, history books, restaurants, newspapers, and possibly used more locally around US. Which has me in the middle. I was thinking of […]
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There will come a time when you need to have your first Chinese conversation. During the course of my Mandarin learning project, I put it off repeatedly. The truth is, Chinese conversation, or any language, is a trial by fire. You have to practice with native speakers for the first time. Once you do, it […]
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If not the hardest aspect of learning Mandarin, the single most time-consuming aspect of the language is the character system. The fact that there is no common sense (I’m sorry Mandarin speakers, but it’s true) alphabet or script makes me wonder how Chinese children do it. Luckily, some fellows a long time recognised this, and […]
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It’s been a while since I updated the project section of the site. Suffice to say, the language project is still ongoing. I am getting better at Mandarin. Daily updates are probably not the way to go though after the initial stages. Nobody wants to read, “learned ten characters today. Wrote ten sentences. Listened to […]
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It’s been a few days since I last updated. Luckily, things have been progressing with my Mandarin learning. I’m almost at the one month point in my mission, and I’ve achieved a reasonable amount. I’ll go into that shortly. Firstly, I feel as though I should comment on the amount of time I’m spending on […]
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Why Chinese Grammar is Simple (Day 24) Many people say about Chinese (Mandarin) being difficult. There are a lot of difficult aspects to Mandarin, but grammar isn’t one of them. Mandarin grammar, I am finding, is logical. I might be wrong, but yesterday’s post saw me deal with asking questions. The day before saw me […]
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