How I Learned Chinese for 6 Months - Five Hacks for Mandarin

Hello everyone, 大家好,我叫Vicky 我是韩国人,我中文学了6个月了,我的中文还没有很流利,可是我真的觉得我学得很快,所以 In this video, I'm going to share with you how I studied Mandarin Chinese for 6 months without having to study abroad by myself as an adult from the scratch. So, without further ado, let's get right into it. First, work your way up from a strong basic foundation. Don't try to find the easy, fast way out and ignore all the basics, because that basic foundation will be your pillar of the entire language skill. And it's not an overstatement to say that your basic is going to decide your fluency later on. And it also decides how faster you improve and how better you become. So please don't ignore basics and pay more attention to it. In your beginner phase, choose one or two, or three at best, the things that you can learn the basics from and stick to them. It's really important that you stick to them and don't try multiple things out, like doing this, that, this, that, to feel like you're studying more, because that's going to get you nowhere to fluency. So remember the Parkinson's law and choose to focus only on the essentials that really help you, that really matter. So what I did was the very first day I started studying Chinese, I went to a bookstore and I chose this one really good book. And I thought it was really good because it had a short dialogue in each chapter and with a lot of visual aid because that way the textbook doesn't bore me out. And it also offers free audio files and a good workbook. So I was able to practice reading, writing and speaking, listening all at the same time with just one book. And another good medium that I want to mention is this free Chinese learning application called Chinese Skill. Here you can work on your listening, vocabulary for each section, pronunciation, grammar, and also you can review all the things that you've learned so far by taking a quiz. It's also useful when I'm outside alone at like a public transportation or just walking on the street. Instead of doing nothing or just listening to music, I play with this application or listen to a free Chinese audio file. And since it's not a book, it doesn't really feel like studying or boring and it rather feels like I'm playing a game or listening to a music because honestly Chinese sounds like a music to me. So I think it's really incredibly important that at the very beginning phase you have to make the learning process feel enjoyable to you so that you don't get overwhelmed too much and quit too soon. So here's what I mean by that. Just because you're at a beginner or pre-intermediate level doesn't mean you have to wait until you know all the grammar rules and memorize more vocabularies to study more advanced Chinese. For me, I started studying movie script and song lyrics about three months into learning Chinese and I think a lot of people would think, isn't that too early? You don't even understand them. But my point is that you don't have to understand them to study them. You study them because you don't understand them and you want to understand them, right? So what I did was after watching a really good movie or listening to a song that I really like, I printed out the script of the movie and lyrics of the song. With this, you can easily grasp what are frequently used vocabularies, sentence pattern and colloquial phrases. And you can also grasp how native speakers actually use that language. And I know that it sounds like a lot of work and challenging even, but if you really like that movie or really like that song, then this process wouldn't feel that excruciating. I promise. And this is way more effective than having someone to explain in detail all the grammar rules or reading a boring textbook. And I know that when it comes to language learning, things have to go step by step. But sometimes really allowing that variety into your routine can speed things up and also let you have more fun. So it's really all about balance between repetition and variety. Third, fill your surroundings in that language. This will make you acquire that foreign language even outside your study time because you get to study that language by default. What I do is I set the language of my phone, laptop and all my social media in Mandarin. And this not only exposes you more to that language, but also gives you a sense of urgency as well. For example, when you're dealing with a very important task with your phone or your computer and all of a sudden this window pops up and you don't understand what it's written there. But you have to kind of hurry, right? So you need to understand the message written on your screen to know exactly what you have to do. So you cannot but immediately look up on a dictionary all the words you can understand. And what that does to you is that you get to learn the words that you would not have otherwise encountered. And also that stays in your memory much longer because urgency and desperation stimulate your brain more so you can absorb things faster. Another good way I want to mention is to decorate my room wall with sticky notes with Mandarin vocabularies, quote, 成語 written on them. And I cannot but look at them when I'm just lounging around at home. So that means even when I'm doing nothing, I'm doing something by default. Fourth, bond with native speakers. I think this is extremely important because when it comes to learning a foreign language, there are things that you can pick up only from the native speakers. Which involves public sentiment, sense of humor, and the cultural aspects like something that is outside the language. And you need to have that extra linguistic understanding in order to combine that with your language skill and properly use the language. I have this one amazing friend, Chinese friend named Carol. And she's Chinese and we exchange letters once in a while. She's written to me very sweet letters so far. And we talk on Skype on a weekly basis and converse through WhatsApp every day. We're not only just language exchange friends, we're actually really good personal friends to each other as well. So Carol, if you're watching this, 高考學習加油!你能行!我相信你! This is Bill. He is from Taiwan and he's currently studying Korean in Seoul. He is my language partner as well. He corrects my written and spoken Chinese and I correct his written and spoken Korean whenever we meet. So usually we speak in English, which is both of our second language. And we work on our third language and give help to each other of our first language and our second language. So it's really fun and it's really helpful. And I really like Taiwanese people in general because in my opinion, I think Taiwanese people are the most chilled people in the world. They never try too hard, they're never too talkative, they're never too quiet. I don't know, I feel like there's a really balance in their personality. It's something that I find the most attractive about Taiwanese people. So anyways, I met both of them and other good friends through this online website called Conversation Exchange. I'll put the link in the description box. This is a website, nothing like Tinder or all those dating apps in disguise of Language Exchange. This website is for people who are really interested in language learning. You're not even allowed to post your own photo in your profile and that explains everything, right? Another good way is to find Language Exchange meetup group in your local area through meetup.com and join the group. So this is related to what I mentioned on my second tip. And if you really enjoy and like it, you cannot but make time and effort to do it. If you've been watching my previous videos, then you might already know that I'm a bookworm and I love quotes. I'm a quote girl, especially poetry and all those deep quotes because I believe there's so much truth and wisdom in there. So what I do is I read poetry, children's books or quotes in Chinese and write them down on my notebook. And whenever I'm filling up my notes with words that consist of beautiful Chinese characters, it feels like I'm creating an art because every stroke in the character forms a beautiful combination of meaning. So it feels like I'm writing and drawing at the same time. I'm pretty sure a lot of Chinese learners would agree with me. And ever since I realized the charm and history behind Chinese characters, I fell more deeply in love with the Chinese language. So those were my five tips. I hope you found it helpful. And if you have other questions, then please leave a comment down below. I would be happy to answer them for you. And I really do hope that a lot of you could fall in love with whichever language that you're working on, just like I am. So thank you so much for watching and 再见!