Whether you are a beginner or an experienced student, these essential tips for learning Chinese will help you progress faster. They cover everything from tones to grammar.
Start by learning the tones and pinyin. Then, learn about the 214 “radicals” that comprise all Chinese characters.
Get familiar with the basic sentence structure in Chinese—S-V-O (subject + verb + object). Finally, learn some vocabulary.
Learn the tones
While learning the characters is essential, you must also learn the tones. Getting the tones right is a massive step towards understanding and speaking Chinese. Most learners get their tones wrong because they try to guess what the tone should sound like or because they copy a native speaker and don’t realize that they have mixed the tones.
As soon as you start learning a character or word, make a mental note to practice pronouncing each syllable with its respective tone before moving on to the next one. Doing this will improve both pronunciation and comprehension when talking with someone.
You can also find extracts of spoken Chinese online and slow them down, marking each tone with a different color to identify which ones you are struggling with. You will notice a difference in pronunciation if you try doing this each morning for a few months. Another smart move is to capture your voice and play it back. To discover more about Mandarin tones, visit newconcepteducation.com. It will help you identify your errors, so you can concentrate on fixing them.
Learn the characters
Learning Chinese requires understanding its characters’ construction; rather than memorizing, taking time to comprehend how each works will make learning simpler and quicker. Consider each component and understand its relationship before looking up its etymology for better insight into why its pronunciation matches up with what its actual form should be.
Familiarize yourself with the 214 “radicals” that comprise all Chinese characters and their stroke order. The latter is crucial because it can significantly help you predict the pronunciation of a new character and ultimately make reading Chinese much more efficient.
After familiarizing yourself with the primary characters and their components, you can use spaced repetition software to begin reading Chinese. Start by reading children’s stories, and then move on to blog posts and news articles. As you progress, your Chinese will gradually become more and more meaningful. If you forget words or phrases, don’t worry; that’s a normal part of the learning process. Review a few things each day so the gap stays manageable.
Learn the vocabulary
Acquiring passive Chinese vocabulary can be both quick and effortless with the appropriate resources. Begin with an outline of words based on your personal goals, then find materials to meet them. There are countless resources online; just ensure you use high-quality ones suitable to your current skill level and chosen carefully!
At first glance, Chinese is a tonal language; one sound can have multiple interpretations depending on tone; therefore, mnemonics provide a fantastic tool to help memorize vocabulary and phrases more quickly and efficiently.
When learning a new word, write it in your vocabulary book immediately. To practice pronouncing it correctly, look it up on an online dictionary app like Pleco (which we recommend); write its pinyin and characters five times each to develop character recognition skills.
Reading can also help expand your vocabulary naturally. When learning a foreign language, make an effort to read books with unfamiliar words highlighted and take note. Many e-books even come equipped with built-in dictionary functions, which make looking up words easy without leaving the page you are reading!
Learn the grammar
Chinese has a reputation for being one of the most challenging languages to learn. While this is partially true (the writing system and tones are challenging), the grammar is simple.
Some aspects of Chinese grammar can be helpful for English speakers, especially beginners. For example, possessive pronouns are easy to form in Chinese by adding the character De (de) to regular words. Another example is using the character he (he) to link nouns.
English-speakers often struggle to grasp certain elements of Chinese grammar, such as the use of men to form plurals or the fact that adjectives don’t always agree in gender and number with nouns.
As such, it’s crucial that beginners understand basic Chinese grammar rules quickly. Language learning apps provide excellent ways of reviewing and applying these rules to everyday activities; additionally, enlisting the assistance of native Chinese speakers is another great way to ensure correct grammatical expression.
Learn the pronunciation
Acquiring any language requires perfecting its pronunciation, but for tonal languages like Chinese, it is especially essential that their tones are correctly articulated if communication is to go smoothly. Pronunciating each tone incorrectly could change its meaning entirely, resulting in less effective dialogue between the parties involved.
Not unlike English pronunciation, Chinese sounds must also be spoken differently and form in different parts of your mouth; for instance,she’ in English is spoken using frontal speech patterns, while “a” should be pronouced from behind your throat in Chinese pronunciation.
For optimal Chinese language learning, pronunciation should always take precedence, and you should utilize tools that assist with pronunciation to achieve fluency more quickly and precisely. A spaced repetition tool may help accelerate this learning process more rapidly and ensure accurate understanding. If your Chinese pronunciation needs improvement, consider trying one out; spaced repetition tools offer fast results! If spaced repetition doesn’t do the trick, then try spaced repetition; both will ensure accurate results from spaced repetition methods!
