Umm, it really depends 😛 I’ve had students studying Chinese for different reasons: They need Chinese for work or for academical purposes; They are interested in learning language and Chinese is definitely one of the most interesting languages; They want to talk to their loved ones who are Chinese; They simply just love me 🙂 So which one are you?

Chinese has the reputation of being ‘the most difficult language’, but is that true? My answer is yes, but only for higher level students. The huge amount of vocabulary and nuances you encounter while learning is a bit daunting.

For beginners, Chinese is far from ‘the hardest language’ as the sentence structure is quite similar to English. You will be able to speak Chinese in your daily life within a short time. However, you couldn’t take the beginning stage more seriously because it is the stage that prepares you for more difficult levels.

If you don’t take the beginner stage seriously, after a couple of months, you may be able to speak some phrases and people may understand you. However, you will resort to thinking back to your first language, and you will end up sounding strange. This is the worst thing that can happen as it will demotivate you, and could possibly prevent you from continuing your studies.

I’ve been teaching Mandarin for almost 10 years, and I noticed that the BEST way to start learning Chinese is 

• Stick to ONE structured resource, it could be a textbook or an online Mandarin course, etc.
• Spend 20% of study time on vocabulary and grammar, keep the content as simple as possible, which at the same time, can easily ensure accuracy.
• And spend 80% of study time on USING the language (even if in the very early days!), which includes three points:

* Speak: If you think your Chinese is far from good enough to talk to a Chinese person without getting nervous or feeling that you are disturbing them, talking to yourself is equally effective. Create different scenarios, such as an interview, a first date, a house warming etc. Act as different characters, ask some questions and answer them. You can also write those conversations down if you want to be 100% sure!

* Describe: Give yourself a random topic, try to use as many words you have learned as possible to describe this topic. You can, for example, introduce the city you live in, your family/friends or tell your “audience” about your kitchen, you can even start keeping a journal in Chinese!

* Be creative! Do you know you can speak much more Chinese than you think? I’ll elaborate it with a simple example:

Let’s say there are two new words in lesson 2

吃饭 (chī fàn, [lit.]to eat rice/food, to eat)
买东西 (mǎi dōng xi, [lit.]to buy things/stuff, to go shopping)

If you recall lesson 1, you probably have learned some words like the following ones:

你好(nǐ hǎo, [lit.] you good, hello)
这是什么 (zhè shì shén me, [lit.] this is what, what is this)

Be creative and combine the new knowledge with the old!

吃 (chī, eat) + 什么(shén me, what) = 吃什么(chī shén me, eat what, what to eat);
买 (mǎi, buy) + 饭 (fàn, rice/food) = 买饭 (mǎi fàn, buy food)
好(hǎo, good) + 东西 (dōng xi, stuff/thing) = 好东西(hǎo dōng xi, good stuff)

Just like the financial concept of compound interest: As the number of words you know increases, the number of possible combinations increases exponentially

You don’t have to start learning Hanzi from the first day, but I highly recommend starting learning Hanzi whenever you get used to the new language system. After spending a few weeks on Chinese characters you will find it not only not as difficult as you think and it also makes your future learning much more convenient.

It the standardized Chinese test, from HSK1 which is the easiest level to HSK 6 which is hardest level. You won’t be likely be have too many communication problems in China if reaching the level of HSK4. HSK test is not compulsory for Chinese learners.

• If you want to establish a firm understanding of Chinese grammar: Believe it or not, Chinese grammar system is actually super easy. Some even say: Chinese doesn’t have grammar. You need only two weeks to go through the basic Chinese grammar structures systematically and your Chinese will reach 80% accuracy after it. If you are looking for a structured material to guide you through the basic grammar, structural logic and common exceptions, you may want to check out my Structure Review Plan course here. 
• If you want to improve speaking skills：There is no other methods as efficient as just speaking more. You can check question no.3 if you want to improve your speaking skills through self-studying. If you want to find someone to talk to, here are somethings that I have tried before:

 If you have Chinese friends, go ahead and talk to them!
 Hello Talk : Find some native Chinese speakers who want to learn other languages.
 Verbling/Italki: Book one-to-one lessons with Chinese teachers with reasonable price.
 Go to meet-up activities in your city.

• If you want to be able to hold deep conversations: If you don’t have problems with daily conversations but you want to discuss something deeper, I would like to invite you to join our group class. Each week we will talk about different interesting and deep topics, you will have a lot of opportunities to express your ideas with the new vocabulary and grammar. Also, our group class will build the community where you can meet friends who share the same passion with you.
• If you want to be able to understand native Chinese speakers: I’ve made a video talking about how to understand native speakers, click here to watch it.

You can check the “Course” page, and choose the most suitable course according to your study purpose. If you have any problems purchasing, feel free to contact Shuo through Wechat (ID: shuoshuochinese) or email (Shuoshuochinese@gmail.com)

Check the playlist of my YouTube videos for beginners here.
And here are some free PDF lessons for beginners:
“Top 140 characters make up 50% of Chinese” : https://shuo.ck.page/453fa1bdf4
“50 common mistakes Chinese learners make”:  https://shuo.ck.page/9cb80f3691