Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles in the ‘Attitude and mentality’ category Page 11

  1. Enjoying the journey while focusing on the destination

    Everybody has different reasons for studying Chinese, but whatever the final goal is, it is important to make the journey interesting as well. Enjoying studying isn’t simply a cliché, it’s quite necessary if you want to invest the time needed to master a language. This article discusses the journey, the destination and the relationship between them. To put it briefly: don’t forget to look at the view.

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  2. Achieving the impossible by being inspired

    Teaching and inspiring are two closely related things. If you can see all superiors as sources of inspiration and knowledge, you will advance faster than if you view them as rivals or opponents. Similarly, realise that you have your own strong sides that inspire other people. Don’t hesitate to teach others if they want to be taught. Inspiration is cyclic in its nature and should flow freely in all directions.

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  3. Escaping the convenience trap to learn more Chinese

    The path of least resintance

    We like to spend time doing what we’re already good at, which might be a good thing if we’re aiming for excellence in a very narrow field. However, learning a language is not so narrow and requires us ta learn a variety of skills. In this article, I explore the tendency to focus on what we’re already good at and some of it’s negative consequences. I also propose some hands-on tips to escape the convenience trap.

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  4. What native speakers know and what they don’t

    What native speakers know and what they don't

    I’ve come a cross enough examples of people overstating the importance of being a native speaker to lead me to think that it’s a general trend and not an isolated phenomenon. This attitude is so bizarre it left me baffled the first few times, but I’ve come across this so often that it can no longer be dismissed as coincidence: people really seem to think that native speakers know everything, although it’s obvious that they don’t. This also means that most native speakers over-estimate their own language ability.

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  5. Making mistakes in Chinese is necessary to adjust your mental models

    Everybody knows that making mistakes is part of learning and that you have to live with it. Some of you might even have heard that mistakes are good, as long as they are genuine. Very few, however, live according to this maxim. In this article I talk about making mistakes and that a healthy attitude towards mistakes is of great importance when trying to learn Chinese.

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  6. Learning Chinese is easier than you think

    Natives and foreigners alike tend to spread the myth that Chinese is impossible to learn. This isn’t true. If you have the correct attitude and approach, Chinese isn’t all that difficult to learn, at least to a conversant level. This post is meant as encouragement for those of you who think or believe that Chinese is impossible to learn.

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