Articles in the ‘Attitude and mentality’ category Page 8
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How long have you studied Chinese?
How long have you studied Chinese? Two years? Three thousand hours? Even though most people don’t expect an answer in hours, there are several reasons we should really count our learning time in hours. It’s the time we spend learning Chinese that matters, not when we moved to China or started learning Chinese.
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Language learning with a Chinese girlfriend or boyfriend
Learning Chinese with a partner is very good, because it makes you more motivated and makes it more fun to learn. However, it isn’t a magic bullet that will solve all your problems. You will still need to study, you will still need to practice, it’s just that some of the things you need to learn will be more enjoyable and you will hopefully be more motivated to learn. That’s worth a lot, but you can find other fun ways to learn and other things to drive you forwards.
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How to reach a decent level of Chinese in 100 days
Scott Young has written a lot about how to learn more efficiently and this year he has turned his focus entirely on languages. He spent three months in China and managed to reach a very decent level of Chinese in that time, including passing HSK4. In this article, he shares his experience and the strategies he used. The article also contains two video interviews, one with John Pasden (Sinosplice) and one with me.
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How to find out how good your Chinese pronunciation really is
Evaluating pronunciation needn’t be hard, but many methods commonly used by teachers are deeply flawed, resulting in inaccurate error analysis. If we want to improve, we need to be clear about what we need to improve first. This article looks at some problems with commonly used methods to evaluate pronunciation and suggests some alternatives.
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The three roads to mastering Chinese
Mastering a foreign language is a daunting task, especially a language as foreign as Chinese! In this article, I outline three possible roads that all lead towards mastery. They have in common that we really need to make Chinese an important and integrated part of our lives, because that’s the only way we can spend the time we need to really get to know the language.
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How to Approach Chinese Grammar
In this article John Pasden discusses how to approach Chinese grammar as a foreigner, starting by debunking a few myths and then going on to how to actually learn grammar. Chinese is a language where you can very far with just a few basic concepts and patterns, so make the most of what you learn and try to use it immediately. Then extend your knowledge gradually and return to old patterns for a more detailed look later when you actually need to. Grammar learning should be driven by an actual need for better ways of expressing yourself or understanding what people say to you!
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Asking the experts: How to learn Chinese grammar
How should we learn Chinese grammar? This article collects the best answers from more than 15 experts and experienced learners.
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Learning how to fish: Or, why it’s essential to know how to learn
Learning how to learn Chinese is an essential skill for any student, regardless if you study on your own or in a course. This article explains why going to class is not enough.
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Habit hacking for language learners
Forming language learning habits is a key ingredient in any successful recipe for mastering Chinese. This makes sure that we learn regularly and that it becomes a natural part of our lives, rather than something we do artificially only occasionally and perhaps a little bit reluctantly. This article deals with the basics of how to form habits and how they can be used to boost your language learning.
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Chinese immersion with Carl Gene Fordham
It’s widely known that immersion is an effective way of learning languages, but the details are less clear. How do you go about it? This article contains an interview with Carl Gene Fordham, who has many interesting things to say about how he learnt Chinese to an advanced level, as well as how we continued from there and became a translator and interpreter.
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