How to Learn Chinese (Mandarin) On Your Own for FREE

My name is Brian Wiles, and in this video, I'm going to show you the best way to learn Mandarin on your own. 我自己用这种方法学习中文了,而现在会说得流利。 I learned Chinese by using this method, and now I can speak fluently. Together, we're going to create a daily learning routine that covers all the major elements of learning Mandarin. Tones, vocabulary, grammar, listening, speaking, and reading and writing skills. I'll show you the best free resources for building each of these skills based on your current level of Mandarin, and then we'll create a daily learning routine that meets your goals and needs as a student. Let's get started. Core Learning At the outset, it's important that you develop a core understanding of how Mandarin works as a language. And to do that, I recommend that you use this comprehensive video course from Mandarin Corner. It's free, it's high quality, and it follows something called the HSK curriculum. What's that? It's a program based on six standardized tests that help learners gauge their proficiency in Mandarin. And as you'll see throughout this video, it's a very useful ladder for building your comprehension. There's also an official set of HSK textbooks that can be very handy for reviewing and studying on your own. And most library systems in the U.S. keep a handful of these books in stock. And I'll also mention that for anyone specifically interested in learning traditional Chinese characters, i.e. the ones that are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and most of the Chinese diaspora, there's an excellent curriculum based on the TOEFL tests. And I would recommend using this series of textbooks if you plan on taking those exams. Mastering Tones As you're probably aware, Mandarin is a tonal language, which means that words and syllables are pronounced with a specific pitch. As you can see or hear, Mandarin has four standard tones and one neutral tone that's spoken with less emphasis. And these marks, called pinyin, are used to notate those tones in Mandarin learning materials. As a beginner, you'll want to start familiarizing yourself with pinyin and the tone system from day one. And to do that, I recommend using these two videos. They'll guide you through pronouncing the various patterns individually and help you start to string words and sentences together. As you'll see, the tone system isn't complicated. You can learn the ropes in about 10 minutes. What makes it challenging is all physiological, learning to distinguish between the various sounds and reproduce them accurately. And that can take months, so give yourself time to adapt. Speaking Skills As you develop your ear for tones, it's extremely useful to learn with a native Mandarin speaker, someone who can correct your mistakes and help you start to make real conversation. And to do that, you can seek out a native speaker in your area or do a language exchange online, i.e. you teach them and they teach you, or learn with a tutor. And my favorite language tutoring platform is Preply. Lessons on Preply are one-to-one. It's just you and your tutor for 50 minutes, which means that you're learning at exactly your pace and your level. And if you use one of the HSK courses that I mentioned earlier, your tutor will be able to guide you through every question and every moment of, wait, what the heck is this? Or you can take the more freeform approach and simply start making conversation together. Learn to introduce yourself or order food at a restaurant or talk about movies, food, culture, whatever. Each session is about your current needs as a student, which means you'll learn much faster. And in my experience, enjoy the process a heck of a lot more. If you want to try Preply, use the code Brian50 and get half off your first lesson. And then afterwards, leave a comment below and let me know how it went. Vocabulary. If you want to speak fluent Mandarin, it's essential that you build a wide vocabulary of words and phrases. And the simplest way to do that is by using flashcards. There are thousands of flashcard tools out there, but I recommend that you use a program called Anki. It's completely free on a PC or Mac, and you can use the browser version for free on your phone. Like the courses we talked about, Mandarin flashcard decks are often aligned with the HSK curriculum. And to build your vocabulary, you should use this series of flashcard decks based on your current level. Each card includes native audio and pinyin, so you can practice proper pronunciation as you memorize new words. I would also recommend that you use this dictionary, Pleco, to define any new words that you come across. Pleco has a very useful feature called Live OCR that lets you use your phone's camera to scan Chinese characters and define them individually. Trust me, this will save you an unbelievable amount of time in both the short run and the long run for reasons that we'll talk about in the reading and writing section of this video. Mastering Mandarin Grammar One of the pleasant surprises of learning Mandarin is that, believe it or not, the grammar is actually quite straightforward and much simpler than what you find in, say, English. And look, studying grammar rules does not need to be a part of your learning routine at all. If you consistently use the other resources that I talk about in this video, you'll intuitively build an understanding of how Mandarin works as a language. That said, it can obviously be frustrating when a phrase or a sentence just doesn't make sense. And with that in mind, I would recommend using one of these free playlists from Chinese Zero to Hero for when you have questions about Mandarin grammar. As with the programs I mentioned earlier, everything is tied to the HSK curriculum, so it's easy to find the exact lesson you're looking for. And if you prefer using a book for reference, my favorite is Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar, which is appropriate for both beginner and intermediate level students. Listening Skills In my opinion, listening is the key to fluency when it comes to learning Mandarin for two reasons. One, it's the only way to develop your ear for the tone system, which is probably the biggest obstacle for most learners. And two, it's the best way to understand how Mandarin is used in the real world. Now, given the challenges of the tone system, I wouldn't recommend listening to Mandarin podcasts until you've completed HSK Level 1, which should take somewhere between two and four months. But once you've got the basics under your belt, I highly recommend checking out Learning Chinese Through Stories. This is a wide-ranging podcast with nine different levels of listening content for Mandarin learners. And again, it's completely free. In theory, the lowest level of LCTS, 1.1, is appropriate for novices, but I think that's kind of bonkers. In my opinion, 1.1 is at least a high beginner level, so don't be discouraged if the material seems challenging at first. Now, LCTS is pretty comprehensive, but once you reach an intermediate to advanced level of Mandarin, say HSK 4, you're ready to start listening to native podcasts. And two of my favorites are Bu Sa, which is hosted by a lighthearted Chinese couple, and Da Ren, the Small Talk, which is basically a Taiwanese self-help podcast. The audio quality is excellent in both shows, the accents are pretty neutral, and the content is interesting. I'll leave a few more recommendations in the description box below, but if you know of any other great Mandarin podcasts, please leave a comment and let everyone know. Now, no matter what your level, you want to make sure that you're using podcasts effectively. That means when you hear a word or a phrase you don't recognize, you should use the voice-to-text feature in Pleco or Google Translate to get a definition in your native language. And then later on, you can review any new words by looking through your translation history. TV shows and movies. Can watching TV and movies in Mandarin be part of your learning routine? Absolutely. Although I wouldn't recommend relying on TV and movies for learning purposes until you're at a pretty advanced level, HSK 4 or above. At that point, you can use this search feature on Netflix, or I'll leave a link below to a database of Mandarin language content for various streaming services. The key, however, is that while you're watching, you should only use Chinese subtitles. Being immersed in Mandarin will force your brain to adapt quickly, but having English on screen will totally short-circuit the process. So with that in mind, feel free to find shows and movies you like and make watching them a part of your daily routine. Just remember to look up new words and phrases whenever you hear them. Reading skills. Learning to read Chinese characters is, in my opinion, the toughest aspect of studying Mandarin. And that's because you'll need to memorize thousands of them if you want to read native text comfortably. And if you're serious about learning a language, that should absolutely be one of your goals. But don't sweat, I've got you covered. The Anki flashcard decks that we mentioned will help you learn to recognize individual characters as you build your vocab. And the HSK coursebooks that I mentioned do a good job of introducing those same characters in context so that you learn to read full sentences. Again, everything is tied to HSK, and that's very important. Because what you don't want to do is learn some characters in Anki, learn different characters in a textbook, and then learn different characters again in a video course. At a beginner level, that's just too much to take in for most people. But once you reach HSK level 3, you can also start to make use of graded readers. These are short books and stories that are designed for students. And of course, they have various levels. I'll put links to my favorite graded readers in the description box below, but you should also keep the following in mind. If you use a Kindle or tablet to read your stories, you can tap on any words you don't know and get a definition instantly. If you read the paper version of a book, you'll want to use that Live OCR feature that I mentioned on the Pleco app. This lets you scan the character with your phone and get a definition instantly. Without that, you'll need to look the word up via the radical and the various strokes, which can be an interesting exercise but is extremely time consuming. I don't recommend it. And finally, if you're looking for an app to build your reading skills, my favorites are DoChinese and The Chairman's Bow. They both have tons of content at various levels, they're easy to use, and word definitions are clear and informative. DoChinese is focused more on short stories, and TCB is based largely on news articles, so pick the content that works for you. Writing Skills Now let me just start by saying that you absolutely do not need to learn to write Chinese characters by hand. You can become a completely fluent speaker and reader of Mandarin without learning to write a single character. Many people have. Because what you will learn, if you use the resources I've recommended, is how to use Pinyin to type Chinese characters on your phone or computer. Essentially, you type a word in Pinyin, and then your computer or phone generates the appropriate character. In that sense, learning to type Chinese characters is actually pretty straightforward. So if you're considering learning to write by hand, I would first ask yourself why, because it's a daunting task. And I don't know about you, but I barely write anything by hand, even in English anymore. Okay, ran over. If you want to practice writing Chinese characters, I recommend using one of these two apps, Daily Mandarin, which is 100% free, and Skritter, which requires a subscription. Both apps have character lists tied to the HSK curriculum, and they're both excellent. Skritter, however, has a better training system and better stroke recognition. Try them both and see what works for you. Your Daily Routine So we've covered all the bases. Now let's talk about how to build a daily learning routine that focuses on the skills you need to develop. First of all, set aside a fixed amount of time every day for studying Mandarin. Ideally, it should be at least one hour, but you can of course adjust the timing to suit your needs. If you're a total beginner, you should use the HSK Level 1 resources that we talked about and break down your time like this. If possible, I also highly recommend that you do at least one lesson per week with an online tutor. It's very easy to develop bad pronunciation habits early on, and a tutor will keep you moving in the right direction. Once you complete HSK Level 3, you can also start to add the podcasts that we talked about to your learning routine, but take it slow because this will definitely be a jump in terms of difficulty. After you finish HSK Level 4, you have two real options. If you want to focus on speaking Mandarin, I would recommend that you stop following HSK and make podcasts the main engine for your ongoing learning. If you want to focus on reading Mandarin, you can follow HSK all the way through Level 6 And there you have it, all the tools you need to learn Mandarin. If you have any questions, please let me know. And as always, thanks for watching.