Hey guys, welcome to the new video VIDEOZ AI OTO
You have probably heard that Mandarin Chinese is very hard to learn You may even feel intimidated after hearing VIDEOZ AI OTO
about the 4 tones and the thousands of chinese characters. Guys, I didn’t even mention Cantonese, which
has nine tones But today we are gonna focus on Mandarin Chinese
which is the most widely spoken language in the world with over 1.3 billion speakers. What if I told you that Mandarin is not as
difficult as you think They just wanted to freak you out. and that there are plenty of amazing self-learning
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resources All you need is some guidance on finding the
right learning resources, method, and a good plan. If you’re new to this channel, my name is
Zoe, and I’m a polyglot who speaks seven languages. Chinese is my native language. In addition to my experience in learning new
languages I’ve compiled a lot of information over the
years as someone who has done a lot of tandem exchanges and taught Mandarin to foreigners.
I’ve seen their weaknesses and areas of struggle. In this video, I won’t just list a couple
of apps or YouTube channels and drown you in endless resources and confusion why don`t you explain it to me like I am an 8 year old Instead, I’ll guide you through concrete methods on how to study Chinese from a beginner to
an advanced level. For each level, I’ll recommend specific resources
to target different skills! And at the end, I’ll give you an applicable
daily routine plan so you can kickstart your learning journey today
The study plan I’ll be sharing today will take you from HSK1 to HSK6 in 20 months. However, please keep in mind that this plan
requires a lot of motivation, consistency, and discipline. So please adjust it to a suitable version
based on your situation. Maybe you already have an intermediate level,
but I still recommend not skipping the beginner level where I will
be sharing the most useful learning tools to help structure your learning.
Don´t forget to give me a like if you appreciate
my work! Now!Cut the crap!Let’s get started! First let me explain briefly: What is the
HSK? HSK stands for “汉语水平考试”
which is the standard Chinese Proficiency Test for non-native speaker
it is divided into 6 levels starting from Elementary to Advanced
Each level contains a number of vocabulary and grammar points you need to learn. By the way, I made this video according to
the old HSK as most resources and APPS are built up on
it, and don’t worry about the NHSK as the language
remains the same, and the new tests haven’t been initiated
yet. For this level, one goal:
discover the language system and prepare the basic learning tools! Pinyin and hanzi are two important components
of Mandarin language system. what is hanzi? Hanzi are the Chinese characters used in written
Mandarin. They are pictographic and ideographic symbols
that represent words or concepts. They are essential for reading and writing
in Mandarin. We use simplified Hanzi in mainland China,
traditional Hanzi in Hong Kong, Taiwan or other Chinese speaking regions.
Pinyin is a system for representing Mandarin
pronunciation using the Latin alphabet. It uses letters and diacritical marks to indicate
the four tones, as well as the specific sounds of Mandarin
phonemes. Pinyin is often used as a teaching tool for
non-native speakers, as it provides a more accessible way to learn
pronunciation and tone before tackling the complex characters of
hanzi. The most important thing when you study Chinese
is setting the foundations for pronunciation and tones right
you want to build up the language with healthy habits and a strong foundation. So, in the first week of the plan you will
focus on tones and pinyin it only takes about a week to get familiar
with the sounds of the language you are lucky as there are now plenty of resources
to practice tones and pronunciation I recommend these three video! Try listening to these videos during the week
and pause and actively practise along with it
Repeat each sound out loud until you feel comfortable with the pronunciation.
Also there are some apps that offer Pinyin
and Tones training or You can start with the basics using a well-structured
app such as SuperChinese,
where you can also train your pronunciation with the help of AI. I don’t recommend studying for too long in
the beginning. Just 15 minutes to discover the language with
the app and build the learning habit. During this period, please focus on Pinyin. If you have a Chinese friend or tandem partner,
you can also ask them to help you correct your pronunciation. Now we will get into week #2
People often say, “Oh, writing in Chinese is so difficult and cimplicated
Maybe I should just learn Pinyin.” why so weak! but guys To be honest,
Hanzi is the heart of the Chinese language. It’s true that nowadays we can type them with
Pinyin which is more foreigner-friendly
but remember, writing is still the best way to understand
and memorize Hanzi. So, it should not be ignored from the beginning
One mistake that people make when learning Hanzi is jumping immediately into the HSK
vocabulary list, but starting to learn Hanzi without understanding
the radicals will only make everything harder in the future.
So what are radicals? In the Chinese writing system,
a radical is a graphical component of a character that gives it its meaning and helps in the
classification and indexing of the character. Radicals are also known as “keys” or “clues”and
often indicate the semantic category of the character. There are a total of 214 radicals in the Chinese
writing system which are used to classify and organize the
characters in dictionaries and other reference materials. For example, the character for “tree” (木)
is made up of the radical for “wood” (木) and the phonetic component (this component
indicates the pronunciation of the character). By recognizing and understanding the radical
of a character, one can more easily learn and remember new
characters that are related in meaning for example When we were in elementary school,
we all had to start from learning radicals in Chinese lessons
From the radicals we start to learn a set of Hanzi
then related words.
So，for week 2, I suggest studying only the
most common radicals, which number around 55 more or less. At this level, focus on understanding what
each radical represents. This part will take around 2 weeks to complete,
and you will be studying a couple of radicals every day through writing. Try to find a corresponding Hanzi with each
radical, but you don’t need to memorize them yet. Just focus on the function of the radical. It’s essential to train how you picture a
character from the beginning. To practice writing, whether it’s Hanzi or
radicals, you can use Tofulearning, which offers many writing practice
sets for each level and also for the radicals. It’s available on both mobile app and desktop
versions. Or you can buy notebooks designed for Chinese
children to learn Hanzi. These are very helpful for practicing stroke
order and writing. You can find them easily on Amazon or AliExpress. If you live in China, you can find them easily
on Taobao. Oh! You can even consider buying a Chinese radical
poster! Another important tip guys！！！ Always add the Pinyin when you write down
a radical or a word.
It’s a good habit to get used to reading Pinyin
while writing any characters. The Pleco dictionary can help you break down
every character into the basic components, it’s gonna be a great free tool during your
Mandarin learning journey. If you have more budget, there is a paid dictionary
call Han book which is also great This dictionary offers more than just word
definitions, it offers many great features such as adding
words to your own private collection and then reviewing with flashcards and testing
later. Please continue practising tones and pronunciation
in this phase. HSK 1
Now we have the basic concept about the language and we have prepared the basic tools.
In HSK1 level You can expect to understand
and use simple words and phrases. HSK1 is a beginner level, it only have 150
words I estimated 15 days to complete this level,
every day you will be requested to study 10 characters only! If you prefer to study with a structured book,
the HSK books will be the best option, where you have the words list, conversation,
grammar points and detailed explanations. There are youtube videos based on these books.
You can check out these 2 HSK1 courses on
youtube! They cover all the lessons from the standard
HSK book They will guide you through the first level
step by step. For levels HSK 2 to 6, you can also use this
book collection and videos as your main learning resources. So, here’s the study plan:
First, set your goal. Start with writing 10 characters every day. The writing practice shouldn’t take more than
30 minutes. I believe writing is the most effective way
to memorize vocabulary.
With this method, you hit two birds with one
stone – memorize the meaning and practice writing. You don’t have to fill tons of pages with
the characters over and over. Try writing each character a couple of times,
then on a separate paper, test yourself and see if you can remember. Keep doing this until you remember each word. Another useful technique is to make a separate
paper with only Pinyin and meaning try to remember the corresponding Hanzi. And don’t forget to do a weekly review every
weekend to emphasize everything you have learned.
Secondly, you can choose any flashcard app
and set it to study 10 characters every day. You can use apps like SuperChinese
HSK Study,Quizlet where there are prepared decks
based on different learning book Or you can even build your own set
, you can use Anki, Quizlet, or Memrise. The third thing you must do is practice listening
and speaking Repeat every word out loud. Here I recommend you a youtube video that
explains all the HSK1 vocabulary with meaning and sentence examples. The cool thing about this video is that there’s
a time stamp for each word so you can visit it quickly. The fourth thing that you need to do is go
to the chinese wiki website That contains all the grammar points
divided by each level from hsk 1 to hsk6 with a set of examples. You can choose to study one grammatical point
every day, that’s a very good idea
or if you have already purchased the HSK books you can follow through with each lesson, both
will work.
HSK2 in terms of difficulty is more or less same as HSK 1 In this level I advice the same study plan
as HSK 1 Stick to a main resource such as HSK books
and videos. Don´t forget to integrate Hanzi writing in
your daily routine. You will be studying 10 new words a day on
the course of 2 weeks If you have time, you can start to watch other
mandarin learning youtube channels or Instagramers such as:
This way you can start gradually surrounding yourself with the language,
When you are walking or driving you can also the short videos on instagram can increase your information in a couple of seconds only when you are walking or driving you can also listen to podcast
I highly recommend Chinese Pod, they offer a vocabulary explanation and grammatical
points for each level in both mandarin and english. They also give some insights into Chinese
society, so you can begin to understand the people
as you can’t separate language from culture.
But I wouldn’t recommend using youtube channel
or podcast as your primary learning resource. Try out this listening comprehension from
learn chinese with chinese class 101 after you finish this level,
you can test your listening skills. And finally, the last level of the elementary
series HSK3. After completing this level,
you will be able to hold basic converation in daily life
and communicate with people while travelling in China
HSK3 typically takes about 1 month to complete. All the resources and methods mentioned before
still work for this level. Stick to your favorite main learning resource,
don’t try to study from all resources at once or use 3 different apps at the same time
it will overwhelm you. Do Hanzi writing exercises and the daily flashcards.
In your free time,
start integrating elementary level podcasts into your daily routine. For example ChineseClass101
Which cover all hsk levels from beginner to advanced,
they have english translation for the beginner levels,
and mandarin only for advanced level, they also offer some cultural insights and
interesting facts about life in china. You can also start to listen to Chinese songs
I personally like 莫文蔚，王菲，陈奕迅 You can even watch Chinese vocal shows like
我是歌手，我们的歌.
The good thing about this type of show is
that they always put lyrics on the screen so you can try to recognize some Hanzi, which
is a good exercise. Practising singing with lyrics will be very
rewarding in the future when you have chinese friends and go into karaoke bars and flaunt
your mandarin skills. in this level, you should be able to discuss
a wide range of topics in Chinese and communicate fluently with native speakers
in common situations. As for your learning routine
I suggest you start integrating TV shows, series, or videos into your practice. For example,“爸爸去哪儿？” If you enjoy anime, there are
a lot of Chinese options such as: 大鱼海棠；中国奇谭，西游记之大圣归来,
白蛇缘起, 哪吒之魔童降世 ， These shows often incorporate traditional
Chinese culture and literature, providing an interesting way to explore Chinese
culture.
If you talk about these with your Chinese
friends, they will be impressed! Like here 中国奇谭 is very new，
it´s an 8 Chinese Folktales Collection, you can find it on Youtube with chinese and
English subtitles For Chinese videos, Bilibili(Chinese Youtube)
is a great platform to explore, and you can also follow Chinese YouTubers
who discuss daily topics like April 的草莓啊 for makeup content (she
is amazing!) or 曼食慢语 Amanda Tastes for cooking
or 美食作家王刚 for authentic chinese food
trust me, cooking chinese food is the best way to discover chinese culture
Many of these videos have English subtitles, but it’s important to always put on Chinese
subtitles and try to read the Hanzi.
There is one chinese learning channel which
is great for this level´s listening skill : Mandarin corner. They offer a very interesting podcast that
discusses interesting topics about daily life of chinese people
such as what does the chinese people think about changing
the one child policy or what chinese people think about dating
foreigners, and they offer a hanzi,
pinyin and english transcript for each episode For the intermediate level,
you can listen to Chillchat (Learn Chinese and Chill). What is great about this podcast is that they
break down the grammar and the sentence structure in a very simple way,
the topics are very engaging, and they cover a variety of levels. It’s important to practice listening at natural
speaking speed and start noticing the differences between
colloquial and standard speaking. You should also focus more on grammar and
sentence structure.
Chinese grammar is not complicated,
but at the intermediate or advanced level, there are many grammar points and details
to pay attention to in order to speak more naturally. If you encounter any grammar problems,
you can always use Chinese wiki to search and practice
hsk5 is more like an upper intermediate level! By the end of this level, you are expected
to be able to read Chinese newspapers and magazines, watch Chinese films and TV
shows, write and deliver full speeches. To improve your language skills,
I recommend watching more advanced TV series and news,
as well as listening to advanced podcasts. You should also continue practicing writing
and building up your vocabulary. For TV series, I highly recommend
家有儿女 (Chinese “Growing Pains”) which is a comedy that covers a lot of daily
topics. Most importantly, they speak in a standard
accent that is perfect for you to imitate and practice. Another great series to watch is
爱情公寓 (Chinese “Friends”), which is also a comedy that covers daily topics.
If you’re interested in a more sociological
insight into Chinese society and young people’s lives
I recommend 三十而已 (Chinese “Nothing but Thirty”),
which talks about the lives of three thirty-year-old Chinese women. The good thing about Chinese series is that
they all have Hanzi subtitles! If you want to check out some new, trendy
series, you can check out 腾讯视频 (Tencent Video). For reality shows, check out 腾讯视频
– 热播综艺 and 湖南卫视芒果TV官方频道
China HunanTV Official Channel.
The thing about learning Chinese is that unlike
other languages, the most difficult part is at the beginning. By the time you reach HSK5 or 6
you will only be adding new words and grammar points for each level. In terms of writing
it will be much easier as the same character components are broken apart and rearranged
to create new words. It’s like you’re almost done completing a
puzzle, and things have become much clearer and easier.
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the final
level of the HSK This level is particularly challenging
as it is packed with new vocabulary and information, and typically takes around 9 to 10 months
to complete. By now, I hope you’ve moved away from relying
on your native language to translate or understand Chinese. At this level,
you will be fully immersed in the language and able to engage with Chinese social media,
read comments, and interact with others. In HSK6, you will be expected to understand
virtually everything you hear or read in Chinese. To help you with this level,
I recommend exploring Chinese content that Chinese speakers consume. The topics will be more complicated,
but it’s a great way to improve your language skills.
Here I wanted to share a fantastic Chinese
food documentary with you all called “舌尖上的中国” (“A Bite of China”). I am sorry guys I am just super foodie
This documentary is not only about food, but also explores Chinese culture, customs,
society, and the relationships between people and food. It takes you on a journey from rural to urba
n areas and provides unique insights into China. Personally, I really enjoyed the first and
second seasons of this documentary I highly recommend it to anyone interested
in Chinese culture and food. Additionally, the Chinese used in this documentary
is at a high level, making it a great resource for advanced learners. For more documentary, you can check out CCTV纪录
There are two Chinese shows that can really help boost your language skills. The first is “奇葩说” (Qipashuo),
a Chinese debate show that covers a wide range of social topics
in an entertaining style. For example, some of the topics discussed
include “Should rookies in the workplace say no to
their seniors?” and “Should marriage be more about material
things or love?” Another show that I highly recommend is “脱口秀大会”
(Tuōkǒuxiù Dàhuì), a Chinese talk show competition.
I think talk shows are one of the most challenging
for language learners because because they involve cultural codes, humor,
and trendy social topics If you’re looking for authentic Chinese podcasts,
I recommend checking out 喜马拉雅 (Xīmǎlāyǎ) app,
you can find a variety of Chinese podcasts. i think you can find audio books there as
well If you are into radio,
you can also use World Wide Radio add-on to listen to all kinds of Chinese radio. It’s great to see so many people interested
in learning my beautiful native language and discovering the culture. Mandarin can be challenging,
but believe me, with passion, discipline, and consistency,
you can achieve amazing results. Remember, this is not a competition,
so take it slow and steady to win the race. I hope you enjoy this journey, and I’m here
to help you along the way. As I mentioned before, the study plan with
a concrete timeline is a reference for you to create your own learning journey.
Please adjust it to fit your situation. If you want to access the master plan PDF
along with the complete list of resources, please join us in our Discord group by clicking
the link in the description box. We regularly share learning resources and
methods to help you achieve your goals. And we will try out best to answer all your
questions and guide you through
If you appreciate my effort, please give this video a thumbs up and share it with others. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel for
new videos. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the
next one. Goodbye!.
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