this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2025
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Chinese language 中文 漢語

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Discussions and resources for studying or learning about Chinese languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Classical Chinese, etc.).

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Introduction - Beginner help? (piefed.social)
submitted 1 week ago by perishthethought@piefed.social to c/chinese@lemmy.world
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Hey hey, I just returned from two weeks on vacation in China and I'm returning seriously embarrassed about how bad my Mandarin is. I live in the US and have very little experience learning Mandarin so far and my pronunciation is horrible. I want to work to improve my vocabulary and pronunciation. The 4 tones are very hard for me, as my hearing is not great to start.

Any ideas for a complete beginner would be greatly appreciated. For instance, will I learn faster with a teacher / in person lessons, or is online learning good enough these days?

I have experience learning other languages, FYI, including Spanish and French and a little Dutch. Cheers for keeping this community alive!

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[–] perishthethought@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

oh boy, I just installed and tried to use Praat. It seems like it would take a long time to learn, which seems like it would end up helping but I'm not sure I have time for that rn. Thanks though, will keep this in mind.

[–] Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago

I don't think I really recommend Praat at this point tbh.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 1 points 1 week ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvyn_6lbH4E

There is a bunch of demonstrations of how to show the tones in Praat. It's super helpful, worth the time to use the software.