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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[–] Yingwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Awesome that you're interested in Chinese. A really good website resource is HackingChinese.com which has a lot of free resources on how to study Chinese.

Other than that, comprehensible input, listening to content that you understand 80-90% off is a great way to improve both pronunciation and listening. I recommend Learn Taiwanese Mandarin, Talk Taiwanese Mandarin With Abby, TeaTime Chinese, Chinese Podcast with Shenglan, MaoMi Chinese. Peppa Pig is also great.

I'd also recommend checking up chorusing/shadowing technique, which is mimicking native sentences and words. It's a surefire way to improve your pronunciation even though it's grindy. HackingChinese has posted a lot about it. Also: work on tone pairs! If you know how a word is pronounced with proper tones, you can transfer that pronunciation to another word with the exact same tones.

Having a teacher that can correct you is also great if you can afford it, but with proper self-discipline self-studies go a long way.