Get your FREE ebook with 418 essential phrases and audio flashcards to boost your Chinese fluency here! 👉🏼 mandarinbp.com/download_free_phrases ✅ WATCH THESE NEXT 8 Actually Useful Chinese Idioms (Chengyu) ▶ ▶ ua-cam.com/video/AewkQdOfYLk/v-deo.html The Ultimate Guide to Formal Vs Informal Chinese ▶ ▶ ua-cam.com/video/Dbl8ITRaiRI/v-deo.html
Many thanks to Neale for sharing his personal journey of learning Chinese, from his initial struggles with grammar rules to his eventual success through immersion. As a Native Speaker, I've been helping many people learn Chinese lately, so I paid a lot of attention to Neale's video. Each video is very well done and very well thought out. Neale emphasises the importance of comprehensible input and subconscious acquisition of language, argues that conscious learning of grammar is not always necessary and may even be counterproductive, and puts more emphasis on the role of context in understanding grammar and the importance of accepting ambiguity in the learning process. - 📚 Neale initially struggled with traditional approaches to grammar learning, believing them to be ineffective for language learning. - 🔍 He turned to memorising words without understanding their context or Chinese characters, which didn't improve his language skills. - 📖 He then focused on consciously learning grammar, but this did not improve his fluency either. - 🌐 Discovered the concept of ‘comprehensible input’ and immersed himself in Ces, e.g. when dealing with ambiguous or confusing grammatical points. Emphasises the importance of acquiring grammar implicitly through exposure to the language, rather than consciously learning grammar rules. In some cases, conscious learning of grammar can be beneficial. - 🎓 But he moreover recommends balancing conscious learning with lots of language input and practice, and learning to accept and let go of things you don't yet understand. As a Native Speaker, we often make a lot of grammatical mistakes when we speak, and sometimes we make them on purpose to be more friendly, and speak Chinese from different cities with a lot of dialects and accents. Overall, I think this video is very good! I super enjoyed it, thank you Neale!
I am sincerely excited to "start all over again" with learning Chinese. I have spent an entire year feeling overwhelmed and dissatisfied with how much effort I have been putting into "learning" Chinese and still not being able to express myself or even be able to have a basic conversation in Chinese. The whole Mandarin BP approach to "acquiring" Chinese is amazing for me and it has not even been a week since I found out about Mandarin BP! Thank you Luke and Phil!
We're thrilled you’re excited to start fresh with us! It's great that you find our method useful . Wishing you a successful journey ahead and remember we're here to support you. Happy learning!
At 560 characters into the Blueprint, I've noticed when I read things just click into place. Learning the character and corresponding words kind of put it into my brain, it aligned the puzzle piece. But then reading and listening clicked it into place.
It's great to hear that you're experiencing those "aha" moments with the Blueprint. Keep up the fantastic work and it's wonderful to see everything coming together for you! And as usual, let us know if you need help with anything
You are just telling me what I learnt while studying English Language Teaching major. That's impressive. Even though I learned all of these in theory, I didn't think it was this useful in practice. I am truly amazed and impressed that you discovered this for yourself. Thanks for this enlightening video!
One thing I always try to remember is english is full of weird quirks that make no sense, but that doesnt stop me, and they dont even seem weird until you really stop to analyse it.
My mother tongue is Chinese and I learn English since primary school. What you said is also how my teacher advised us to learn English in high school and college. Before this stage, we had too little vocabulary to consume anything in English. So imo it's mainly an advice for intermediate speakers. As native speakers we also need to learn Chinese: standard Mandarin, ancient Chinese, traditional Chinese characters, ..., all of which are mainly acquired outside of school. In fact I never thought Chinese grammar could even be a problem. Everything is just more of a habit than a rule. We also have grammar in exams but it goes like: "read all sentences and find the weird one." When our teacher taught us Chinese grammar, I was always doing math homework because I thought it was totally useless rubbish. Also grammar is not that important. I often hear Uyghur people speaking Chinese in SOV. Since I can speak a little Uyghur, I know that they bring their grammar into Chinese and find this style interesting. However, most people can't notice the change of order at all. After all, we also do it sometimes, just not that often. The loose grammar rules of Chinese language makes it hard for Chinese native speakers to learn any other languages which have strict grammar rules. Thank you for the video! Now I have more confidence in improving my German grammar.
Very nice! I always become more self-confident after watching your videos! Other than this, I would love to buy some of these T-shirts you and Phil wear, even just to support your work. Is there any online store for this?
so the giveaway here is to immerse more, but as a beginner I find it hard to, because when I try that I find myself looking for new characters and forgetting to immerse. should I delay immersion until I get a lot more characters under my belt???
Combine immersion and character learning. Find very simple texts, children's stories, stuff on Graded Readers, etc., and look up characters you don't recognise to fill in the gaps in your knowledge. Dedicate time to learning these characters properly, their elements, meanings, history. With time, you can do this over a vast amount of texts to accumulate understanding and go up in difficultly. It's alright to just use flashcards to memorise 100 or so common / low level characters, because that should not be a long process and we all have to start somewhere. With that many characters you can definitely supplement learning with the easiest texts on Graded Readers. The start is always the slowest part. Just to be clear, Luke said exactly the opposite of what you suggested - don't be afraid of not understanding, it will come with time.
You should do both! It’s perfectly fine to spend more time learning new characters at first while gradually adding immersion. Even if the ratio leans more towards character learning in the beginning, try to immerse as much as you can. The goal is to get exposure , and even small amounts of immersion will help reinforce what you’re learning.
hi there. I'm eight months in and don't feel that my progress is up to much. I think that I need a group to join and people to talk to. I know very little about you but I enjoyed this video. You mentioned free stuff but I wondered if you had a course that used zoom or something? At this point when I go to China the only thing that I will be able to do is go to a restaurant and order hot meat buns!!!😳😥
It sounds like you're making great efforts, and we understand that finding the right support can really boost your progress. For more structured learning and interactive practice, you might want to explore our comprehensive course, the Blueprint. While we don’t use Zoom, the Blueprint offers online lessons with engaging video content, similar to what you’ve seen. Additionally, our interactive community forum is a fantastic way to connect with fellow learners, share experiences, and get support. You’ll find plenty of people who are eager to help and practice with you. You can learn more about our course here : www.mandarinblueprint.com/buy-the-blueprint/
Get your FREE ebook with 418 essential phrases and audio flashcards to boost your Chinese fluency here! 👉🏼 mandarinbp.com/download_free_phrases ✅ WATCH THESE NEXT 8 Actually Useful Chinese Idioms (Chengyu) ▶ ▶ ua-cam.com/video/AewkQdOfYLk/v-deo.html
The Ultimate Guide to Formal Vs Informal Chinese ▶ ▶ ua-cam.com/video/Dbl8ITRaiRI/v-deo.html
Many thanks to Neale for sharing his personal journey of learning Chinese, from his initial struggles with grammar rules to his eventual success through immersion. As a Native Speaker, I've been helping many people learn Chinese lately, so I paid a lot of attention to Neale's video. Each video is very well done and very well thought out.
Neale emphasises the importance of comprehensible input and subconscious acquisition of language, argues that conscious learning of grammar is not always necessary and may even be counterproductive, and puts more emphasis on the role of context in understanding grammar and the importance of accepting ambiguity in the learning process.
- 📚 Neale initially struggled with traditional approaches to grammar learning, believing them to be ineffective for language learning.
- 🔍 He turned to memorising words without understanding their context or Chinese characters, which didn't improve his language skills.
- 📖 He then focused on consciously learning grammar, but this did not improve his fluency either.
- 🌐 Discovered the concept of ‘comprehensible input’ and immersed himself in Ces, e.g. when dealing with ambiguous or confusing grammatical points. Emphasises the importance of acquiring grammar implicitly through exposure to the language, rather than consciously learning grammar rules. In some cases, conscious learning of grammar can be beneficial.
- 🎓 But he moreover recommends balancing conscious learning with lots of language input and practice, and learning to accept and let go of things you don't yet understand.
As a Native Speaker, we often make a lot of grammatical mistakes when we speak, and sometimes we make them on purpose to be more friendly, and speak Chinese from different cities with a lot of dialects and accents. Overall, I think this video is very good! I super enjoyed it, thank you Neale!
You are a true Laoshi. Thank you for the upload.
I am sincerely excited to "start all over again" with learning Chinese. I have spent an entire year feeling overwhelmed and dissatisfied with how much effort I have been putting into "learning" Chinese and still not being able to express myself or even be able to have a basic conversation in Chinese. The whole Mandarin BP approach to "acquiring" Chinese is amazing for me and it has not even been a week since I found out about Mandarin BP! Thank you Luke and Phil!
We're thrilled you’re excited to start fresh with us! It's great that you find our method useful . Wishing you a successful journey ahead and remember we're here to support you. Happy learning!
At 560 characters into the Blueprint, I've noticed when I read things just click into place. Learning the character and corresponding words kind of put it into my brain, it aligned the puzzle piece. But then reading and listening clicked it into place.
Can I ask you how long it took you to assimilate the 560 characters and feel relatively relaxed using them?
It's great to hear that you're experiencing those "aha" moments with the Blueprint. Keep up the fantastic work and it's wonderful to see everything coming together for you! And as usual, let us know if you need help with anything
Tolerating ambiguity is where you improve the most ❤
You are just telling me what I learnt while studying English Language Teaching major. That's impressive. Even though I learned all of these in theory, I didn't think it was this useful in practice. I am truly amazed and impressed that you discovered this for yourself. Thanks for this enlightening video!
Thank you for your kind words. Glad we could help
One thing I always try to remember is english is full of weird quirks that make no sense, but that doesnt stop me, and they dont even seem weird until you really stop to analyse it.
My mother tongue is Chinese and I learn English since primary school. What you said is also how my teacher advised us to learn English in high school and college. Before this stage, we had too little vocabulary to consume anything in English. So imo it's mainly an advice for intermediate speakers.
As native speakers we also need to learn Chinese: standard Mandarin, ancient Chinese, traditional Chinese characters, ..., all of which are mainly acquired outside of school.
In fact I never thought Chinese grammar could even be a problem. Everything is just more of a habit than a rule. We also have grammar in exams but it goes like: "read all sentences and find the weird one." When our teacher taught us Chinese grammar, I was always doing math homework because I thought it was totally useless rubbish. Also grammar is not that important. I often hear Uyghur people speaking Chinese in SOV. Since I can speak a little Uyghur, I know that they bring their grammar into Chinese and find this style interesting. However, most people can't notice the change of order at all. After all, we also do it sometimes, just not that often. The loose grammar rules of Chinese language makes it hard for Chinese native speakers to learn any other languages which have strict grammar rules.
Thank you for the video! Now I have more confidence in improving my German grammar.
Very nice! I always become more self-confident after watching your videos! Other than this, I would love to buy some of these T-shirts you and Phil wear, even just to support your work. Is there any online store for this?
Not yet but it's something we are looking into. Stay tuned!
Thanks for this advice.
Glad to help!
谢谢 师傅
谢谢你提供的视频信息，我非常感激。
Powerful.
This was a fantastic video 👍
Glad you think so! Be sure to check out the others
Excellent principles to remember and they have cross platform application…thank you, light bulb moment
I'm not even struggling with mandarin imo but your story telling is still inspirational haha
Thanks :)
Looking forward to the program:)
Looking forward to having you!
so the giveaway here is to immerse more, but as a beginner I find it hard to, because when I try that I find myself looking for new characters and forgetting to immerse.
should I delay immersion until I get a lot more characters under my belt???
Combine immersion and character learning. Find very simple texts, children's stories, stuff on Graded Readers, etc., and look up characters you don't recognise to fill in the gaps in your knowledge. Dedicate time to learning these characters properly, their elements, meanings, history. With time, you can do this over a vast amount of texts to accumulate understanding and go up in difficultly.
It's alright to just use flashcards to memorise 100 or so common / low level characters, because that should not be a long process and we all have to start somewhere. With that many characters you can definitely supplement learning with the easiest texts on Graded Readers. The start is always the slowest part.
Just to be clear, Luke said exactly the opposite of what you suggested - don't be afraid of not understanding, it will come with time.
You should do both! It’s perfectly fine to spend more time learning new characters at first while gradually adding immersion. Even if the ratio leans more towards character learning in the beginning, try to immerse as much as you can. The goal is to get exposure , and even small amounts of immersion will help reinforce what you’re learning.
hi there. I'm eight months in and don't feel that my progress is up to much. I think that I need a group to join and people to talk to. I know very little about you but I enjoyed this video. You mentioned free stuff but I wondered if you had a course that used zoom or something? At this point when I go to China the only thing that I will be able to do is go to a restaurant and order hot meat buns!!!😳😥
It sounds like you're making great efforts, and we understand that finding the right support can really boost your progress. For more structured learning and interactive practice, you might want to explore our comprehensive course, the Blueprint. While we don’t use Zoom, the Blueprint offers online lessons with engaging video content, similar to what you’ve seen.
Additionally, our interactive community forum is a fantastic way to connect with fellow learners, share experiences, and get support. You’ll find plenty of people who are eager to help and practice with you.
You can learn more about our course here : www.mandarinblueprint.com/buy-the-blueprint/
15:50
this video is amazing
Glad you think so . Thank you for watching
7:54 they are gonna be confused when they hear the US dialect where they do use seen instead of saw.
Yea but then just throw in "had" before seen
@@PychPmp seen and had seen are two different tenses.