Hey guys, I was Will's friend in the video, if you have any questions about anything we discussed in the video or any questions for me in general about learning Chinese then feel free to ask them here :)
@@phen-themoogle7651 Thanks! In terms of hours, it did differ at certain points during my learning journey because I'm a university student and can be quite busy at times. At the start (first couple of months), I'd say I was spending around 2-3 hours a day, but once my fluency had reached a certain level I was able to get a lot more out of the language and so I could have days where I would spend 4-5 hours purely studying Chinese (this was during the summer). These 4-5 hour sessions mainly consisted of texting & calling my Chinese friends and practicing with them as well as watching UA-cam videos about Chinese or watching Chinese TV shows. At the moment, I don't come across as many new words as I used to and I'm in my final year of University so I don't spend as much time studying, but I usually do 1-2 hours (mainly Anki, talking with natives and TV shows). Hope this helps!
So, for the Anki cards you have the definition of the word on the front instead of the back? I guess I am doing it the wrong way. You definitely got some amazing results out of it!
Your Progress is amazing!! Congrats on achieving this fluency in soo little time. If you could make a video demonstrating your anki decks would be awesome! I have a question: I for example know some characters and meanings but still can't piece together phrases... should I just go watch/listen to some podcast (e.g. DashuMandarin) and just add every sentence I cant understand to anki deck and then just drill them?
@@phen-themoogle7651 Thanks! In terms of hours, I'd say it varied across my learning journey, at the start I was spending around 2-3 hours a day. But once my level of fluency started increasing it was easy for me to learn new things in the language so I would spend around 4-5 hours a day purely learning Chinese (this was during the summer). At the moment, I am in my final year of university and I don't come across as many new words as I used to so I only spend around 1-3 hours a day depending on how busy I am. I hope this helps!
You're the only non-native Chinese teaching channel on UA-cam who seem comfortable having conversations in Chinese. All the other non-native "teachers" don't seem comfortable speaking for any amount of time on video, especially in a free-flowing conversation. They always talk in English and only occasionally speak Chinese. Your obvious comfort and mastery makes me feel a lot more confident in your methods.
Really appreciate the comment! I think your definitely right, this is sadly so true and is the reason why and try and do as many videos as possible in Mandarin :)
@@timbradshaw5481 1. Even if he is reading off a screen, nothing wrong with that because most probably it's his own words anyway. Not like someone else prepared what he has to say for him 2. Even if he is reading off a screen, it is still so very natural. We like to think that it's easy to simply read off a script - but that's not always the case. You can immediately see like you're totally reading something and have no idea what you're saying if it's simply just mindlessly reading like that.
@@YasminSaysSo It is disappointing because I know I could make myself look twice as fluent if I read of a screen and did an unknown amount of takes. The reason it's an issue is you can't really judge his chinese level because everything he says involved reading a screen and there are a bunch of cuts, which might mean his level is largely inflated. At least with the second guy his words are his own, and his level can be appreciated despite the cuts.
Something the two of you have in common, other than extensive use of Anki, is having a native speaker friend who is willing to let you practice speaking with them, and patiently correct your mistakes. I'm just curious why they were willing to help you so much for free. Even my own wife (a native speaker) won't help me like that! You guys are lucky to have such friends.
Totally agree, it's mainly because we both found language exchange partners so we did the same for them in English. Once you've gotten pretty fluent there's not much pressure on native speakers to have to correct you as much
@@willhartmandarin Oh, so it was a language exchange. That makes sense. Probably the best way to learn, without having to pay money, if you can find a suitable partner.
Great video!! I have just started YoYo Chinese and so far I am only 4 days in and it focuses (at least for the most part right now) on pinyin. I have completed 21 of the 208 Beginner Conversational lessons. It is quite overwhelming, but I am doing as much as I can around 5 to 6 hours a day. My goal is to be able to speak and understand Chinese enough to have a decent conversation with a Chinese person and then focus on learning to read the symbols along the way, but mostly after I get a grasp on the conversation aspect and the tones reading pinyin. No idea how long it will take to be fluent, but it would be great to be able to visit China and speak and read the native language. I may want to move there...that is the ultimate goal. :)
Just landed on your channel so don’t know much about your learning journey. I want to say that If you both learned to that level without spending any time in China per say it’s really amazing. Non-Chinese I know who have that fluent a level and grasp of vocabulary usually all spent years living in China.
Another trick for practicing pronunciation is to talk to Google translate in Chinese and see if it correctly translates what you are saying back into English. Try to speak at the rate of a native speaker. It will force you to focus on the tones and speaking aloud instead of just in your head.
Hello I am wondering, you said at the beginning you didnt learn from books, learnt straight by through conversation on tandem or hello talk? Can you elaborate it more? I cannot imagine to sent audio messages or calls without knowing anything in that language, so how did you do it? Did you just write with people and used translator? because otherwise I do not get it 🙈 thanks a lot
Very impressive. I didn't understand at the start, when using Tandem / HelloTalk etc language exchange, did he type back and forth or speak back and forth? If speak, how did he get from zero to conversational?
That's a very good question. At the start I was just using the very little vocabulary I had gained from a few pages of the HSK1 book to try and type a bit of Chinese, but as you can imagine this only lasted for like a few seconds before I had to switch to English haha. After this however, I would just try to use all the Chinese I could before I didn't know how to say something and when I didn't know I would just ask my language partner to help me translate it. Obviously during the very start I was mainly using English but I would slowly gain more and more vocabulary each day and try to use it whenever I could. In terms of speaking, I was very hesitant to speak at the very beginning because I was so shy to speak Chinese out loud haha, but once I got more comfortable with the language I would slowly increase the amount of voice messages I was sending in Chinese and this eventually allowed me to start having little conversations in Chinese and I pretty much just did that all the way until the point I'm at today. Hope this makes sense :)!
Hi, very impressive progress big kudos to both of you :) I am learning Mandarin, and I find that making flashcards while listening to podcasts or after a class takes so much time that it almost makes me feel like I am silly wasting time… do you have a similar experience? And then I consume a lot of content in Chinese but if I was to note down everything I would have to quit my job. Am I alone feeling this way?
I think you're making too many flashcards. Set yourself a clear goal e.g. today I am going to learn new words from this 30 minute podcast and then write down those 5 sentences and after you've finished watching/listening copy and paste them into anki. A lot of language learning is working out what to learn at what time and prioritising. Really hope this helps!
My Chinese teacher had a boyfriend and taught him to speak the language, they lived together and spent all day together. I don't believe that it wasn't the same in this case. A normal friend wouldn't teach the language to that lvl. I know people who after graduating from Sinology can't speak like that.
Chris Lonsdale, a New Zealand psychologist, became a native level Mandarin speaker in under a year. He travelled to China in 1981 and used Mandarin exclusively. The ONLY method that is effective is comprehensi input
Thanks, guys. The advice was really helpful for me for sure. I'll start my Mandarin studies soon, and I'm aiming to learn it the way natives do it. Do you have any video recommendations? I was thinking about those made for toddlers. I learned English by attending classes and the regular stuff, and I struggle to build sentences now, which makes my speaking sound a little bit unnatural - a pattern that I don't want to follow in my Chinese learning journey.
No problem, I'm glad you found it helpful! I think having good pronunciation and emphasising tones early on in your learning journey would be really beneficial and help you to sound more natural. There's a playlist by Grace Mandarin Chinese that goes over all the basics ua-cam.com/play/PLwFUKjRMEUxw2IRsDA8GZGW1AZdgCoiAA.html&si=tCbitS1zCUn6vsQr . If you feel you are struggling to build sentences in your head then I would definitely check out some of Will's videos on how to think in Chinese because they were a definitely a game changer for me. Making some Chinese friends would also be useful as you can get them to correct your sentences and you would therefore have correct, native sounding sentences that you could review later/put into a flashcard software like Anki. I hope this helps!
@Simon.Oliver15 thank you very much! I will surely watch the Playlist above and try the software. I downloaded "Hello Chinese" as well. Hoping to succeed as much as you. Congratulations on your Chinese skills again (both of you).
Hey guys, I was Will's friend in the video, if you have any questions about anything we discussed in the video or any questions for me in general about learning Chinese then feel free to ask them here :)
Awesome job! I was wondering how many hours you would study for on average a day? or use/play in the language for.
@@phen-themoogle7651 Thanks! In terms of hours, it did differ at certain points during my learning journey because I'm a university student and can be quite busy at times. At the start (first couple of months), I'd say I was spending around 2-3 hours a day, but once my fluency had reached a certain level I was able to get a lot more out of the language and so I could have days where I would spend 4-5 hours purely studying Chinese (this was during the summer). These 4-5 hour sessions mainly consisted of texting & calling my Chinese friends and practicing with them as well as watching UA-cam videos about Chinese or watching Chinese TV shows. At the moment, I don't come across as many new words as I used to and I'm in my final year of University so I don't spend as much time studying, but I usually do 1-2 hours (mainly Anki, talking with natives and TV shows).
Hope this helps!
So, for the Anki cards you have the definition of the word on the front instead of the back? I guess I am doing it the wrong way. You definitely got some amazing results out of it!
Your Progress is amazing!! Congrats on achieving this fluency in soo little time. If you could make a video demonstrating your anki decks would be awesome! I have a question: I for example know some characters and meanings but still can't piece together phrases... should I just go watch/listen to some podcast (e.g. DashuMandarin) and just add every sentence I cant understand to anki deck and then just drill them?
@@phen-themoogle7651 Thanks! In terms of hours, I'd say it varied across my learning journey, at the start I was spending around 2-3 hours a day. But once my level of fluency started increasing it was easy for me to learn new things in the language so I would spend around 4-5 hours a day purely learning Chinese (this was during the summer). At the moment, I am in my final year of university and I don't come across as many new words as I used to so I only spend around 1-3 hours a day depending on how busy I am.
I hope this helps!
You're the only non-native Chinese teaching channel on UA-cam who seem comfortable having conversations in Chinese. All the other non-native "teachers" don't seem comfortable speaking for any amount of time on video, especially in a free-flowing conversation. They always talk in English and only occasionally speak Chinese.
Your obvious comfort and mastery makes me feel a lot more confident in your methods.
Really appreciate the comment! I think your definitely right, this is sadly so true and is the reason why and try and do as many videos as possible in Mandarin :)
@@willhartmandarinI can't wait for your next videos!
The guy on the left looks like he is reading off a screen. The guy on the right looks like he's speaking from his mind.
@@timbradshaw5481 1. Even if he is reading off a screen, nothing wrong with that because most probably it's his own words anyway. Not like someone else prepared what he has to say for him 2. Even if he is reading off a screen, it is still so very natural. We like to think that it's easy to simply read off a script - but that's not always the case.
You can immediately see like you're totally reading something and have no idea what you're saying if it's simply just mindlessly reading like that.
@@YasminSaysSo It is disappointing because I know I could make myself look twice as fluent if I read of a screen and did an unknown amount of takes.
The reason it's an issue is you can't really judge his chinese level because everything he says involved reading a screen and there are a bunch of cuts, which might mean his level is largely inflated.
At least with the second guy his words are his own, and his level can be appreciated despite the cuts.
Something the two of you have in common, other than extensive use of Anki, is having a native speaker friend who is willing to let you practice speaking with them, and patiently correct your mistakes. I'm just curious why they were willing to help you so much for free. Even my own wife (a native speaker) won't help me like that! You guys are lucky to have such friends.
Totally agree, it's mainly because we both found language exchange partners so we did the same for them in English. Once you've gotten pretty fluent there's not much pressure on native speakers to have to correct you as much
@@willhartmandarin Oh, so it was a language exchange. That makes sense. Probably the best way to learn, without having to pay money, if you can find a suitable partner.
佩服Will和Simon!自学快一年了, 我明白这个视频中的大概所有词语。一年后我希望到达你们的水平程度。
只用水平这个词就行啦，再用程度有点语义重复了～
加油
现在呢？学得怎么样？
Great video!! I have just started YoYo Chinese and so far I am only 4 days in and it focuses (at least for the most part right now) on pinyin. I have completed 21 of the 208 Beginner Conversational lessons.
It is quite overwhelming, but I am doing as much as I can around 5 to 6 hours a day. My goal is to be able to speak and understand Chinese enough to have a decent conversation with a Chinese person and then focus on learning to read the symbols along the way, but mostly after I get a grasp on the conversation aspect and the tones reading pinyin.
No idea how long it will take to be fluent, but it would be great to be able to visit China and speak and read the native language. I may want to move there...that is the ultimate goal. :)
为你们俩感到骄傲
Wow, what a great video. Thanks guys… Tons of useful tips!
You're more than welcome Daniel!
Extremely useful advices. Thank you guys!
Glad it was helpful!
Just landed on your channel so don’t know much about your learning journey. I want to say that If you both learned to that level without spending any time in China per say it’s really amazing. Non-Chinese I know who have that fluent a level and grasp of vocabulary usually all spent years living in China.
Thanks that's really kind of you :)
!! 好厉害哦。很佩服你们！
The subtitles are so helpful 🎉 🙏
Another trick for practicing pronunciation is to talk to Google translate in Chinese and see if it correctly translates what you are saying back into English. Try to speak at the rate of a native speaker. It will force you to focus on the tones and speaking aloud instead of just in your head.
So the trick is having Chinese friends lol.
谢谢分享。视频很用心，点赞👍🏻👍🏻
很有意思！
Impressive!
OMG 😮 its amazing！！！
Thanks!
Hello I am wondering, you said at the beginning you didnt learn from books, learnt straight by through conversation on tandem or hello talk? Can you elaborate it more? I cannot imagine to sent audio messages or calls without knowing anything in that language, so how did you do it? Did you just write with people and used translator? because otherwise I do not get it 🙈 thanks a lot
Thanks a lot for the sharing. Can you Will Hart made a tuitor how to use anki? 谢谢捏
I think this playlist will be helpful for you: ua-cam.com/video/nMuYYONSBdQ/v-deo.html
她的口音很厉害 😮
确实挺厉害的哈
她 means "she" haha
Very impressive. I didn't understand at the start, when using Tandem / HelloTalk etc language exchange, did he type back and forth or speak back and forth? If speak, how did he get from zero to conversational?
That's a very good question. At the start I was just using the very little vocabulary I had gained from a few pages of the HSK1 book to try and type a bit of Chinese, but as you can imagine this only lasted for like a few seconds before I had to switch to English haha. After this however, I would just try to use all the Chinese I could before I didn't know how to say something and when I didn't know I would just ask my language partner to help me translate it. Obviously during the very start I was mainly using English but I would slowly gain more and more vocabulary each day and try to use it whenever I could. In terms of speaking, I was very hesitant to speak at the very beginning because I was so shy to speak Chinese out loud haha, but once I got more comfortable with the language I would slowly increase the amount of voice messages I was sending in Chinese and this eventually allowed me to start having little conversations in Chinese and I pretty much just did that all the way until the point I'm at today. Hope this makes sense :)!
Very good mandarin. Just perfect
It's amazing. But I want to ask you: Is it effective if I read the transcript while listening to the podcast?
have you ever tried the marilyn/mind palace method for memorizing ?
I have, but I prefer the keyword method for language learning. It's a mnemonic method developed by Paul Nation that works really well.
Hi, very impressive progress big kudos to both of you :) I am learning Mandarin, and I find that making flashcards while listening to podcasts or after a class takes so much time that it almost makes me feel like I am silly wasting time… do you have a similar experience? And then I consume a lot of content in Chinese but if I was to note down everything I would have to quit my job. Am I alone feeling this way?
I think you're making too many flashcards. Set yourself a clear goal e.g. today I am going to learn new words from this 30 minute podcast and then write down those 5 sentences and after you've finished watching/listening copy and paste them into anki. A lot of language learning is working out what to learn at what time and prioritising. Really hope this helps!
@ thank you Will, this is super helpful, will give it a go 🤗
My Chinese teacher had a boyfriend and taught him to speak the language, they lived together and spent all day together.
I don't believe that it wasn't the same in this case. A normal friend wouldn't teach the language to that lvl. I know people who after graduating from Sinology can't speak like that.
Chris Lonsdale, a New Zealand psychologist, became a native level Mandarin speaker in under a year. He travelled to China in 1981 and used Mandarin exclusively.
The ONLY method that is effective is comprehensi input
Native level Mandarin level under 12 months without having ever lived with native speakers before then? I find that hard to believe.
何威，你的普通话发音比很多中国人的更地道👍🏻👍🏻
Did he learn how to speak outside of China? Did he take any formal classes?
He learnt to speak in the UK, he's never been to China or taken any formal classes
Thanks, guys. The advice was really helpful for me for sure.
I'll start my Mandarin studies soon, and I'm aiming to learn it the way natives do it. Do you have any video recommendations? I was thinking about those made for toddlers.
I learned English by attending classes and the regular stuff, and I struggle to build sentences now, which makes my speaking sound a little bit unnatural - a pattern that I don't want to follow in my Chinese learning journey.
No problem, I'm glad you found it helpful!
I think having good pronunciation and emphasising tones early on in your learning journey would be really beneficial and help you to sound more natural. There's a playlist by Grace Mandarin Chinese that goes over all the basics ua-cam.com/play/PLwFUKjRMEUxw2IRsDA8GZGW1AZdgCoiAA.html&si=tCbitS1zCUn6vsQr . If you feel you are struggling to build sentences in your head then I would definitely check out some of Will's videos on how to think in Chinese because they were a definitely a game changer for me. Making some Chinese friends would also be useful as you can get them to correct your sentences and you would therefore have correct, native sounding sentences that you could review later/put into a flashcard software like Anki.
I hope this helps!
@Simon.Oliver15 thank you very much! I will surely watch the Playlist above and try the software. I downloaded "Hello Chinese" as well. Hoping to succeed as much as you.
Congratulations on your Chinese skills again (both of you).
if you really want to go toddler style then Little Fox Chinese is the way
@@picojujutsu Thankss! I took a look and it seems to be very helpful and ludic. Exactly what I was searching for.
突然发现，可以通过你的字幕，学英文！
AI is crazy these days, that video looks 100% legit
That's because it is legit lol
@ it was a joke my bro
你的hsk等级是多少？ Hsk4？
应该已经到HSK6左右吧
为什么普通话是北方口音
Holy 牛!
开头摇晕了😂
哈哈哈
练习时间多久?两年半，噢，鸡哥，是你吗