5 Resources for Learning to Speak Mandarin Chinese as an Absolute Beginner (as smoothly as possible)
Once new acquaintances find out that I lived in China for three years, one of two things tends to happen:
- They say something along the lines of “that’s cool” and move on.
- It turns out that they have always had a secret longing to visit China and start asking how to learn Mandarin Chinese.
After three more years of gamely trying to condense my years of painful trial and error learning into a non-threatening package suitable for the uninitiated, I realised I should probably just write a blog. So welcome, new friend. It warms my heart to know you looked this up.
I’ll try to make it worthwhile. Perhaps you might even still want to be my friend by the end of it.
And for anyone who reads this that doesn’t know me — welcome!
Disclaimer:
I never really learnt to read or write Mandarin Chinese. I quickly decided all I needed to be able to do was speak and understand at a basic level, and no one was going to care if I couldn’t read a word. My writing and reading were limited to simple text messages. So this guide is NOT going to include any of the tedious writing/reading stuff. You’re on your own there.
Further Disclaimer:
My Chinese is terrible. Seriously. I also never took any exams or tests to check my level. I moved to China with absolutely no knowledge of Chinese at all and worked as an English teacher, which meant I never used Chinese on the job. By the end of three years, I could muddle by for survival purposes, shop, haggle, and make simple small talk with friends/acquaintances. I’m no “I was fluent in three months” kind of genius. Languages don’t come easily to me, and I’m a poor student at best.
All this does mean I can promise these resources will work for even the laziest, most disinterested learner. You, however, seem like the enthusiastic type. You’ll do great.
(I’m going to be so mad when I see you in six months, and your Chinese is fantastic, but I get to be proud by proxy, right?)
Without further ado, let’s jump right in!
1) The Ultimate Quick Fix for Newbies: Earworms
Seriously, Earworms was a game-changer for me. I was able to master the absolute basics in just a couple of weeks, and the words and phrases I learnt this way stuck in my memory permanently. I also recommended it to a friend that moved to China about a year after me, who also had no Chinese knowledge at all, and it worked just as well for her.
One of the best things was I had the numbers 1–10 memorised and my pronunciation was fine, so I was able to shop in the marketplace by pointing and saying how many I wanted. A true survival essential!
However, the course covers roughly all the A1 (beginner) content and a bit of B1 (intermediate) stuff, so it takes you from nothing to simple conversations in about a month.
It works by playing you annoyingly catchy music (the “earworms” referenced by the course name) while layering in a pleasant male voice in your native language and a hypnotically calm female voice speaking Chinese. The music seems to carry the words directly into your brain, just like the annoying words in an advert with a catchy jingle. Not only that, but the male voice adds mnemonic devices to fix the idea in your head, such as saying that the number four: “四” or “sì” sounds a bit like Sue, so imagine a four-year-old girl called Sue.
For it to stick you DO have to listen to it every day for a month or so and review regularly, but the passive, just-listen-in-the-background-and-let-your-brain-do-its-thing method meant this was easy to do while I did the dishes after a stressful day’s work. Unlike more challenging techniques, I was able to keep up with the routine.
Despite the old-fashioned-looking apps and website (and terrible UI), I give it five stars for actually working amazingly well. Be aware, it’s not free of charge, but it is well worth its fee in my opinion.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
2) Dodge the Writing Issue and Get Speaking: Learn Pinyin
Now, you tell me which looks easier to learn:
a) 你们 没 车 吗？
b) Nǐmen méi chē ma?
Both of them represent Mandarin Chinese, and native speakers learn both in school.
Option (a) shows “You don’t have a car?” in Chinese characters or 汉字. Learning to read these characters can take a long time and a LOT of effort. Writing them is even more complicated, as to write them correctly requires doing each line in the correct order!
Option (b) shows pinyin (pīnyīn), which is a romanization system (writing the words using the Latin alphabet). Not only does it have clear spacing to show you where one word begins and ends (for example, it shows that 你们 is one word, not two: Nǐmen) it also gives you the tones to use — those little extra markers over the vowel sounds.
There are four tones in Chinese:
- mā
- má
- mǎ
- mà
and a neutral, no-tone version.
Seeing as tones are going to be a big part of learning Chinese, why not use a writing system that prompts you to use the right tone?
The tricky thing with pinyin is that although it might look like our native language, the pronunciation of certain combinations of letters is often not the same as English or whatever our native language might be. You’ll need to learn the pronunciation of each letter grouping.
I spent the first three or four months of Chinese lessons drilling these “initial” and “final” sounds and groupings. You can practice them using this free interactive chart. At this point, it can be helpful to get a tutor or Chinese friend to be brutally honest about your pronunciation. Don’t let them let you get away with fudging it — I wasted a month saying things incorrectly, and no one could understand me at all. It was only when I insisted my tutor be strict with me that my pronunciation improved.
Once you’ve gotten the hang of saying them, you’ll need to keep your ear trained and recognise them quickly in writing. To do that, I used the free “Pinyin Trainer” by trainchinese (available for iOS and Android). It says a sound in Chinese and you have to pick the correct pinyin. I found it significantly improved my listening and pronunciation. Try to copy the speaker for added training!
I give pinyin (and these free apps) four stars for making Chinese much easier to learn. It IS painful, though. No fun and games here.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
3) FREE and straightforward Grammar Guide: Chinese Grammar Wiki from AllSet Learning
Feel free not to bother with a textbook — simply work your way through each of these grammar guides to get a clear and simple explanation of each grammatical structure you need to learn at your level. Start with A1, of course!
I often found this was more helpful than any textbook I’d bought. One thing I love is the explanations and examples in both characters and pinyin.
I give it five stars for simplicity, helpfulness, and being FREE.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
4) The Best Dictionary: Pleco
You’ll absolutely need to look up words sometimes — either to understand Chinese or to find the word you need. I used the Pleco dictionary app constantly — it was a lifeline.
I eventually paid for the “full-screen handwriting” and “audio pronunciation (female)” add-ons, which just made it even niftier. There are a plethora of other add-ons you can buy, such as Graded Readers, flashcard training, an optical character recognizer etc.
However, if you are feeling cheap, use the free Google Translate app and the camera function — snap a picture of the Chinese text you want to translate, then copy the text. If you go to Pleco and select the Clipboard Reader, you will be able to tap each character and get the meaning of each word.
I give Pleco five stars for being amazing. I couldn’t have lived without it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
5) Learning Conversational Chinese Through Videos: Fluentu
Once you’ve finished Earworms, mastered pinyin, gotten to grips with some basic grammar and are comfortable using Pleco, you might feel the need to spice things up a little.
For me, Fluentu filled that need. The video lessons had vocabulary and grammar that I could understand, allowing me to follow along with the story and add to my knowledge bit by bit. It was funny, and the speakers were a bit slower than in real life, making it easier to take in new phrases. Not only that, but the conversations were very authentic — I’d seen and heard many of the mannerisms and expressions used in real life.
The only snag is the monthly subscription fee, but I can recommend taking advantage of the free trial and seeing if it’s for you.
I give it four stars for being fun and helpful, but the price makes it less appealing.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
There, that’s it! Of course, I used books and other tools, but I’d say that these five were the best of the bunch, especially as phrasebooks and textbooks became more helpful once I could read and pronounce pinyin correctly (most of the time).
I look forward to speaking with you again soon…in Chinese!
