How should I start learning Chinese ?

As I have promised in my previous post on “ Learn Chinese ” writing this article for my blog visitors who are passionate about learning language, who are dreaming to tag themselves as multilingual. Lets focus on Chinese language and how one should start learning it. I agree that the moment anyone see Chinese script, one will get demoralise because of complexity of the language. But to be true, our mind conditions us that Chinese language is a difficult one. Hence we must clear this off from our mind first.

So, how easy or difficult to learn Chinese ?  In my view it’s not the point of easy or difficult to learn Chinese , critical point is how much passionate you are in learning language and how much time you send time every day seriously to learn Chinese.

In order to start with learning Chinese, some qualities are very important while learning Chinese

  1. Don’t get panic watching their script , it’s not necessary to know script while learning Chinese
  2. Spend more time on listening and try to catch some daily usage words and understand it’s pinyin and understand as may related words with the base characters you learnt. Revise it thoroughly
  3. Don’t go with Chinese characters  during initial stages which may demoralise you.
  4. Use mobile applications and You tube videos for learning Chinese. There is a lots of stuff out there on web. I will share this in a separate article later.
  5. Make your own had written flash cards while learning vocabulary and Practice Practice Practice

Interesting aspect of learning Chinese is initially it requires a lot of effort for learning base characters and words but gradually it would be more of combination of already learnt words and it become easier to comprehend more and more vocabulary.

What is PinYin? 

Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is normally written using Chinese characters. Infact this helps non-native speakers like us a big advantage in learning Chinese and it is relatively easier for us to learn when compared to traditional Chinese. more about Pinyin in this video by YoyoChinese – Click here

Some Important videos from Youtube ( helped me learn Chinese )  which I would recommend first knowing more about Pinyin at initial stages are

Yang Yang from Yoyo Chinese , explain all the Pinyin for free – Click here

Learn Chinese with Mike – Click here 

Pinyin Essentials for beginner – Click here 

Watch the above videos, do as a kid do while studying. Try to practice loud, write Pinyin on paper. Important tip for anyone who wants to learn Chinese is understand the tones and practice the tones well while communicating to native people. Also I recommend you listen as much as possible to absorb the tones used in different situations. In parallel build your vocabulary and start using while communicating with your Chinese friends. This gives a boost in your confidence. The moment your Chinese friends start understanding your Chinese, you confidence boosts ! What are you waiting for ? Come on !

More articles to come !

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