Chris Foley’s Mandarin Speaking Diary: My Immersive Trip to China (Month 3)

Chris Foley has set himself a challenge to improve his tone pronunciation, and achieve a standard Mandarin accent in time for his Chinese wedding ceremony in one year. To reach his goals, he’s enlisted I’m Learning Mandarin founder, Mischa, as his language coach. Over the coming year, Chris will be documenting his progress over a series of monthly blogs with recordings. In this first post he tells his back story and sets out his goals.

(Read month one and month two of Chris’s diary.)

Three months into my Mandarin learning journey, I’ve just had the most immersive experience yet. For two weeks, I left behind the comfort of English entirely, setting myself the challenge of speaking only Mandarin while visiting my partner’s family in China.

Full Immersion in a Small Chinese City

My wife is from a relatively small city for Chinese standards (although still home to more people than the entire population of Ireland combined!), a place so far removed from the usual expat hubs that foreigners are virtually nonexistent. Unlike major cities like Beijing or Shanghai, where you can often find English speakers, here, Mandarin was the only way to communicate. There were no bilingual menus, no English-speaking shop assistants, and no fallback options. This made it the perfect setting for my experiment: two weeks of full immersion, no English allowed.

Every interaction was an opportunity to stretch my Mandarin ability. Without English as a crutch, I had to rely entirely on what I knew and find ways to express myself. I found that people were so patient and encouraging, that I was able to get by far more easily than I expected.

One of the amusing aspects of my visit was how locals reacted to me. Since they rarely see foreigners, many assumed I was Uyghur, from Xinjiang province. The idea of a European living in their city seemed almost unimaginable to them. Several times, I was approached by curious strangers who wanted to know where I was from, which led to some interesting conversations and even more opportunities to practice.

Experiencing My First Chinese New Year in China

One of the highlights of my trip was celebrating Chinese New Year in China for the first time. The atmosphere reminded me a lot of Christmas back home in Ireland. Family reunions, great food, and festive traditions. We lit fireworks and exchanged red envelopes. I loved being part of the celebrations.

One of my favorite moments was watching Chunwan, the annual Spring Festival Gala on CCTV. And I was also pleasantly surprised by how much I could understand! This felt like a milestone in my learning. Three months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to follow much at all, but now I found myself catching jokes and song lyrics.

Naturally, the food was another major highlight. My wife’s family prepared an incredible feast, with a strong emphasis on Sichuan cuisine – spicy hotpot, mouth-numbing mala flavors, and a huge variety of richly flavored dishes. I’ve been to Sichuan several times now, so I was already familiar with the cuisine, but this trip made me realize just how much I’ve adjusted to it.

I used to find the food overwhelmingly spicy but now I’ve got used to it, and I’ve started to truly appreciate the layers of flavor that make Sichuan food so unique. Sharing these meals with family made the experience even more special. It was a reminder of how important food and family are in Chinese culture, just as they are in Ireland.

Relaxing with Family, Speaking More Mandarin

A big part of my time there was spent simply relaxing with family. There were no formal lessons or structured study sessions – just natural, everyday conversations. We chatted over home-cooked meals and listened to stories from older relatives. I was constantly engaging with the language.

One of the biggest benefits of this experience was that it forced me to start thinking in Mandarin rather than mentally translating from English. When I needed to express something, I had no choice but to find a way to say it with the words I knew. I also noticed that my listening comprehension improved significantly – I became much better at picking up the meaning of sentences even when I didn’t understand every single word.

Immersion alone isn’t enough though. You need to reinforce it with good learning strategies. That’s where my coaching sessions with Mischa came in useful. Over the past few months, he’s helped me focus on improving my pronunciation and guided me when it comes to sentence mining, both of which have made a huge difference in my ability to communicate clearly. While in China, I made a conscious effort to apply these techniques, and I could feel my spoken fluency improve dramatically in just two weeks.

Tracking My Progress in Pronunciation

To highlight how much my pronunciation has improved, I’ve included an audio recording from a recent voice recording I sent to Mischa. Compared to my first month, I’m able to form accurately pronounced sentences together much more fluently, and feel far more confident in my ability to express myself clearly. Tones are something I’ve worked really hard on, as getting Mandarin tones wrong can lead to misunderstandings.

That said, I still have a long way to go, and I know there are plenty of areas where I can continue to improve. But the important thing is, I can now hear a lot of my own mistakes a lot more clearly making it easier to self-correct.

Back in London, Feeling Motivated

Now that I’m back in London, I’ve returned to my usual study routine, but I can already feel the impact of my time in China. My confidence has grown, my listening comprehension has sharpened, and I feel much more comfortable speaking. The experience reinforced something I already suspected: immersion is one of the most powerful tools for language learning.

If you have the opportunity to spend time in a Mandarin-speaking environment, I can’t recommend it enough. Even if you can’t travel to China, there are still ways to create immersion, by joining local language meetups, doing language exchanges, or signing up to an immersive Mandarin learning retreat.

At the three-month mark, I’m feeling great about my progress and even happier to have Mischa as my language coach. His guidance, combined with real-world practice, is proving to be the perfect formula for improving my Mandarin. Looking ahead, I’m excited to keep building on this momentum – with a clear roadmap for where I’ll be by next month, and beyond. 

I’ll see you back here next month for another update!

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