Category: Uncategorized
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What is Micro-Fluency and Why Should You Aim for It?
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Duncan Parrish is an educational technologist and coordinator of Arti Languages, a project using mobile games and cognitive science to enhance how we immerse in Chinese. In this guest post, he introduces the concept of “micro-fluency” and argues that it can help us set achievable and useful language goals. On the Trans-Mongolian train from Ulaanbaatar…
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How to Stay Motivated When Learning Chinese (Podcast)
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*This podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and Google On today’s episode, I speak to Sara Jaaksola, A Ph.D. researcher and Chinese teacher originally from Finland Sara first moved to China in 2010 to study Mandarin, before deciding to settle there long-term. After working as a Chinese teacher for several years, she recently embarked on…
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Why Memorising Chinese HSK Vocab Lists is a Bad Idea
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In a previous post, I discussed why language proficiency tests are largely a waste of time as they distract you from working towards your real goals. Most learners dream of having free-flowing conversations in Mandarin, not answering multiple-choice questions at lightning speed. Speaking fluently and passing tests are two separate skills, both of which require…
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How did people learn languages in centuries gone by? (Podcast)
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*This podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and Google If you google “what’s the best way to learn a language”, you’ll be bombarded with hundreds of different methods, each claiming to be completely original and groundbreaking. But if we study history, we’ll discover many of these modern approaches are actually very similar to the ways…
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Does Your Chinese Teacher Meet These Five Essential Requirements?
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Chinese teachers are everywhere. There are thousands upon thousands of them. They can be found on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Italki… Anywhere you look, you’re sure to find one! Many of them are lovely people. They beam at us with broad smiles, talk enthusiastically and make us feel warm and fuzzy inside. Sadly though –…
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How Much do Chinese Tones Actually Matter? Interview with Rob Neal (podcast)
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*This podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and Google Most of my guests on this podcast have had experience and success in either learning Chinese, teaching Chinese or researching Chinese. Occasionally though, I have the pleasure of interviewing people with experience of all three – my recent episode with Olle Linge being a perfect example.…
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The Ultimate Chinese Learning Adventure (Podcast)
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*This podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and Google Today’s podcast episode is all about Carolina Navarro, a language educator from Spain whose Chinese learning adventures saw her overcome numerous cultural obstacles on the way to reaching professional proficiency in the language. Carolina first went to China in 2010 where she worked and studied for…
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There Isn’t a Shred of Evidence That Speaking Early is Harmful for Your Chinese
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“When should you start speaking Chinese?” This is the question at the centre of one of the longest standing debates in the language learning community. I’ve interviewed several educators on my podcast who’ve each taken various stances. On one end there are those who argue you should speak from day one. Delaying output too long,…
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Interview with Hacking Chinese Founder Olle Linge (Podcast)
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*This podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and Google In today’s episode, I interview one of my most hotly anticipated guests, the Mandarin educator, blogger and teacher, Olle Linge. Olle is well known for being the founder of the blog Hacking Chinese. For over a decade, he’s been drawing on his extensive experience of learning…
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Reflecting on 2023 in Taiwan & Plans for 2024!
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2023 has been an eventful year, both in terms of my own Mandarin learning journey as well as the Chinese education projects I’ve been involved with! At the start of the year I moved to Taipei for my first ever experience of living in a Chinese speaking country. I spent the first few weeks travelling…
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