One year ago, Chris Foley set himself a challenge to transform his Mandarin and achieve a standard Mandarin accent in time for his Chinese wedding ceremony. To reach his goals, he enlisted I’m Learning Mandarin founder, Mischa, as his language coach. Chris has documented his progress over the past year in a series of regular blog posts with recordings. In this final post, he reflects on an incredible journey that culminated in giving a speech in Mandarin in front of hundreds of guests at his wedding ceremony in China (see video below).
*Check out Chris’s previous blogs documenting month 1, month 2 and month 3, months 4 and 5, month 6, month 7, and months 8 and 9.
If the first three months of my Mandarin journey were about finding my rhythm and trying out new methods, the final three months were about consistency.
Rather than splitting Months 10, 11 and 12 into separate blog updates, it made sense to consolidate them into one final blog.
By this stage, my routine was set. I had found a system that worked for me and there was no need to change it again. The focus shifted from trying new approaches to maintaining steady, focused practice.
Letting the Work Compound
By the final quarter of the year, the biggest shift in my Mandarin was not vocabulary or grammar, but tones.
Tones had always been a weak point for me, as they are for most Mandarin learners. Earlier in the year, producing the correct tone often required deliberate thought and frequent self correction. During these final months, that started to change. Tone patterns began to feel more automatic, particularly in longer sentences and more natural speech.
This was a direct result of Mischa’s consistent emphasis on tones throughout the year. He never allowed them to become an afterthought. Even when we were working on other areas, tones were always part of the feedback. By Months 10 to 12, that sustained focus started to show. I was catching mistakes more quickly, correcting myself in real time and increasingly getting things right without needing to think about it at all.
Looking back, this was the point where the effects of sustained, focused practice started to show in a very tangible way.
Increasing the Focus on the Wedding Speech
For the final two months, the wedding speech became a much bigger part of my Mandarin study, but it did not replace the broader work we were doing. Instead, it was layered on top of continued speaking practice, tone work and general fluency development.
I prepared the speech carefully. I wrote it first in English so that the structure and meaning were exactly what I wanted. I then translated it into Chinese, before verifying everything with my wife and finally with Mischa to make sure the Chinese was not only correct, but natural and appropriate.
From that point on, the focus shifted to refining delivery and making the speech feel as comfortable and natural as possible.
Building the Speech Step by Step
Mischa approached the speech in a very structured way. Each week, I was given clear tasks and specific deadlines. I had to send him voice notes regularly, and each week we added another new paragraph. Over time, those paragraphs compounded until I could deliver the full speech comfortably from start to finish.
Living in a non Chinese speaking country and working a busy job, accountability was crucial. Without daily exposure to Mandarin, it can be difficult to maintain momentum. Having weekly deadlines and direct feedback from Mischa kept me motivated and consistent, even when progress felt gradual.
We also revisited techniques he had introduced earlier in the year, particularly chorusing and mimicking. These were essential in helping the speech sound natural rather than memorised, and they reinforced the tone control we had been developing throughout the year.
Taking Chinese Back to China
When I finally travelled to China, I was genuinely happy with my level of Mandarin.
I have been visiting China for years and have always been able to converse with my family, but never as comfortably as this time. I had already been able to communicate before, but by this stage speaking required far less conscious effort and correction. Conversations flowed more easily, and often I completely forgot that I was speaking Chinese when I was in the middle of them.
My family noticed the difference immediately. Several of them commented specifically on my tones and how much they had improved. That feedback meant a great deal to me and directly reflected the work Mischa and I had done together.
The trip itself was the experience of a lifetime. Twenty five of my closest friends and family travelled together with my Chinese family across China. We explored Yunnan Province, Sichuan Province and Beijing. One of the highlights was taking a night train across the country together.
The Ultimate Test
The wedding itself was the moment everything led towards.
Delivering a ten minute speech entirely in Mandarin, without interruption, in front of my entire Chinese family was something I would not have attempted a year earlier. It brought together many of the areas we had worked on throughout the year, sentence structure, flow, pronunciation, tone control and confidence speaking at length.
What surprised me most was how calm I felt once I started speaking. Any nerves disappeared almost immediately. The hours of repetition, voice notes, chorusing and careful correction meant that the speech no longer felt fragile or rehearsed. It felt stable.
I had notes in front of me, but I rarely needed to look at them. I was able to focus on pacing, emphasis and connection with the audience rather than worrying about what came next. The tone work in particular held up under pressure, something that had not always been the case for me in the past.
That moment was the clearest confirmation of the progress I had made over the course of the year.
A Year Well Spent
Looking back on the full twelve months, working with Mischa was one of the best decisions I made in my Mandarin learning journey.
I am not living in a Chinese environment and I have a demanding job. In that situation, motivation can be the biggest challenge. Mischa kept me accountable, set clear goals and consistently pushed me to focus on the areas that mattered most, particularly tones.
I am extremely happy with the progress I made over the year. More importantly, I now feel confident and comfortable continuing to build on that foundation long after the wedding.
Mission accomplished!