Tag: chinese immersion
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Chinese TV Shows to Learn Chinese – Netflix
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There are literally dozens of Chinese TV shows to learn Chinese on Netflix. And making use of these has had a huge impact on my ability to go from intermediate mediocrity to a confident Mandarin speaker. In this blogpost, I’m going to explain how you can use Netflix as a powerful Chinese learning tool and…
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How long does it take to learn Mandarin Chinese in 2025
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A number of influencers claim to have mastered Mandarin within just six months. But is this really possible? And just how long does it actually take to learn Chinese? Table of Contents Introduction Recently I watched a YouTube video which got me thinking about the question: how long does it take to learn Mandarin? The…
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Three Things You Need To Know Before You Study Chinese in Taiwan (Podcast)
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Recently I decided to commit to producing the I’m Learning Mandarin podcast once a week instead of fortnightly. The plan is to continue posting guest interviews and discussions about learning Mandarin once a fortnight. Then, in between each interview, I’ll post shorter episodes in which I speak in Mandarin about a topic. Today’s episode is…
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This Fluent Mandarin Speaker Worked for Google on Speech Recognition Systems (podcast)
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*This podcast is available on Apple, Spotify and Google On today’s podcast, I speak to language teacher and podcast host, Isaac Myers. Isaac has a fascinating Mandarin learning backstory which involves extensive travel around Taiwan and China and working at Google training language models for speech recognition systems. Through his podcast, Mandarin from the Ground…
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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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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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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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