Thanks to These Apps Self-Studying Chinese is Much Easier Than Ten Years Ago

It’s easy to forget that ten years ago I – and many people around me – didn’t own a smart phone. At that time the most impressive thing I could…

Improving my Spoken Mandarin with the Traffic Light System

Towards the end of last year I wrote a blog setting out my objective for 2022. In it I stated that by 2023 I hope to have developed enough confidence…

“Wow! Your Mandarin is Awesome!” Decoding Chinese Politeness (Podcast)

Anyone who has learned Mandarin will be familiar with how encouraging Chinese people tend to be towards those of us who take an interest in their language. For the most…

Benjamin Zephaniah on Learning Mandarin (Podcast)

*This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Pocket Casts and Breaker. Please subscribe on your favoured podcast provider and leave a review. For Today’s podcast I had…

Expectations Vs Reality of Learning Chinese (With Luke Truman)

*This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Anchor, Pocket Casts and Breaker. Please subscribe on your favoured podcast provider and leave a review. On today’s podcast I discuss…

Cracking the Intermediate Plateau (Podcast)

*The I’m Learning Mandarin Podcast is now available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify . If you enjoyed this content please subscribe on your favourite podcast provider and leave a review.…

Immersion Vs Structured Learning (Podcast)

Anyone who studies a language has to combine a mixture of approaches which broadly fall into two categories: naturalistic and structured. Naturalistic approaches involve learning through immersion in the target…

Leaving the Classroom: Self Studying my Way to Chinese Fluency

*For a more recent progress update report check out this blog which includes recordings of me conversing in Mandarin. A little over two years ago I wrote a blog documenting…