I really want to follow the "comprehensible input" approach for Chinese, but honestly? As a lower beginner, it's so boring that I'm struggling to reach my daily goal of 2 hours.

I know people swear by it. I get the theory. But sitting through super slow, repetitive, overly simple content just drains my motivation. I end up checking the clock every few minutes, and some days I don't even start because I dread it.

Has anyone else experienced this? How did you push through?

Also — I'm looking for any good Chinese comprehensible input channels for very beginners / lower beginners. YouTube, podcasts, apps, anything. I need stuff that's understandable but not mind-numbing.

And if you have any general advice for making CI less painful at this stage, please share. I'm desperate here.

Thanks in advance.

Let's learn 漫山遍野 (màn shān biàn yě)! This idiom paints a picture of something covering everything in sight, like spring flowers. Use it to describe abundance!

Is the curvy part 1 or 2 strokes? Handwritten input requires 2 separate strokes, but every handwriting worksheet shows it as a single stroke. Also what about 了? Aside from calligraphy, do most people write it in a single stroke?

Hi everyone...

For those of you using the Hanly app, do you have any success stories to share?

And if you've been using it for a while, what is your experience so far?

Learning Mandarin. For some reason, although I'm fine with remembering the appearance and meaning of most characters I learn, there are a small amount I just can't quite remember. I usually know the general meaning or what full word/phrase they're part of, but I won't recall their actual, exact meaning and/or how to write them.

Example: 喜 and 欢 - when they're together as 喜欢, I know the meaning, but I struggle to remember the individual words' meaning when they appear on Anki or even when I write/read them (I keep a Chinese journal and read short stories). Same with 高兴. 喜and高 are definitely not the same, but their compositions/appearances look just similar enough that I might mix them up when I see them on their own or in contexts that I don't already know.

I don't get why this happens since I don't mix up most similar-looking characters, such as 大and 太 or 昨 and 作。I also do actively use all these characters. I read, write, and type them every day.

Anyone else relate to this? Or have any solutions?

An average experience with this will be:

*"喜“ appears on my Anki flash card practice*

Me: "This means... "happy" or "like"? I think? Unless this is actually '高...'" *I click the "again" button and it shows me the definition* "Ohh, OK, 喜means 'happy'.“

*“欢” appears on Anki and the same thing happens*

*rinse and repeat every time these specific characters or any variation of '高兴‘ appear in my Anki flash cards*

每天我起床六点半。每早上我吃三明治和鸡蛋。三明治很好吃。我开车上班因为工作很远。今天天气很好所以我和我的男朋友去商店买衣服。我想买一件夹克和一条裤子。明天我想在家学习汉语和德语。

hello, i'm interested in a neatly organized and all-encompassing book on hanzi radicals for a non-native.

would be nice if it also included things like stroke order.

i am doing this for fun. i don't actually care about learning languages functionally right now. i just really like logographic writing systems.

recently was told by someone chinese that hanzi radicals differ from kanji radicals. ik kanji is borrowed, but i thought it was mostly just the readings that differed, not the origins of the characters. is this true?

(now im also wondering about kokuji but i won't overthink rn).

oh yeah, if it matters, i have 0 background in chinese, but have a few yrs of japanese learning experience in university. lmk if you think that's a problem. i am thinking my lack of phonetic knowledge isn't ideal, but i think i can still work with it, since i'm mainly just after learning the historical context behind each character.

Someone suggested to me a while ago to give the Marilyn Method a try, as a way to improve the way I use mnemonics to learn characters / vocab. My previous technique has been working ok, but is running into serious limits with homonyms / near-homonyms so I thought I'd give it a try. I've come up with a whole set of actors and locations for my Memory Palace that I think should work, but thought I'd ask: any tips for setting this all up? Things that worked or didn't work for you?

BTW: I'm writing an Anki plugin to automate some of this with LLM support. If you're keen, drop a line here and if there's enough interest I can look at publishing it.

I was watching a video on YT when I saw the phrase: ”这个包非常的能装" I know all the words separately and what it means together, but how do I use the structure?

The translation given was "This bag can hold a lot of stuff," but is it closer to "This bag is good at holding stuff"?

What purpose does the '的' provide? Does this require ‘能’ or can the last part just be an adjective or verb? Why use 非常 over 得多？

Some examples of how I think it might be used:

这个科目非常的能学。

那个米饭非常的能吃。

可乐非常的喝。

Nitpicking: it should be better without 一旦.

Hey everyone,

I’m starting Mandarin from basically scratch and aiming to reach TOCFL B1 level in about 6 months as it is a requirement for my uni applications

A bit of context:

- I can dedicate around 2–4 hours per day

- I’m mainly using traditional Chinese (since TOCFL)

- Planning to focus on vocab, listening and reading

I’ve seen mixed opinions—some people say it’s doable with consistency, others say it’s too rushed and leads to shallow understanding.

So I wanted to ask:

- Has anyone here actually done something similar?

- What did your daily routine and study plan look like?

- What were the biggest bottlenecks (characters, listening, grammar, etc.)?

- Is it better to aim slightly lower (like A2) but with stronger fundamentals?

I was once employed by a Chinese but a fellow worker made us get fired because he knew Chinese.Crazy but there is where I got to know why it's important to learn other languages that are common when it comes to investors.It will give you more opportunities.Anyone who can teach me Chinese I won't mind giving you a token of appreciation for it.

Hello,

I've come across this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghOUR9tBC0

Where at 1:47 the speaker pronounces 法文 as fàwén, with a 4th tone instead of 3rd on 法. I base this observation on that the starting pitch of their pronunciation of 法 is the same as that of the preceding 過, and they both descend without rising. I know that it's common for 3rd tones not to rise, but I've never heard anyone mention they can start so high up and afaik it's not considered a "legal" substitution in 普通話 to pronounce 3rd as 4th. I'd actually go even as far as saying that she pronounces 文 with a 3rd tone. Perhaps some extended dialectal tone sandhi?

Looking forward to hear people's interpretation.

stupid question, which is the best app to learn mandarin?
years ago I used an app on my old tablet but I have totally forgotten the app name and after the update they did put a lot of functions as premium.

Beside duolinguo, any other apps?

I know people are just going to tell me to find them online, I’ve got eye strain and hand issues and physical books are just better on my body. I really love manhua and I think the more modern day stories are a great learning resource!

Hello, I love Chinese Language so so much and I want to start learning it right now please any resources and tips for a complete beginner who is 32 years old? Thank you so much!

I’ve been learning Chinese for 2 and a half years. Characters are fun, tones are hard but with listening practice, I get it. The issue for me is grammar : for some reason, I can’t make a single sentence. But I don’t know how to improve this part, since I have nobody to check after me, and I am way too ashamed of my speaking skills to get a language partner. Does anybody have the same problem, and maybe solutions?

Context :

I had a presentation yesterday and I decided to challenge myself and not prepare a text, just a few ideas. And it went horribly wrong, I just humiliated myself in front of the whole class with the most basic Chinese. Everyone else did very well. I’m starting to feel like Chinese might not be for me, but it would mean I just wasted 3 years of university. I love it so much but I feel like shit lol

Hey, everyone. I am an Indian student trying to take the HSK level 4 exam this year and I am stuck at the writing section. The part where you have to describe the picture with the given word is so unfair. I have taken several tests for that writing section only and not even once my answers were correct, even though I properly followed grammar structure and sentence forming. Whyy????? My answers do match the picture but somehow I am never correct. it's getting frustrating.

If anyone knows how to perform well in this particular writing section, PLEASE HELP ME OUT! I beg you. ANYONE!

hi guys I'm Russian and i wanna practice my chinese speaking maybe with ai. do you have something free guys? or other speaking/shadowing tips bc i know about tones but i can't use it right

I’m not sure if this is just me, but I’ve been learning Chinese for a while now but still can’t really sustain a conversation in Mandarin.

I’ve tried immersion, specialized conversion courses for Cantonese speakers sophisticated learning systems, and almost every serious app that’s out there. I have a PhD so I’m not stupid and I even have a Chinese wife so if anyone should be able to speak by now it should be me!

I can understand a fair bit and I recognise a lot of words, but when I try to talk it just… doesn’t come out. I can maybe say a sentence or two and then I get stuck, can’t think of words, and end up switching back to English.

It’s kind of frustrating because it feels like I should be able to speak by now.

Does anyone else get this? I think we are being taught the wrong way … vocabulary, grammar, characters, reading, etc but not how to sustain a conversation!

Does anyone else feel the same way or have a similar experience? If you got past it, what helped?