How I made my breakthrough as a beginner
And how I can help you do the same
Hello!
As you saw yesterday, I’ve just launched my new course:
Interactive Mandarin for Beginners.
It’s a fully interactive beginner program that teaches you Chinese characters, reading, listening, and speaking together through real Chinese news.
You’ll be part of a community and you’ll get feedback from native Chinese speakers to finally help you get confident in Chinese.
In this note, I’m going to tell you a story of how I broke through as a beginner in Chinese, and how you can do the same.
(And how this course can help you 🤩).
When I started learning Chinese I did everything wrong
For the first year while travelling around China I learned basics of speaking armed with a pinyin dictionary and a notebook.
Learning as I travelled, I navigated life as it hit me.
I didn’t bother learning characters.
Or even the basics of tones and pronunciation.
I was immersed in real life.
I could get by, but nothing beyond the basics.
…
A year later I moved to Taiwan
I lived in a small town in the middle of Taiwan called Huwei 虎尾 to teach English.
I decided to start learning Chinese in my spare time.
Focussing on finally learning characters, vocab and grammar, I devoured every textbook I could get my hands on.
But still didn’t bother learning to speak properly.
I could read some things, but what I learned was completely divorced from real life.
I felt isolated grinding through exercises alone, with no feedback, and no sense of whether I was even doing it right.
And I still couldn’t hold a conversation.
…
After another 18 months I decided to take learning Chinese seriously
I moved to Tainan in southern Taiwan to take daily 1:1 classes in the language school at Cheng Da University (成功大学).
By then I thought I knew best.
In language learning terms you might say I was “an average but overconfident man” (普信男)!
So I gave up on textbooks.
And decided to learn through what I came across in real life, talking about random topics with my Chinese teacher every day.
But my tones, pronunciation and reading skills were still terrible.
I had no system or structure.
I was still too dependent on pinyin (and bo-po-mo-fo).
And I still couldn’t read a proper sentence or have a real conversation in Chinese!
…
Then I tried something different
Another year in and I’d still made little progress.
I could still barely string a sentence together.
And my tones were still all over the place.
So I tried something new.
Every day I took 10 short Chinese sentences (things I’d overheard or read in real life) printed them out in large font on a piece of A4 paper, and wrote the tones by hand above each character.
I asked my teacher to record the correct pronunciation for each sentence.
Then I spent 20 minutes every day practicing: reading as I listened to the native speaker say the words, and then saying them out loud.
While listening I would also practice writing the characters.
I recorded myself speaking and compared it to the native speaker audio.
Reading the sentences, tracing the tones above each character, listening to myself speaking, and then going back to the native speaker audio.
Every day I’d get further input from my teacher. She’d correct my tones, pronunciation, and intonation.
…
Finally I started to make real progress
To begin with I didn’t notice much difference.
But after two months something began to change.
My tones started to come naturally, without even having to think about them.
I was able to pronounce the difficult sounds without tripping up.
I could say longer, more complex sentences in Chinese without getting stuck.
Even the way I breathed when speaking Chinese changed.
And my reading and listening skills also went through the roof.
…
After six months, I was able to speak, read, and listen confidently
I could talk fluidly and express myself.
I was even “thinking” (albeit in still relatively basic vocab) in Chinese.
And I had the confidence (sometimes still too much of it!) to actually speak.
That six months of consistently practicing 20 minutes a day laid the foundations for me to eventually get fluent.
It gave me the confidence to speak, read, and listen to Chinese.
I finally had a system that worked.
And it’s this integrated, interactive system which is at the core of Interactive Mandarin for Beginners.
Introducing:
Interactive Mandarin for Beginners
This is a fully interactive 12-week news-based Mandarin program, built for beginners who are serious about making real progress.
You’ll see how characters are written and get a chance to practise writing them.
You’ll hear native speakers saying everything.
You can record yourself speaking and compare it to a native speaker - the same mimicking technique that finally unlocked Chinese for me 20 years ago.
And because this is a fully interactive program, you can submit your writing and speaking every week for direct feedback from me and my team of native speakers.
So you’ll always know if you’re getting it right.
And you’ll join a community of learners just like you.
So you’ll never feel isolated or stuck on your own.
Unlike apps, flashcards, and graded readers which teach Chinese in a vacuum, every character, word, and grammar structure you learn is anchored in a real and recent story happening in China.
It’s interesting content that’s actually at your level.
So you’ll be motivated, confident, and informed.
And you’ll be able to have real conversations in Chinese about things going on in the real world.
But don’t just take it from me.
Here’s what one of the students from my pilot for this program last year, said about their experience:
“I came to Andrew’s RTM beginner course lacking confidence in my ability to speak and read.
With Andrew and the other participants, not only did my Putonghua improve, but I also gained real inner confidence.
I finally let go of the false idea that my Mandarin was disjointed.
If you’re considering joining, go for it — you’ll see progress quickly.”
— Andy Kwok, French Institute of Geopolitics
Get Confident Today!
Interactive Mandarin for Beginners will finally help you make that breakthrough giving you the confidence to read, understand and speak Chinese.
It’s a proven system delivered within a community of learners like you.
With current and hand-picked content which will finally get you motivated so you start making real progress.
In just 12 weeks you’ll build a solid foundation with a method that keeps working long after the course ends.
So if you’re ready to finally stop dabbling, get confident in Chinese, and finally making real progress….
Join Interactive Mandarin for Beginners today!
Enrolment is open now.
The course kicks off on Sunday 3 May.
And the deadline to join midnight on Saturday 2 May.
See you on the other side!
Andrew
+++
P.S. — Any questions?
Just hit reply to this email and ask?
I respond to every email.
P.P.S — Not a beginner but know people who are?
If this program isn’t for you…
But you know people who are still struggling at the start of their journey…
Please share this program with them!
You can send an email recommending it with just one click here: