The life changing magic of reading Chinese news every week!
Get your confidence and fluency back!
It’s 9.20pm.
I’m in an open-air restaurant on a warm winter evening in Dubai.
I’m meeting the director of a Chinese business school I’ve worked with before.
It’s been a long week. I’m tired. It’s my second dinner meeting of the evening. And I’m into my second over-priced Gin and Tonic.
After getting through the obligatory…
“Andrew you really have got fat” (”Andrew你真的胖了”)…
…I wanted to quickly move the conversation on.
So I decided to ask her what I was really interested in:
“How is your life in China these days?”
你在中国的生活怎么样了？
The answer:
“Life in China is so competitive now. It’s such high pressure. And people don’t feel so happy anymore.”
现在中国太卷了，压力太大了。而且大家的快乐感也大大减少了。
So I saw an opportunity to drop this question:
“So, have you had enough?”
那你是不是”卷不动，躺不平”的吗？
This is a classic.
The phrase “卷不动，躺不平” is one we’ve learned in RTM Plus. It’s one of those phrases that everyone in China just knows but is hard to translate into English.
It means something like:
“So competitive you feel exhausted, but such high pressure that it’s impossible to relax.”
Anyway, the conversation flowed.
And by the end of the meeting, I got the best compliment any learner of Chinese could hope for:
“Andrew you really do understand Chinese people.”
Andrew 你真的懂中国人了
My extra weight was forgotten. And I got a massive confidence boost.
But I didn’t leave it there.
No… I dropped this belter in to wrap things up while high-fiving myself in my head:
“I’m not an out-of-touch middle-aged man. I’m totally down with the kids.”
我不是老登，我是接地气的人。
Not sure if she agreed….
But anyway, 老登 is another modern classic from a recent RTM issue.
🙌🙌🙌
Now here’s the thing.
People like you and I have been learning Chinese for years. We can just about read a Chinese news article, with a struggle.
Eventually get through it, understand a lot of it, and pick up new words along the way.
But a week later… it’s gone.
And when it comes to a conversation about that thing: we freeze, and the vocab we know we know evaporates.
It’s a common problem I hear from new members when they join RTM Plus. They say things like:
“When I meet Chinese people, I freeze.”
“I’ve plateaued and I need to get to a higher level.”
“I’m much stronger on the passive side — reading and listening — but I can’t use it.”
Sound familiar?
That’s because just consuming news content on your own, painfully wading through articles, isn’t enough.
You need a system that turns what you read into language you can actually use.
That’s what RTM Plus does.
Every week you get real Chinese news — at your level — with all the context, vocabulary, and cultural background to truly understand it the way Chinese people do.
Giving you the texture, colour, and a deeper understanding of what people in China are really thinking and talking about right now.
In as little as 20 minutes a week.
And this week, when you join RTM Plus on the annual plan, you’ll get something I’ve never offered before:
A free live training this Sunday where I’ll help you build your own personalised implementation plan.
So you know exactly how to apply RTM Plus to your learning, week by week, in a way that fits your level, your goals, and your schedule.
Because consistent weekly immersion in real news, with a system that works, is what builds real confidence: by expanding your active vocab, and helping you navigate conversations beyond the basics.
Can’t make the live training? No problem.
You’ll get the full recording, plus a 1:1 follow-up call with me at a time that works for you.
So you’ll kick-off your membership with a personalised plan, great content, and a system to make it stick.
All for just $220 for the whole year — around the price of half a pint a week in a London pub.
See you on Sunday when we’ll get to work on your personalised plan!
Andrew
+++
P.S. — This system doesn’t just work for me.
Here’s a message I got recently from an RTM Plus member who spotted two stories we’d covered — Xibei (西贝) and the Jiangsu Super football tournament (苏超) — out in the wild.
That’s the magic of RTM Plus!