The life changing magic of reading “real” Chinese news every day
Combining learning language, reading news, and understanding context.
I started reading Chinese-language news every day on December 1st, 2020.
I had set myself a daily reading challenge—spend 20 minutes a day reading the news in Chinese.
By then, I’d been learning Chinese for nearly 20 years. I used it at work, I travelled to China regularly, and most days I spoke it without even thinking about it.
Although I hadn’t actually actively learned anything new for ages, and I hardly ever read the news in Chinese—I had got lazy.
But by the end of 2020, in the middle of the UK’s COVID lockdowns, all that had changed. I hadn’t been to China for over a year, and my Mandarin was getting painfully rusty.
My lowest point came during an online meeting I was chairing in Chinese with a team in Beijing.
Before, I would have breezed through it without much prep — kicking-off with a “tone-setting start” (务虚开场), moving into a “substantive discussion” (务实讨论) in the middle, and closing with an “important conclusion” (重要总结).
But in this online meeting, my Chinese just fell apart:
I forgot simple words
My tones were all over the place
My pronunciation was a total mess
It was so bad that afterwards, someone who was on the call, trying to be polite, said:
“Your Chinese actually isn’t that bad.” (你中文说得倒是还是不错的)
Translation: it was bad. Really bad.
I was embarrassed, frustrated, and angry at myself.
Nearly 20 years of learning Chinese was fading away.
I knew I had to do something, fast.
I tried all the usual fixes:
apps
graded readers
even the latest textbooks
But none of them helped. The content was dull, dry, out of date, and far removed from real-world Chinese. I didn’t want “textbook language”, I wanted to learn real Mandarin.
I tried watching Chinese movies and TV dramas on YouTube, but I rarely had the time (or patience) to stick with them to the end.
Reading novels was even harder, and took up more time. Not an option.
I tried reading Chinese news sites, but usually just hit a wall: got lost, got frustrated, gave up.
But, I thought, the length of a news article should be more manageable than watching a whole movie, or reading a novel.
So, I set myself a challenge: read Chinese news every morning for 20 minutes.
No excuses. Even if I only got through one paragraph.
To make it easier, I found the article the night before, had it open on my desktop, and made reading it the first thing I did every morning.
Even still, it was harder than I expected. Every article was packed with phrases I didn’t know:
idioms
internet slang
new expressions
But I also realised those things I didn’t know, were the exact phrases that gave me real insight into what was happening in China—what people were actually thinking and talking about.
I started creating word lists every day as I consumed the news, researching the background of idioms, tracking the meaning and nuance of social media slang, and learning the cultural references and context—the kind of things that all Chinese people “just know”, but as a language learner I will just “never know”!
And slowly, it started to click.
Articles that used to take me days to wade through, I could finish in under 20 minutes.
I got to the end of the challenge and carried on. 30 days turned into three months, which turned into six months and beyond.
And when I finally returned to China in March 2022, the difference was huge.
Conversations flowed. I felt confident, informed, and fluent.
I even knew the latest slang, like:
润 rùn - run (“escape from COVID lockdowns”)
卷 juǎn - involuted (“destructive competition”)
摆烂 bǎi làn - let things rot (“things can’t get any worse”)
And that same person, the one who’d “complimented” my “not bad” Chinese?
This time she said:
“Wow, your Chinese really is amazing!” (哇，你的中文真的讲得太好了！)
That felt so good.
A huge confidence boost.
Which would never have happened without my daily news reading habit.
But it’s more than just reading the news. It’s the power of combining:
Learning language
Reading news
Understanding context
Four years on, I’m still sticking to that habit: reading the news in Chinese for 20 minutes every morning. I don’t even think about it anymore—it’s just part of my daily routine.
The best part?
You can do the same.
All it takes is 20 minutes a day, and the right kind of material. Make it the first thing you do.
So, where to start? Try these:
So, over to you.
Commit, start today, put it in the calendar, and make it the first thing you do each day.
Ready to commit to getting your Mandarin back to fluency?
Tired of that nagging feeling of self-loathing at just how rusty your Chinese has become?
Want to stay informed about China?
And enjoy that feeling of speaking with confidence and showing off your amazing Mandarin?
Then, RTM Plus might be exactly what you need.
When you’re ready, join 1,350+ students who’ve transformed their language leaning with RTM!
“RealTime Mandarin is an excellent resource to learners of Mandarin stay up to date with the latest language trends in China”—Bill Bishop, founder, Sinocism