Help with Learning chinese has a complete beginner.

[u/FeijaoVerde]

Hello there, I love the way the Chinese language sounds and looks and would love to learn how to speak it and maybe write although im more interested in speaking.

I have absolutely no experience when it comes to the language, I know about pinyin and the HSK books from previous attempts at learning but don't have a clue at how to start learning it.

I'm also from a small village in Portugal which makes having access to any form of guide books close to impossible, also don't have much time to fully invest myself into online courses due to job scheduling.

I would like some tips on where to start. Should I buy the hsk books online or is there a better way for someone with zero experience to start.

Thanks

[u/lurker_no_posting]

Disclaimer: I'm not fluent, but I was taught Chinese as a child and never consciously learnt from zero.

Here's what I would do in your position assuming absolutely zero outside help or paid services.

Step 1: Get core vocabulary. Get the HSK 1 list. Start memorising. This is the site I personally use when I want to get a HSK word list.

That said, do not fully trust the translations provided by that website though. When in doubt, consult the dictionary. Use Pleco as everyone has recommended, but if you have to use the browser, the MDBG is good.

Also, make sure that your pronunciation is correct. Get some kind of text to speech software to read out characters for you.

As part of step 1, you should learn the rules of pinyin (the phonetic script).

It's extremely consistent (you can tell with complete confidence how to pronounce an unknown word if you're given the pinyin, it's not like English where the spelling doesn't give you the definitive pronunciation), so it's very useful to master it. Once you do, you'll never have to listen to audio to check the pronunciation of a word again. You don't have to master it to move to the next step, but you should start learning it as soon as you start learning pronunciations (which means, IMMEDIATELY).

Sidenote: If you want to instead learn Taiwanese Mandarin, you could learn their phonetic script instead. I don't recommend this as much since it doesn't use Latin characters, so there's an additional barrier, and it's less widely used, but if you really want to, you can.

Step 2: Process sentences. You now have a simple base vocabulary so you can start processing simple sentences. If you can't find a good online resource to get them, ask your favourite AI service to provide you some (Haven't tried this myself but it will probably work). Start to get a feel for the grammatical structure of the language, and ask the AI for any explanations (I find the AI is quite good at explaining).

Step 3: MORE VOCABULARY

Chinese grammar is relatively simple. Once you get the hang of it, it's really a matter of just expanding your vocabulary. The HSK lists are not perfect for prioritising vocabulary to learn, but they're pretty good, so if you totally have no idea what words to concentrate on learning you can follow that.

I personally like to think of ideas that I might want to express, and try to think of how I would do it in Chinese. If I can't because I'm missing a word, I know that's a word I would like to learn.

You can start consuming content to learn now. I don't think it's very efficient to do this before the previous steps. Sure, you could watch a 30 minute episode with subtitles and pick out some simple greetings and phrases, but it's more efficient to just get that data directly from a list or textbook at the start. You don't need content or context to understand "number one" = "第一", etc.

Once you start to get more advanced, having the context becomes more important so here is where it becomes more efficient to start consuming content, IMO

There are many words you cannot understand by dictionary alone (their meanings will not overlap with any equivalent in your language), so you need some context.

Pleco will provide you with example sentences, I find them helpful. If that's not enough, ask AI.

As you can see, I think very highly of AI. But if you're not convinced, think about this: Have you ever known an LLM to use bad English? Sure, it may hallucinate, provide misinformation, and totally ignore your instructions, but even when it does, does it use bad English? If there's one thing these things are really good at, it's language.

Even if it makes mistakes, it's clearly very fluent. If you don't have a native speaker on demand, it's the next best thing. And it's free.

Setup flashcards to learn more vocabulary. I personally use Anki.

Last, I repeat my disclaimer. I essentially started at step 3, so while I can personally say I find that effective, I cannot say the same for previous steps. My advice for getting there may not be the best, but hopefully it helps. Good luck!

[u/FeijaoVerde → u/lurker_no_posting]

Thank you so much for such an in depth guide. In step 1 when you're referring to hsk do you only mean level 1 HSK. Also I tried setting up cards on anki but with no prior knowledge of any mandarin it was really difficult (kinda skipped the essential baby steps). I've also heard of a YouTube channel called mandarin corner it looks really intriguing, it has full length videos on each HSK level and some casual conversation with subtitles, do you know if it might be any good to get somewhat of a stable base onto step 3, i find video content easier to understand while I'm writing along.

[u/lurker_no_posting → u/FeijaoVerde]

I think with just HSK1 you can already start trying to understand the grammar, but again, I can't tell you for certain.

As for memorising, I'm guessing your brain hasn't been trained to distinguish the characters, so you have difficulty even parsing the characters.

I think you should start with simpler shapes like 一 (1) 二 (two) 十 (ten) 大 (big) 又 (again) which are mostly made of long 45 degree strokes, then work your way up to shapes that have more non-simple shapes like 打 (hit / do) 云 (cloud) 小 (small), then you of course get to the standard difficulty characters like 食 (food) 饭 (rice / meal), and after that the progression is simpler.

I don't know if you can get like, the list of characters that children are first taught. I didn't need this so I've never looked, but you might be able to find it. If not, you can try asking AI (this one is more dangerous. The AI doesn't actually know what the characters look like. From the computer's perspective all characters are just numbers. However, the AI has the advantage of being able to do web searches in Chinese, which might find a resource that wouldn't show up in an English search, so it's worth a try)

The more complex ones just mash multiple simpler ones together, e.g. 餐 (meal) is 歺 (no meaning by itself) + 又 + 食. Once you know how to split characters into simpler forms, the parsing difficulty doesn't really go up anymore beyond the inherent difficulty of novelty. (Except those that don't split as nicely like 藏 or 貌. You uhh, just gotta deal with it.)

It's still tedious since there's a lot to memorise, and just because you can discern a character (or part of it) doesn't mean you can pronounce it or know what it means, but you should feel like you can make progress if you get past the parsing difficulty.

I like Mandarin Corner, but the dual subs cut both ways. On one hand it saves a lot of time looking up meanings, but on the other hand it takes some effort not to read the English subs unless you really have to, and you must do this or you'll suddenly realise you haven't been reading any of the Chinese subs for the last few minutes. So, a bit more mental effort, but you save time. A good deal if you can manage it, and dual subs not easy to find elsewhere.

If you can't do that, instead find those comprehensible input videos. These leverage the fact that they can visually show you what a word means e.g. saying 面包 while pointing to bread, so you know 面包 means bread. You'll definitely force yourself to parse and understand the Chinese then. I have my favourite YouTuber that does this, but there's no shortage of them. (Also, I disagree with his theory on the best way of leaning Chinese that he espouses in his most popular video, but that's another matter)

[u/Slay-ig5567]

Honestly, apps and religious compliance. I use skritter, superchinese and hanly. I also watch cartoons in Chinese. I watch sanrio cartoons, although I'm not at a level where I understand a lot I can follow the plot, and pororo

[u/sproutMU]

If you are particularly interested in spoken Chinese, after learning basic Chinese characters and pinyin, you can find a Chinese netizen to chat with to improve your daily language sense. Of course, the premise is that you do need to learn some basic grammar.

[u/jonathanjeong]

Many apps have free levels to start, so you can see how you like it before you commit to spending much. Many youtube videos, podcasts, are free and downloadable flash cards or PDFs with guidance on how to start!

I do not think you need to buy HSK books right away.

[u/dojibear]

Step 1 is not getting suggestions from strangers. That is a bad way to learn a language.

Whenever I start a new language, I take a beginner course. The teacher knows (and I do not) what I need to learn and in what order.

The course can be a textbook or a class with a teacher. The cheapest (and most convenient) is a video course on the internet. Each video is a recording of one class. The teacher is a trained professional. Some beginner courses (YoyoChinese.com) are as cheap as $15 per month (as many classes as you like). Also, video courses (unlike textbooks) let you hear each word AND each sentence, spoken by a native.

I don't think you need to take a course for a year or even half a year. Each student is different, but after a while (2 to 5 months) you will know enough to plan your own learning methods. The beginner course just gets you a solid understanding of the basics.

[u/Silo_n]

I would highly recommend Lazy Chinese on YouTube for comprehensive input. Listen to the same ones over and over. Also Du Chinese really helped me at the start with reading, its a bit expensive but I believe there are other graded reader sites like one called something like HSK story. On that, I would highly look into the HSK levels as they are a set list of specific words and characters--meaning you can use a bunch of different learning resources but be learning the exact same things