-1-

7-day Crash Course:

How to Learn Mandarin

by Olle Linge

www.hackingchinese.com

Table of Contents
Learning how to fish;..........................................................3
What is language hacking?................................................6
How to learn Chinese vocabulary and grammar................9
Understanding spoken and written Chinese....................13
Learning to speak and write Chinese...............................16
Study management and planning....................................20
Towards a better way of learning Mandarin.....................23

-2-
 Day 1
Learning how to fish;
learning how to learn

Glad to hear you want to improve the way you learn! My

motto is:

授人以魚，不如授人以漁
shòu rén yǐ yú, bù rú shòu rén yǐ yú

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a
man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

I want to teach you how to fish.

When I started learning Mandarin, I felt frustrated and

confused. I expected teachers and courses to provide
what I needed, but they didn't. The teachers were good
at telling me what to learn, but didn't show me how to
learn. They left many things out, something I only found
out much later.

-3-
Hacking Chinese is my attempt to help you avoid
frustration and confusion by talking exactly about the
things that are often left out. This means focusing on how
to learn and helping you find a better way of learning
Mandarin.

How to learn Chinese is a broad topic and the website has

more than 400 articles, all available for free. This crash
course is designed to give you as much as possible
without overwhelming you. Over the coming week, I will
share with you the best advice I have to offer for different
areas of learning, including:

 Language hacking

 Characters, words and grammar

 Listening and reading

 Speaking and writing

 Study management

I will provide lots of links to further reading, but feel free to

skip these! The idea is to give you an overview, but still
show you were you can read more if you're really
interested in a particular topic.

-4-
The crash course starts for real in the next e-mail when
we dive into the first topic. If you don't want to wait, I
suggest that you have a look at the introduction for your
particular level on the website:

 Beginner

 Intermediate

 Advanced

If you need help with a specific skill, check the following

introductions:

 Listening

 Speaking

 Reading

 Writing

 Vocabulary

As promised, I will summarise and highlight the most

important content in this crash course. I will also
mention learning resources when relevant, but if you want
more, please check Hacking Chinese Resource.

-5-
See you tomorrow, and good luck with your studying!

-6-
 Day 2
What is language hacking and how
can it help you learn Chinese?

Language hacking is about understanding language

learning and using that knowledge to your advantage.
It’s about the constant search for a better way of learning.
Before we go into specific skills such as speaking or
reading Chinese, I want to talk about some general
principles for successful learning.

The first and most important thing is that you need to take
responsibility for your own learning. You're the one
learning the language and you need to make sure that you
learn the right things. If you miss something important
(that the third tone is a low tone, for example), you can of
course blame your course or teacher, but you're still the
one suffer.

Be responsible, become independent! You have

already taken the first step and shown that you want to
become an independent learner by signing up to this
course.

-7-
To make sure you reach your goals, you need to be clear
about what you want to achieve, what skills you need to
get there and steps you can take to acquire those skills.
Then you need to make sure that you study in a way that
will bring you to your goal. This might look complicated,
but in essence, it just means figuring out what you need to
learn and adjust your approach accordingly.

One important thing to consider is the balance between

input and output. Listening and reading are extremely
important skills, and are essential not only to understand
the language, but also to build solid speaking and writing
skills. Are you spending enough time on these skills?
Your typical course will not provide you with enough
practice!

Some students have the opposite problem and spend way

too much time passively absorbing the language and then
wonder why they aren't fluent three years later. Input is
essential, but if never practice output, your speech
will be very slow and your writing awkward.

Finally, I want to say a few words about attitude.

 You are not too old to learn Chinese, although you

might be too lazy. If you study the right things the

-8-
 right way, you will reach your goal if you also invest
the necessary time.

 Find sources of inspiration and help around you.

Keep more advanced learners or people who
inspire you close. If you're not motivated to learn,
you will not succeed. Have fun or at least make an
effort to avoid boring methods.

 Do your best to adopt a positive attitude towards

Chinese language and culture. It might not help you
learn more per hour, but it certainly does make it
more enjoyable and is almost a requirement for
long-term success.

Next, we’ll look at Chinese characters, words and

grammar. Stay tuned!

-9-
 Day 3
How to learn Chinese characters,
words and grammar

Learning words is the most important part of learning a

foreign language. Knowing many words not only allows
you to communicate even with limited grammar, it also
increases your understanding and thus also your ability to
learn new things. A large vocabulary accelerates your
learning!

Chinese words are built of one or more characters, most

often two. This means that words can usually be broken
down into smaller units, called components. Each
component is included in the character for a reason, most
commonly because of what it means or how it’s
pronounced.

One of the cardinal rules of learning effectively is that

meaningful things are easier to remember than
meaningless ones.

- 10 -
Thus, it follows that a powerful way of learning words in
Chinese is to also learn the characters they consist of.
That way, words like This will not lead to better results in
the short term, but it will lead to much better results in the
long run. Initially, learning not only words but also
individual characters, takes longer, but this invest will pay
off handsomely further down the road. It’s easier to
remember that 火 车 (traditional: 火 車 ) huǒchē means
“train” if you know that the individual characters mean
“fire” and “vehicle”, and it will then be even easier to learn
other types of vehicles that uses the same final character,
such as 自行车(自行車) zìxíngchē, meaning “bicycle”, or
“self-propelled vehicle” if translated character by
character. Thus, words become more meaningful.

The same process can be applied to individual characters,

too. Most Chinese characters are composed of smaller,
functional components. The earliest Chinese characters
were simple pictures of objects, such as 火 above,
meaning “fire” (you can almost see the flame and sparks
flying off). However, the most typical character in
modern Chinese contains two components, one that is
related to pronunciation and one related to meaning.

A good example is 妈 ( 媽 ) mā "mother", which has one

meaning component 女 nǚ "woman" and one sound
component 马 ( 馬 ) mǎ "horse". For a list of 100 very

- 11 -
common components, check this article: Kickstart your
Chinese character learning with the 100 most common
radicals.

When you know what the building blocks mean, you can
use clever memory techniques. The most important
insight here is that memory can be trained. Thus, by
learning about how your own mind works, and combining
that with your knowledge of Chinese characters, you
stand a much better chance of learning the large number
of characters you need to become literate. For more about
learning characters, check out this article: My best advice
on how to learn Chinese characters.

The most powerful tool to expand vocabulary is

spaced repetition software. This is a type of program that
helps you schedule reviews for optimal learning. These
programs rely on solid scientific research and work well.
For Chinese, I suggest Skritter (best for handwriting),
Pleco (also the best dictionary app), or Anki (for the
tinkerer). They can't do everything for you, but they can do
a lot!

When it comes to grammar, what approach you take

depends on your level. For beginners, simply learn
phrases and don't bother too much with
understanding how they really work. The more

- 12 -
advanced you become, the more you need to care about
understanding the structures and rules you're relying on. A
good resource to look up grammar online is the Chinese
Grammar Wiki.

Finally, you need a good dictionary. You should use

bilingual dictionaries to start with (English-Chinese or
Chinese-English). You also need a good way of finding
example sentences to study how words are used. I have
summarised my favourite dictionaries and sentence
collections here. For your phone, use Pleco, which has
handwriting input, OCR via camera and on-screen pop-
ups. You can also get such pop-up dictionaries as add-ons
to your web browser.

Next, we’ll turn to listening and reading!

- 13 -
 Day 4
Learning to understand spoken
and written Chinese

I think listening ability is the most important skill of all. The

reason is that it works as a catalyst, accelerating other
learning process. If you understand what's going on
around you, you can learn new things without actually
trying to. Understanding is also essential to make sense of
life in China or to thrive in any Chinese-speaking
environment. Listening is also notoriously difficult in
Chinese; it easily won the hardest-part-of-learning-
Chinese poll I ran a few years ago.

I often talk about two scales for listening ability (and

reading ability to a certain extent). The first ranges from
active to passive to background:

1. Active listening - When you do something with the

audio, perhaps mimicking, translating or
transcribing. This can be quite challenging.

- 14 -
 2. Passive listening - When you just listen and try to
understand, perhaps while doing something else.
This is when you need content at your current level.

3. Background listening - When listening is not

important and you listen only occasionally. Here,
you need familiar, easy audio, such as songs you
already know.

It's very important to understand that all three types of

listening are essential. Active listening gives you the most
per minute, but it's much more demanding so you can't do
it all the time. Fill the rest of your time with easier listening;
the more the merrier!

The other spectrum ranges from intensive to extensive:

 Intensive listening means that you aim for quality

and focus on limited material to make sure you
understand everything.

 Extensive listening is the opposite, where you aim

for quantity and try cover as much material as
possible, preferably at an easier level.

 You need both these types of practice, but in my

experience, most people neglect extensive listening
much more.

- 15 -
Lack of extensive practice is common for reading as well.
Typically, most students just read the texts they have
in class. It's important that you read extensively, too. To
do this, find reading material at a comfortable level and
just read. Try graded readers or an additional textbook.

Furthermore, make sure you're using the right tools.

Reading digital texts has a huge advantages over using
printed media. You can use pop-up dictionaries in your
web browser, which will save much time. If you use your
phone, apps like Pleco have a built-in document reader.
Use it. Reading on your phone also allows you to carry
your reading material with you, wherever you are.

Finally, when it comes to both listening and reading, you

need to diversify your input. Don't listen to the same
person all the time and don't stick to one textbook. This is
especially important for listening ability, including hearing
the difference between tones. If you're a beginner, you
might want to check my free tone course.

In the next instalment, it’s time to focus on speaking and

writing Chinese.

- 16 -
 Day 5
Learning to speak and write Chinese

Why have I waited with bringing up speaking until now,

when it's what most people care abut the most? Because
output without input will lead to bad results. As I have
argued, more listening will lead to better speaking, and
more reading will lead to better writing, but the opposite is
not necessarily true.

In order to become fluent in Mandarin, you need to

practise a lot. This means real communication, preferably
with a native speaker or advanced learner. Offline, online
(try italki or HelloTalk) or both . Provided that you know the
words and some basic grammar, learning to speak is to a
large extend a matter of practice.

There are many things you can do to make things

easier if you're not comfortable with chatting with
strangers:

 Find a language exchange partner

- 17 -
  Play word games

 Start with writing first

 Use voice messages

Some general advice for speaking includes limiting your

focus, not being too afraid of making mistakes, and
mimicking native speakers as much as you can.
Mimicking is particularly important for learning
pronunciation, which is what we will turn to next.

Pronunciation is important, especially tones.

 Think in terms of initials, finals and tones, not

Pinyin spelling, which can be confusing at times.
I’ve collected the most common mistakes here.

 Get lots of (good) feedback. Don’t think that you’ll

be able to learn to pronounce things correctly on
your own; the odds are stacked heavily against
you.

 Mimic native speakers as closely as you can . This

means listening very closely and trying to say
words and phrases exactly like the native speaker.
Record you efforts, listen and re-record until your
production is close to perfect.

- 18 -
Mastering Mandarin pronunciation is a long-term project
that stretches well beyond the first month of class, but
most teachers and courses will not give you enough
support beyond the first few weeks. Here's a collection
of 24 great pronunciation resources to help you along the
way.

When it comes to writing, the same principles apply, but

there are some extra things you can do.

 Writing something is always better than writing

nothing

 Chat online rather than writing long essays.

 Get feedback on what you write on sites like Lang-

8.

 Pick topics that matter to you.

At a more advanced level, the most powerful way of

improving writing is what’s called narrow reading, and then
do writing exercises based on what you read. A good
example of this is to read several articles about a certain
topic and then write your own summary, using the
language you have learnt. This is excellent for learning to
write academic or professional text.

- 19 -
Speaking and writing are hard in the beginning, and it
feels like an up-hill struggle. Don't give up! The more
you practise, the easier it becomes. Learning to use a
word or phrase takes much more than just seeing or
hearing it a few times. Practice makes perfect. 加油！

Now that we have covered the basic skills, in the next

instalment we’ll talk about managing and planning your
Chinese learning!

- 20 -
 Day 5
How to plan and manage
your Chinese learning

We've now looked at some basic language hacking

principles, as well as how to improve specific skills, but
one of the most important parts of a successful learning is
proper management. Knowing what to do doesn't
automatically mean that you’ll get it done. Even if you
do it, how do you know that you're making progress?

Below, I will discuss these three issues:

1. Getting things done

2. Measuring progress

3. Managing your time

Here are some simple advice for how to get things done.
First, be clear about your motivation for learning. Why
are you learning Chinese? Make an effort to make
learning Chinese fun. Discard methods that might be

- 21 -
slightly "better", but which you don't like.

Next, be clear about what your next step is. You can't "do"
a goal like "become fluent", you need concrete actions you
can do right now. List them. Do them. Every day. Build
good habits.

Furthermore, shorten deadlines and break things down

into manageable chunks. Time box (you should really try
this if you haven’t already). Break things down into micro
goals. Make yourself accountable.

Or, if you’re tired of this managerial approach to learning,

take a look at this alternative method: The forking path: A
human approach to learning Chinese.

Measuring progress is useful, because it shows you that

you are moving in the right direction. Many intermediate
students report that their learning has plateaued and that
they are no longer making progress. Measuring progress
is great for motivation, but it can have some negative side
effects if done incorrectly.

When it comes to time management, learning Mandarin

isn't only about sitting down with a book to study or
taking a cup of coffee with a native speaker. There are
many ways of learning:

- 22 -
  Reviewing characters in the queue at the
supermarket

 Listening to audio lessons while you cook

 Counting push-ups in Chinese when you workout

You probably have more time for learning Chinese than

you think, especially since learning can be combined with
other things you do; you just need to analyse and make
use of time you have available.

Finally, if you need a motivational boost and account-

ability, there are monthly challenges on Hacking Chinese
that you can join for free. They are usually simple,
focusing on one skill at a time, but it can help to do so in
the company of others and with a basic framework for
reporting progress.

Keep up the good work!

- 23 -
 Day 7
Towards a better way
of learning Mandarin

This is the final part of my crash course in how to learn

Mandarin. I have done my best to link to more material
online, but even so, I have only linked to a small part of all
the articles available for free on the website.

If you want more structured guidance, I offer two video

courses you might be interested in, one only meant for
beginners and one meant for all students:

• Unlocking Chinese: The Ultimate Guide for

Beginners gives you a solid foundation in all areas
of learning Mandarin, including how to learn, which
tools to use and how to plan your studies. If you’re
a beginner, this course is for you!

• Hacking Chinese: A Practical Guide to Learning

Mandarin focuses on general strategies for
learning, including how to improve your
pronunciation, review characters and plan your

- 24 -
 studies. It’s for all learners, but pure beginners
should start with Unlocking Chinese instead.

If you’ve read this far, you have already shown that you
care more than most about making the most out of your
Chinese studies. I’d be delighted if you wanted to say
hello on Twitter or like Hacking Chinese on Facebook.

I hope you have enjoyed this crash course, and look

forward to hearing from you in the future. I will send you
weekly updates, but feel free to reach out directly to me if
you have a comment or question. Good luck and happy
studying!

Best wishes,

Olle Linge (凌雲龍)

- 25 -