How to learn mandarin chinese

It takes a learner with average aptitude only 15 weeks to reach level 2 for Spanish or French, but about 50 weeks to reach a similar level of the Chinese language. If you want to be fully fluent in Mandarin, you’d better plan to spend about 230 weeks, which is about 4 years.

Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons. But writing isn’t the only difficult part of learning Mandarin. The tonal nature of the language makes speaking it very hard as well.

You can teach yourself Mandarin, but at the end of the day, language is a tool to communicate and communication is a two way process. Start finding opportunities to speak or write (and when we say write, we mean type) in Chinese. Basically, use it or lose it.

Mandarin is easier to learn

Cantonese is seen to be more difficult because it has from 6 to 9 tones, each of which signify different things (while Mandarin only has 4 tones). In addition, because of its greater prevalence, it is easier to find Mandarin study materials than Cantonese study materials.

Yes. Duolingo supports many languages, and Mandarin is indeed one of them. Is Duolingo good for learning Chinese? For beginner to intermediate level there’s no doubt Duolingo is one of the better Chinese learning apps there is.

It’s easily the best free language app you can find, and our Editors’ Choice. Even when measured against paid programs, the content is so good that Duolingo still ranks among the best software for learning a language. While Duolingo offers instruction for dozens of languages, some are stronger than others.

The scope of duolingo is very limited. I think it’s well established that most courses get you to somewhere around A2, B1 at best, which is just enough to be a bit challenging, but not enough to make you able to expand your knowledge on your own.

Duolingo’s name in Chinese is 多邻国 which means “many neighboring nations” and is pronounced duo-lin-guo : ChineseLanguage.

Duolingo’s community guidelines indicate that Duolingo ensures a safe environment for user interaction by removing inappropriate and offensive content, but some personal information may be publicly visible. However, Duolingo warns users not to overshare personal information when interacting with other users.

It’s a waste of time. In fact, it’s just as bad as the education system Von Ahn criticizes. Duolingo outsources its translation services, allowing for awkward sentences to slip in undetected. And translation (the core of its platform) is already widely known to be an ineffective way to learn a language.

Meme Culture

Duo has recently been used in memes to depict the reminders to practice in a humorous way, mostly in the amount of emails users receive. Duo has been known to call in ballistic missile-strikes on people who do not practice, or physically abuse them. The meme has become known as “Evil Duolingo Owl”.

Right now Duolingo can get you pretty far: a 2020 study found that learners in Duolingo’s Spanish and French courses performed as well on reading and listening tests as students who took four semesters of university classes — and in about half the time.