Earlier we published an article where we told you how to start learning Chinese.

Today we will tell you if it is worth going to China to learn Chinese.

I liked studying in China. The language itself is taught in China quite interestingly. Not all teaching methods can be adapted here, but I have added many points to the curriculum at our school.

In China, I was completely convinced that the grammar of the Chinese language is the best, and if you managed to comprehend the correct structure of the sentence, then you will be fine, you will build sentences correctly, you will speak correctly.

In China, the language is taught more easily, you just have to speak, this is logical. Sometimes in the classroom we looked at newspaper clippings, news. Upon returning to Russia, I continued to study the language through films. I started with cartoons, I advise you too. You should not start watching historical films, they are still more difficult to perceive. Choose movies that you like, when you are interested, learning the language is even more enjoyable.

I really like Chinese because it is simple. You may not believe now, but I have something to compare with and after the grammar of French, you understand how much easier and simpler it is. I studied both French and English. I have good spoken English, and I speak it all over the world when I miss Chinese. But it’s easier for me to communicate in Chinese. Many of our students, when they first came to the classes, the experience of studying European languages, were shocked by the fact that there are no conjugations, no declensions, no change of verbs in tenses, cases and in general everything, and only in essence you need to learn hieroglyphs.

If you have a good visual memory, then this is probably 95% success in learning Chinese. But even if your visual memory is not so well developed, it will not hurt you in learning the language. Now is the era of smartphones and the Internet, and so on. the Chinese print hieroglyphs in letters, it is enough just to remember and know what this hieroglyph looks like. Over time, I myself forgot several hundred hieroglyphs after studying in China, and perhaps I won’t be able to write one by hand, but I can easily type it out on a computer. This is probably also a plus of the language. You may not finish learning some hieroglyphs, but you can safely type them.

Chinese language learning applications and electronic dictionaries appeared much later in my life. By the time I started learning Chinese, there was no such abundance of applications on the Internet. The first application I downloaded when I went to China is Pleco English-Chinese Dictionary. Now looking at all the abundance of electronic dictionaries and applications, I understand that on the one hand it is convenient, people are starting to learn the language. But apps alone won’t help you memorize words. When I started learning Chinese, I had a simple pocket dictionary, all covered with writing, tortured and with all kinds of bookmarks. I remembered where which hieroglyph was. I wrote down a lot in a notebook, there were a lot of them, they were also covered with writing, and thanks to the fact that you prescribe a lot, you constantly make some notes, you remember, you make your brain remember where at what moment it was in the writing. I am very glad that I did not have any electronic dictionaries in the first year and at school. When I started learning Chinese, I only had a notebook and a pen. This is probably one of the important tips that I want to say, forget about all electronic dictionaries when you start learning Chinese. You only need a notebook and a pen.

The second application that will help you is a modern version of the quizlet – hieroglyph cards. Then I did not have this application, but I simply could not do anything without cards, but I crammed hieroglyphs, wrote them down in notebooks, but you can’t go far without cards. I made cards for all new words. My number was constantly growing. Those that I already knew, I put off, and constantly wrote down new words in a new pack. The cards are very convenient, on the one hand a hieroglyph, on the other pinyin and tonality with translation. But at the initial stage of study, it is better to cut out the cards yourself and write everything down, so it will be easier for you to teach.

It also helped me in learning Chinese and gaining a level by passing the HSK exams. That is, if you are learning Chinese for yourself, taking HSK in no way means making yourself worse. Taking HSK is an additional reason, firstly, in learning a language, it is a new grammar, new words. The HSK exam is an ideal opportunity for your knowledge to develop on the shelves. So that you understand what are the gaps in knowledge. The first and second levels give up very easily, so don’t even think about it, get ready and give up. From the third level, it already starts much more fun. And you will not regret if you start preparing 3-4 months before the exam.

The fourth factor that has helped improve the level of Chinese language learning is practice. You need real practice in a country where they speak the language you are studying. Despite the fact that our teachers are native speakers, without real practice in China itself, your level will not make a giant leap forward. There are summer internship programs ranging from 2 weeks to 3 months. In April-May, I constantly start walking, kicking, all our students, so that they take a vacation for at least 2 weeks and go to China to study. I also went to similar internships, I had one long one that helped make a giant leap in learning Chinese and there were short trips that allowed me not to forget the language and practice it. Even if you are traveling for two weeks, it would seem that there is little that can be learned here, but you are making a small but little step up.

Now Chinese has become very popular and, most importantly, it has become very accessible. You can learn it anywhere and in any convenient way, and most importantly, the language is complicated only by visual hieroglyphs at first, the language itself is very simple and people start to like Chinese, although before that many were afraid of it.