Today I want to tell you about my path to learning Chinese, how it was and how long it took me.

I started learning Chinese at school. I was in the last grade and it was necessary to decide what to do, because you already have to go to university and you are in a misunderstanding of what to do and where to go. And my languages ​​came out well, at school I had a second language French. I studied it from the fifth grade, I liked it and I brought it to the level of B1-B2. But at some point I realized that he was difficult for me, my soul did not lie for him. In the final grade, we always think “what do you do.” And I thought since languages ​​are easy for me, can I study Chinese? At that time, Chinese was not so popular, there were not as many schools and courses as it is now, and in general there was not even a thought that Chinese would then gain such popularity. Why not Japanese or Korean, probably because I liked the hieroglyphs.

I didn’t want to lose a year at the university, I didn’t know if I could get these squiggles or not, so while still at school, I decided to find myself a tutor and try to study Chinese. What if I don’t succeed and I may choose some other language.

Due to the fact that Chinese was not popular, it turned out to be very difficult to find a tutor. In my city, I found only one Chinese tutor, who at that time was still a student at the Sholokhov Institute, and she lived on the other side of the city. I contacted her, arranged the lessons and twice a week or once a week, as it turned out, I walked 40 minutes to her and studied.

And then, in general, a miracle happened. I liked the language, I liked the pronunciation. Most importantly, I really liked the grammar of the Chinese language! It is much lighter compared to French. In all the lessons at school, in which I was not interested, I was engaged in writing hieroglyphs and just dragged away from him.

 I studied the language for 2 years, then left for a long internship in China and then I had a number of short-term summer internships and they gave me a good full-fledged knowledge of the Chinese language.

if you start learning a language, it is very important to establish a base first. You just have to learn and read pinyin correctly by 150 percent, you have to understand what it is. I must read everything correctly and not be wrong. And the sooner you learn everything, the less difficulties there will be.Tonality takes a little more time, but due to constant communication, it will begin to come out well with you after about six months. After six months, you realize how you are, you say in what tonalities and you understand the interlocutor.

we were taught to level A2 using Kondrashevsky’s textbook, this is a good academic textbook, it provides a good knowledge base, but it is morally outdated, so now it is difficult to learn from it, because many good textbooks have appeared since then. In China, I studied with the developing chinese textbook series. I really love these books, they are divided into 3 series, aimed at a specific topic of what you need. Reading books, there are accordingly many texts where you learn exactly some additional vocabulary. Listening Series and Normal Chinese Standardized Grammar Series. In China, in a year we learned the language up to the level of about B2, inclusively, and upon returning to Russia I passed HSK 4

Now with the B2 level, this is HSK 4, you can get a job, for example, as a manager, this is a good basic level, but to work as a translator or where you need a strong Chinese you need a C1 level. In our school, we bring all students to the B2 level, which takes about 2 – 2.5 years, but not without practice in China.

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.