2. Don’t be afraid of sounding like a fool

This may sound like point 1, but it’s worth repeating. Don’t be afraid of sounding silly! You’re brand new to this! You need to practice to get good. As soon as you accept that, then your learning will go much faster. The louder more obnoxious kids in my Chinese class were actually much better learners than the quiet ones. Don’t be afraid of mistakes! Don’t be afraid of sounding stupid! You gotta be bad at something before getting good at it.

Heck, look at how these celebrities sound when speaking Chinese!

3. Make sure you get your tones right

Tones are one of the hardest parts of learning Chinese for foreigners. Sometimes, since it’s so hard, people take shortcuts and/or don’t spend enough time on the tones. Learning good tones is like learning a good habit. If you spend time and get it right from the start, then they will always be there for you. If you have half-ass it at the beginning, it’s much harder to fix later down the line. Learn all the tones together with all the pronunciations, it will help you build the strong Chinese foundation you need to succeed.

Learn how to improve your Chinese tones with this separate article.

4. Enjoy Chinese culture!

What inspires you to learn a second language? A language is just a tool. For most people, the best use of this tool is to get to the culture and history behind it. Many people learn Chinese because they’re interested in Chinese history, economics, music, food, or otherwise. Remember the reason you started learning Chinese. Learning more about this aspect of Chinese will help keep you motivated and interested in learning.

5. Learn the most common Chinese words first

After pronunciation and tones come Chinese words. You need words to build sentences and start learning the language. Know that some words are more important than others. Choose “high-frequency” words first, so you can learn as quickly as possible. Look at our list of HSK1 words to see the first 100, 250, and 500 words you should learn!

6. Learn grammar so you can apply it in conversations

Words are the building block, but you need grammar to stack them together! Just like “most common words” that are also “most common grammar points.” Start going through the grammar points as soon as you know 50 words. With TutorMandarin, we designed our lessons to have 8-10 vocabulary each lesson and 1-3 grammar points. The lessons draw all these into one nice concentrate theme to make learning practical and conceptual. Sign up to enjoy FREE Chinese PDFs.

7. Talk to native speakers as often as possible

Hopefully, this comes naturally to you. But the point of learning a language is to speak it! You should want to apply the new things your learning in real conversations with native speakers. At the same time, there’s a double benefit. There’s no better way to learn the language than to practice it with native speakers. Native speakers will show you new phrases, native phrasings, correct your awkward problems, and more. Plus, the human connections will hopefully make you feel more attached to Chinese language learning.

8. Learn Chinese through different music, movies, tv, more

I know countless people that have learned and improved their English just by watching American TV shows. It wasn’t even on purpose! They just liked the TV show friends and watched it so much that their language skills improved. You can do the same with Chinese. There are tons of great Chinese dramas, Chinese kungfu movies (make sure it’s not in Cantonese), and Chinese songs. Just because it’s fun doesn’t mean you’re not learning!!

9. Get apps to learn Chinese

10. Get a Chinese tutor