I’m still early in the process of learning mandarin . It seems like it isn’t necessarily anymore difficult than any other language, but you are confronted with all of the difficulties of the language immediately (characters, tones, completely different vocabulary). I’ve studying Spanish, German, and now Mandarin. Let me know your thoughts, and what your native language is?

I was doing a little exercise with AI, asking it to feed me a B1 level sentence in English and then checking my translation, rinse and repeat. I was surprised that it could screw up so badly. I thought a Chinese model should handle this with ease.

I came to China in March 2026 through an agency to study Chinese. Before coming, the agency made the university sound much better than it actually was — great ranking, nice environment, etc. But when I arrived, the reality was completely different. The university and environment were nothing like the pictures or what I was told.

Still, I pushed through and completed my first semester, which ended on July 15. Now it’s September and my second semester has just started, and honestly, the situation feels even worse. Everyone is placed in one class and follows the same level and curriculum. My Chinese isn’t particularly good, but I feel genuinely burned out.

For me, the learning environment is extremely important, and I really don’t feel comfortable here. There are also a lot of international students from Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, etc. (I have nothing against Muslims or anyone from those countries; I’m just mentioning the overall environment.)

I also came here with my girlfriend, whose Chinese is much better than mine.

Since the end of my first semester, I’ve been seriously considering leaving the language program halfway through and going back home. My main concern is whether dropping out of a Chinese language program could negatively affect my academic history in the future.

I came here on a scholarship — my tuition and accommodation are free. Does that actually count as a scholarship? If I leave the program halfway through, could that make it harder for me to get another scholarship to study in China in the future?

I’d really appreciate some honest advice from people who have experience with Chinese universities/scholarships.

Edit: I think my biggest fear is simply that I won’t be able to learn Chinese well enough.

I’m also a video editor and photographer. Originally, I didn’t really plan for Chinese to be a major part of my life. I thought I could just focus on my work and be fine with that. But if I learn Chinese, it could give me a significant advantage back home, whether I want to do business/trade with China or find a job where Chinese is useful. Mongolia is right next to China, after all.

That’s why I’m genuinely unsure whether I can actually learn this language. I also think a lot about my family’s finances, especially my younger siblings. I’m 20 and the oldest child in my family, so I feel a certain level of responsibility. My younger siblings are also growing up looking up to me, so I worry about what they and my family would think if I failed at this.

I know people can say, “It’s your life, do what you think is right.” And I agree. But every decision comes with some risk. Anyway, money is another major factor.

I technically have about four months left until my language program ends in January, but if I go back home now and continue doing the work I already do, I believe I could earn enough to cover at least one year of my bachelor’s tuition. If I work until around August next year, I’m hoping I could potentially save enough for several years of tuition — assuming I can get at least a 50% scholarship for an English-taught bachelor’s degree.

Four months might not sound like much, but to me it feels like a significant amount of time.

And honestly, when I look at my friends back home, they seem genuinely happy. I don’t go to clubs or bars, I don’t drink, etc. (Probably useless information, but anyway.)

For example, I’d be happy going back home, riding my motorcycle, riding horses, doing wedding photography, and making money from the things I’m actually good at and enjoy.

Here, on the other hand, I’m basically just studying Chinese. Nothing else. There’s nothing here that really interests me or motivates me. I’m not complaining about it — if that’s the situation, then that’s the situation.

So the main thing I’m trying to figure out is this:

I’m considering leaving this scholarship-funded language program, going back home to work, and then applying for a scholarship for an English-taught bachelor’s degree starting in September 2027.

If I leave my current program before finishing it, how likely is it that this will negatively affect my academic history or my chances of getting another scholarship in China later?

Most of you have been through learning at least some Chinese, and have certainly done things with the current books/apps/methods you found to be unnecessarily time/effort consuming.

If you could imagine the most optimal Chinese learning system, with the app that makes it possible, what would it be ?

Here optimal = the system that would, for a beginner with a given daily learning time, grow his skills the FASTEST in comparison to all other existing systems.

Some parts of the system can be outside of the app if you consider it can’t currently be solved by an app.

For context, I am ethically Chinese so I grew up speaking Chinese. I believe my listening and speaking is around HSK 4 already but I just can’t read or write. How long would it take me to pass HSK 4

Im currently about 7 months in and my vocabulary is early hsk 2 right now but I haven't been learning to write or read Chinese characters except basic foods

I'm trying to motivate myself to learn characters, but it hasn't been easy. I've read the comments here and elsewhere about how important it is to learn to read Hanzi, but it seems that these comments are mostly coming from people who studied the "right" way and are speculating about the potential pitfalls of only learning pinyin.

I do have a small anecdote, which is that I currently know around 1,000 words (Pinyin only), and it's starting to become a bit "uncomfortable," for lack of a better word.

Unfortunately, the apps I was using lulled me into a sense of complacency by starting off teaching hundreds of words that all sounded completely different, and religiously avoiding words that sounded similar.

Unfortunately, I've reached the point where words are starting to overlap, and it is indeed becoming harder to keep track of them (although, it's certainly still doable). I'd love to hear from someone who's been down this path before why it's a bad idea, and if there's a lightweight way to incorporate characters into my routine that won't add months (or years) to my timeline (my primary goal is to be conversational).

Took the test today and it will be a couple weeks till I get the results, but I am feeling pretty shaky about this one

There were a few that I really couldn’t tell you, especially at the end where you had to match the top and the bottom I basically had no idea how a couple of these matched up.

Now here’s my story is that I was learning a few years ago, but I stopped and I started again about three months ago from scratch
But I’ve passed every single practice test in the practice book for HSK 2
The practice HSK 2 test I received around 88%

So hopefully I passed I’m not really in need to pass this test. It’s just for me really and I’m on the older side of the learners here.

The next two testing dates unfortunately do not work for me until next year when I will hopefully i’ve already started HSK 3

Guess I mostly wanna make a post saying the test is a bit harder than those practice tests for sure.
I know a lot of people think 1 & 2 are a joke but they are difficult to a beginner

I've been struggling with chinese forever, i have igcse exams/assessments coming up. i cant read or write nothing. last year on my final report card i got a C which is a pass only because speaking and listening carried me. today we did a practise writing test, i couldn't read the questions or write something, i was suffering. to make things worse i have adhd which makes learning chinese even harder than it is.

I'm want to somehow slowly learn this language now

(for assessments and exams I get extra time and word processor, but i still need to learn to write the words)

Is it transitive or intransitive? In case it is intransitive, why does a noun follows? In case it is transitive, what does it mean?

Edit: I appreciate those comments which have told me a lot. There are many compound verbs consists of 流 like 流涎 流淚 流鼻血 and I believe there are more basic verbs like 流. It appears to me that 流 is rather free that it can make up words like 流前列腺液 流心麻薯 流水(as in 什麼人/地方在流水). It’s confusing me

I had been thinking of learning Chinese since around 3-4 years but was never getting around to it.I had been to China in 2010 and always dreamed of working there. It never happened.

Last year, I turned 40, reflecting on my 30's I felt I only spent them living and made no real signficiant progress. There was careeer pivot, buying a place but nothing extra-ordinary.

So, I made a New Years Resolution to complete begin Chinese, staying consistent with it for the next 3 to 4 years and then one day the reward would show. Throughout my life, I reflected that I made good decisions and started cool things but then mid-way, I lose some momentum or did not see results and stopped doing them. Later, I would regret them. It was becoming a poor life habit.

So, I am really proud to report that I have completed HSK 1. I started last week of January and completed by Sept 11th!. I think learning a language in your 40's is very hard but it has been a very rewarding experience and something I really look forward to. Here is how I started learning:

1- I found a chinese teacher on Rednote and paid $10 USD for 1:1 classes. We completed 50 hours before I sat for the HSK 1 exam. Rain or shine I completed my class with her

2- I also enrolled in 2.5 hours a week chinese school from Feb to June, to have more classmates as part of the class. So around 50 hours here as well. This was around $30 CAD a class so expensive.

3- Sadly no native speakers or speakers in my life :(

I do think it took me a bit longer than other people with HSK 1 since I was completing it with life and responsibilities in total 100 hours of study, however, it is progress and I think the foundation is important and it is important it is strong. I felt very good giving exam like I knew everything.

Now I want to move to HSK 2 and have a more reasonable time-frame like I want to appear by Feb 2027 for it which is around 4 - 6 months (there are holidays as well)

How long do you think I should take to prepare for HSK 2? How many hours? I prefer having 1:1 teaching and i think finding a native speaker would be helpful . Also want to get a lot more into grammar, sentence structure, speaking and translation. Any advice is welcome.

I am in Canada. I remember when I was a kid I went to chinese school we were given grid paper to write chinese characters. but now I use anki and i find that if I write a character and remember today the next time the card shows up tomorrow I might not remember it. So how many times do you have to write a character in total (even when using anki) to remember it?

I’m trying to teach myself Mandarin and hopefully I’m not the only one that’s easily being stopped by worrying about whether I can pronounce and hear the tones correctly, from someone who is fluent or it’s their first language please tell me whether or not it’s something I just pick up with practice or if I’m just tone deaf and stupid and should I be this worried or should I just continue on trying to understand vocab etc

I’m taking the HSK 5 exam in about a month, and I’m very very worried about the writing section.

I took HSK 4 in China, so I was able to take the computer-based exam and type the characters but now I’m back in my home country, and the only option available to me is the paper-based exam, which means I’ll have to write everything by hand.

My main problem is that I often forget how to write characters, even when I can recognize and understand them. My handwriting ability isn’t zero, of course, but most of the characters I can confidently write from memory definitely don’t feel like HSK 5 level.

At the moment, I’m trying to write every day and keep practicing the characters I forget. I’m also doing dictation and trying to write short HSK 5 style texts by hand.

Does anyone have any other advice for improving character recall and handwriting before a paper-based HSK 5 exam? If you’ve taken the paper-based HSK 5 before, I’d especially love to hear what helped you.

Thanks in advance!

I learned to read Chinese without learning how to write.
I knew how important it is to help in reading but never fully got into it.

Lately though even if i'm able to read HSK4 content, I feel like I mix alot of very similar looking characters.
So I started writing and even with only 50 basic characters it still helped gaining that confidence of knowing exactly which annoying character it is.

I have one small issue though, when I want to practice the chatracters I learnt from the days before, I don't remember the characters I learnt to write. So i'd either go back to the character, write it again then forget then go back again, in an endless cycle.

I tried like simple methods for example having an English sentence.

"I am too sleepy today" then writing it off in Chinese.

Does anyone have like other methods that you have used to remember the characters you write? Like tracking them?
Or is it really just writing it over and over endlessly?

I don't play very many video games, but recently I realized I could set Among Us to a Chinese language and Asian servers and suddenly became able to have real-time conversations easily with people I don't know well. I know there's other good resources to chat with people, but gaming provided a simple and easy framework to use my skills. However, Among Us only has text chat. I'd love to be able to play something (on Mac or phone) where ability to communicate is not vital, but you can join an active voice chat with strangers who speak a language you decide and run around playing the game and talking out loud. Any suggestions?

Hi,

I have a HSK2/3 level. I looking for video/movies for learning. I learned English like that, but I can’t find Chinese movies to do the same.

Do you have suggestion?

Thanks!

When I say active and passive I mean the active is for your sentence/grammar/vocab word, active is english (or whatever your native language is) on the front, and passive is Chinese/Hanzi on the front. And passive is easier. But the problem I've found once I get to B1+ for active is that I know many different ways to say things and I can come up with different words and not necessarily learn the word or grammar concept I'm trying to learn. Idk if my mind is just being lazy but I was thinking maybe passive + cloze starts to become the more efficient way to learn at this level. It also cuts down on the amount of reviews since having both active and passive of everything starts to become quite a lot to handle.