Best Way to Learn Chinese: A Guide from Zero to Confident

• Mandarin Chinese is learnable, but you need to treat it differently from languages like Spanish or French.
• Expect a slow start and lots of repetition.
• Get help from a good tutor early on, build a solid foundation in pinyin and tones.
• Learning Chinese is exponential: it feels painfully slow at first, then suddenly everything accelerates.

1. First, Fix Your Mindset About Learning Chinese

If you’re coming from English or another European language, you have to throw out your usual expectations. Learning Chinese will give you a completely different learning experience.

A Chinese department head once told new students something like this:

“You’ll meet for class twice as often as Spanish students. You’ll have twice the homework. After four years, your proficiency will be about the same as a Spanish student after one year.”

Sounds discouraging? Well yes, but Chinese isn’t harder because you’re “bad at languages.” It’s harder because:

• The writing system is completely different.
• The sounds and tones require new listening “muscles.”
• Far less overlap in vocabulary exists with English.

Here’s some good news:

• Chinese grammar is relatively simple.
• The language is incredibly efficient once you get going.
• Learning becomes exponential: the more you know, the faster you learn.

At the beginning, you’ll spend a lot of time on what feels like fundamental stuff. Don’t panic! That’s exactly what needs to happen. You’re rewiring how your brain assembles language.

2. What is the Best Way to Learn Mandarin Chinese? Start With a Tutor.

Yes, you can learn Chinese on your own. But as both teachers and learners will tell you: going completely solo makes it much more likely you’ll quit studying Chinese.

In the early stages, a good Mandarin tutor or teacher:

• Keeps you from getting overwhelmed
• Helps you hear and say tones correctly
• Prevents you from developing bad pronunciation or grammar habits
• Makes the language feel less mysterious and more logical

Think of it like this: you’re trying to wrap your mind around a system that’s radically different from English. A tutor acts like a guide who has already walked the path, shows you the shortcuts, and warns you about dead ends.

Once you reach a good intermediate level, it is easier to learn on your own. You can use reading, podcasts, shows, and self-study. But to get off the ground efficiently, professional guidance is worth its weight in gold.

Chinese learning apps and tools:

• BaoDao Talk – Taiwan-based, traditional characters, structured lessons
• Italki – huge variety of tutors, strong filtering system
• Preply – similar to Italki, often with lower prices

You can mix these with self-study apps and courses. These apps are the best way to learn Chinese online. However, starting with a knowledgeable person will save you months of frustration.

3. Mistakes Are Your Main Teacher

There’s a famous Chinese saying that goes: 失败是成功之母. Which means “failure is the mother of success”.

Whatever confusion or frustration you’re going through—it’s normal.

• Native Chinese-speaking kids spend years making thousands of mistakes.
• They start with pinyin, too, before thoroughly diving into characters.

The only real difference between you and a native child is:

• Environment (they’re surrounded by Chinese, you might not be)
• Timing (they had a head start from birth)

Your job isn’t to avoid mistakes; it’s to get exceptionally good at using mistakes:

• Notice them without shame
• Extract the lesson (tone, word choice, pattern)
• Move on and keep talking

Think of it like polishing a stone: you need friction. Every time you mess up and correct yourself, the language gets a little smoother and shinier in your mind.

4. Pinyin and Chinese Tones Explained

Before obsessing about characters, you need to master:

• The sound system (all the syllables)
• The four Chinese tones + neutral tone
• Reading and writing these in pinyin

This is not a “nice extra”; it’s the foundation everything else rests on.

What this stage looks like

For the first month or so, your study might consist entirely of:

• Hearing and repeating syllables in all tones
• Writing pinyin with tone marks
• Matching what you see (pinyin) with what you hear
• Distinguishing tones by ear (e.g., mā / má / mǎ / mà)

Many intensive programs spend dozens of hours just on this. It can feel slow and “unproductive,” but everything in Chinese comes back to pinyin and tones. Once they’re automatic:

• Vocabulary sticks more easily
• Listening comprehension skyrockets
• You can use dictionaries and apps much more effectively

If you are a native English speaker, you have a significant advantage. Every sound you need for Mandarin is already in your native language. You’re not learning completely alien noises, just refining and re-targeting ones you already make.

5. Learn Full Sentences and Dialogues (Still in Pinyin)

Once you’re comfortable with the sounds and tones, start learning:

• Short dialogues
• Skits
• Everyday sentence patterns

Still in pinyin only, paired with English.

The goal here is to:

• Associate sounds with meaning
• Get used to the rhythm and flow of real speech
• Build “chunks” of language you can reuse and adapt

Good materials at this stage will:

• Include audio recordings for every line
• Provide natural, high-frequency phrases
• Emphasize speaking and listening over analyzing

Why this matters:

• You’re training your ear and mouth for real communication
• You’re building a mental “library” of patterns and phrases
• These dialogues will become your scaffold once you add characters later.

At first, it will feel weird. Your cadence will feel off. You will mess up tones constantly. That’s a sign you’re doing exactly what you need to be doing.

6. Chinese Characters

Only once you’ve really internalized several dialogues in pinyin should you move into characters.

Traditional vs Simplified Characters

You’ll see a lot of debate online, but here’s a practical approach:

• If your main focus is Mainland China, start with simplified Chinese characters.
• If you’re focused on Taiwan, traditional Chinese characters are the norm.
• Hong Kong and Macau use traditional, but Cantonese complicates things.

If you don’t have a good reason to choose traditional, simplified is often better for beginners because:

• Characters are often less complex
• They match most of the content from China-based apps and courses

Whatever you choose, stick with it at the beginning to avoid overload.

How to start learning characters

Begin with characters for:

• High-frequency pronouns: 我, 你, 他/她, 我们, 你们, 他们
• Core verbs: 去, 来, 吃, 喝, 说, 听, 看, 学, 写, 买, 卖
• Everyday nouns: 米饭, 菜, 肉, 车, 路, 手, 书, 水, 街, 火车

A few key principles:

• Learn proper stroke order from day one.
• Remember that every character fits in a little square—structure matters.
• Many dictionaries and input methods rely on stroke order and structure.

Characters are hard to memorize at first, but here’s when Chinese becomes “language math”:

• Each character carries a core meaning.
• That character combines with others to form multiple words.
• Learning one character unlocks an entire family of vocabulary.

Compared to English, where each new word is its own unit, Chinese lets you build more with fewer pieces once you know the system.

7. Think in Patterns, Not Grammar Terms

One of the nicest surprises about Mandarin is that its grammar is quite simple compared to many European languages.

You don’t need to drown in grammar jargon. Instead, notice and reuse patterns:

• Common sentence structures
• Word order patterns
• Frequent connectors and particles

Over time, you’ll naturally pick up subtleties like:

• Different ways of discussing the past
• How 的, 得, and 地 function in different positions

You don’t need to master those on day one. Use grammar explanations as a support, not as your primary learning method.

8. Read Early, Read Often (But at the Right Level)

Reading is where your Mandarin truly starts taking off.

Once you can handle some basic characters and pinyin, begin reading:

• graded readers
• simple stories
• short non-fiction pieces with glossaries
• content on platforms like LingQ

And whenever possible, read from paper, not just screens. Your brain processes printed text in a unique way. Many learners remember characters better when they study from a textbook or printed reader.

A great place to start:

Look for well-organized textbooks or readers by experienced authors. (For example, many people praise Cornelius Kubler’s materials.)

9. Use Tools and Apps

Unlike learners 50 years ago who had only a few cassettes and textbooks, we have:

• Apps like HelloChinese, Yoyo Chinese, and LingQ
• Dictionaries like Pleco
• Massive content libraries on YouTube, podcasts, and streaming platforms
• Online programs like ChinesePod for deep listening practice

Use them to:

• Look up words instantly
• Build spaced repetition decks
• Consume tons of audio and video
• Track your progress and stay motivated

Just remember: tools are there to support you. The core of your learning should still be:

• listening
• reading
• and gradually more speaking and writing

10. Speak A Lot and Make Mistakes Constantly

Now the fun (and scary) part: speaking.

Every time you speak Chinese, you’re doing three things:

• Testing your current understanding
• Exposing gaps in your vocabulary or patterns
• Training your mouth and ears to work together

Here’s the key mindset:

• Making mistakes is learning.
• It’s not something to avoid; it’s the raw material you’re shaping.

Native speakers spent years making thousands of mistakes as kids. The only real difference between you and them is timing and environment—not your capacity to learn.

If you ever visit or live in China, you will find that speaking Mandarin brings many informal teachers. In general, Chinese people are incredibly supportive when they hear a foreigner trying their language, especially beginners. Native Chinese speakers will be more than eager to help you and answer your questions. Going to China is the fastest way to learn Chinese.

Use tutors, language exchanges, and real-world conversations to:

• get comfortable with imperfection
• refine your tones
• build confidence sentence by sentence

11. Balance the Four Skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing

Some skills grow faster than others. For most learners:

• Listening is easiest
• Speaking comes next
• Reading follows
• Writing (especially by hand) is the slowest

You don’t need to be perfectly balanced. However, you don’t want one skill to be much weaker than the others. If you do, you will feel off-balance and frustrated.

If one area feels weak—like your listening is good but you can’t recognize characters—focus on that skill for a few weeks. Improving one often boosts the others.

12. A Simple Chinese Language Learning Routine

Here’s a realistic one-hour daily routine you can adapt:

10 minutes – Review

• Characters you’ve already learned
• A dialogue or short text you’ve seen before
• Recent vocabulary

30 minutes – Listening (often multitasking)

• Play audio while making breakfast, commuting, or walking
• Re-listen to familiar dialogues to notice more details each time

20 minutes – Focused reading or character study

• Work through a textbook chapter
• Read a graded reader with a dictionary handy
• Add important words to your SRS deck

1–2 times per week – Speaking practice (25–50 minutes)

• Meet a tutor on BaoDao Talk, Italki, or Preply
• Ask them to keep notes of corrections and new phrases
• Focus on interesting, real conversations.

13. Don’t Do It Alone

People should not view learning Chinese as a solitary struggle with an app in the dark.

Use it as an excuse to:

• make friends
• connect with teachers
• join language exchanges
• travel if you can
• participate in a culture that’s as deep as it is diverse

Everyone who sticks with Mandarin says some version of the same thing:

“I’ve never met anyone who regretted learning Chinese. I only meet people who wish they had started earlier or kept going longer.”

Start Your Journey to Study in China Today

Choosing to study in China is a life-changing decision that opens the door to world-class education, cultural diversity, and exciting global opportunities. Whether you’re researching top China universities or preparing your China university application, having a trusted partner can make all the difference.

At ApplyForChina, we make the process simple and stress-free. From finding the right university to submitting your application, we’re here to support you every step of the way.