Mandarin Self-Study: Tips and Tricks for Fluency

How to get from zero to HSK 6 in less than three years. I have been getting lots of questions lately about how I learned Mandarin, so today I am sharing with you some of my tips about how to become fluent quickly through self-teaching. Why I learned Chinese. Why I didn't take classes. Is it really necessary to learn how to write by hand? (update: apparently the new HSK coming out next few years will require writing some characters by hand, so if you plan to take HSK unfortunately the digital test will be phased out in 2023-4). Importance of listening comprehension as a beginner. Don't rote memorize words without knowing how to use them. There are plenty of other cartoons out there too but I personally found these to be the best because the voices are clearly understandable (no screechy/weird voices, no super fast talking, etc), the animation is well done, and the storylines are reasonably interesting and won’t completely bore you to sleep. I watched pretty much every episode on Youtube of all three of these and it was more than enough to move on to shows for adults. The perfect reading comprehension improvement tool for English learners and Chinese learners alike!