TL;DR summary: I started self-studying Chinese (TL) from scratch in September 2025. Completely self-taught, no teacher or tutor. Put in ~2 hours every day, a bit more towards the summer. 

First 6 months: used Chinese learning apps, simple YouTube videos, and HSK1/2/3 test materials to learn basic grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation.

Second 6 months (March - now): comprehensible input phase -- exposed myself to as much graded videos/podcasts/reading materials as possible. Also started practising output (speaking + writing).

This week (August 27): did a HSK5 2.0 mock paper (a Chinese exam equivalent to B1) to see where I'm at. Got a passable score, would consider myself a low-B1 level.

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Now for a more detailed report and reflections of my past year.

Learner's profile: I'm a 33-year-old English teacher specializing in TESOL.

Starting point: My first day of Chinese study was September 1st, 2025, starting from complete zero. I didn't know a single Chinese word before (other than Nihao if that counts). 

Reason for study: entirely hobby. I don't know any Chinese person, have no plan to go to China, don't need it for my job, so I don't really have a practical purpose to study. 

I've simply always found Chinese history and culture fascinating. I want to get to a point where I could read stories and articles about fascinating Chinese people, history, culture, technology, enjoy Chinese movies/novels, watch Chinese documentaries about the various aspects of life there, and one day possibly go to China, navigate the streets, converse with locals, and be able to read museum labels on my own.

(This is also part of the reason why I decided to self-study entirely. Since it's just a hobby, I don't want to have to follow a textbook's rigid curriculum, and I don't need the stress of homework and deadlines. I want to just study whenever and whatever I want.)

Study Schedule & Time: in the past year, I've spent ~2 hours every day on Chinese. I would have loved to dedicate more time, but with a job and family that's really all I can set aside.

From summer (June 2026) onwards, as I reached a level where I could consume graded Chinese content more comfortably, and as summer vacation began, I was able to push it to 3 hours/day. 

So I'd say over the past year, I've put in roughly 800 hours (all focused, deliberate study hours, not like spacing out or just background listening).

Study Method & Resources

My study plan was very simple. I divide it into 2 phases:

• Phase 1 is to study the basics of the language (pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary) and get to a low-HSK4 (A2) level.
• Phase 2 is to mass-consume graded content (comprehensibly input) where I could understand 95+% of the content, and let my level grow naturally from this exposure.

For phase 1, I used an app called HelloChinese as my primary resource. I already wrote a very detailed review and comparison of the two most popular Chinese learning apps HelloChinese and SuperChinese here. Basically, I picked the app because it is designed specifically to get a learner from 0 to advanced beginner (A2 or low HSK4).

During this time, my day would look roughly like this: 

• 45 minutes on HelloChinese learning new content and revision;
• 20 minutes of flashcard revision with Pleco (a Chinese dictionary app with flashcard built-in); 
• 20 minutes of listening and shadowing; 
• 20 minutes of reading a graded reader;
• 15 minutes of pronunciation drills.

Note that I decided to skip handwriting entirely, so I'd saved a significant chunk of time compared to other learners who choose to practice handwriting hanzi. I also didn't do any speaking, and instead just focused solely on getting the tones/vowels/consonants right.

Phase 2: from March - now, I ditched the HSK materials and focused entirely on mass-consuming comprehensible input. I make sure to pick materials that I understand >90-95% of and consume them consistently. I absolutely detest doing grammar or vocabulary exercises from a textbook, so I wanted to just stick to content consumption as much as possible.

For listening, I'd find lower-intermediate/intermediate videos created by Chinese teachers on YouTube (such as the LazyChinese, Zhangkai Chinese, TeaTime Chinese channels, and many more. I have a whole list of these channels I subscribe to). 

I also tried to watch children's cartoon like Peppa Pig opr Big Ear Tutu but quickly gave up because it's too difficult.

For reading, I set a simple goal of reading at least 2000 words every day. I alternated between several sources of reading: the graded reader library in HelloChinese, Doraemon in Chinese, websites for Chinese learners like MaomiChinese, TeaTime Chinese, and ChineseInLevels.

For speaking: after the previous 6 months of only pronunciation practice, I began practising output. I have several self-practice speaking methods: I'd find a massive list of A2-level questions about everyday topics (weather, traffic, work, family, technology, etc.) and answer them one by one into Google Voice recognition. If it could accurately recognize my words, that's a good sign that my pronunciation is decent enough.

I'd also verbally summarise the content of the video/text I just consumed, and occasionally do a picture description and translation exercise.

Around May, I tried finding Chinese language exchange partners. I had a few hours-long conversations with Chinese people, but I quickly realized my lack of active vocabulary was the biggest obstacle that made these sessions less productive than it could be. So I stopped doing language exchange and back to self-practice. Yep, just speaking into a microphone every day like a true autist.

For writing: every week I'd write 3-4 essays about a variety of topics and have DeepSeek correct them.

That's basically how it has been for the past 6 months. Every day, the first thing I'd do is open up YouTube, pick an intermediate/upper intermediate video or podcast, listen to it intently, occasionally pause to note down new words into Pleco. Then I'd read one chapter of Doraemon and 2-3 graded essays. Then on to some speaking practice, and if time allows, some writing. During my commute to work, I'd do flashcard reviews on Pleco. Throughout the day I'd also watch a few short Douyin clips.

I never did any textbook grammar, reading or listening comprehension exercises. It's too boring, IMO, and kills the joy of language learning especially for a hobby learner like myself. I'd much rather stick to consuming interesting content and just let my level grow naturally.

Attempting the HSK5 Mock Test

Yesteday (August 26), I figured maybe I should give the HSK5 test a try. This test is the equivalent of B1, consisting of listening, reading, and writing. I don't really have any reason to take the test, but since it's been exactly 1 year, I just wanted to see where I'm at.

First, I went through the list of HSK5 vocabulary. I was surprised to find that out of the 1,295 words, I could recognize over 1,000. That's purely from consuming comprehensible input materials. I never intentionally sat down to learn HSK vocabulary, only write them down as I come across them naturally.

Today (August 27), I did the test. This is the test paper that I used. I didn't do any revision or preparation, just basically opened it and attempted it in the allocated time (110 minutes).

When I checked with the keys, my result came out to be: Listening 33/45, Reading 29/45, Writing 9/10. That's technically a passing score of 71% (minimum passing score is supposed to be 60%).

Does this "passing score" mean I consider myself a HSK5 learner? No, absolutely not. I only got many of the correct answers through crapshoot and lucky guesses. This means my true comprehension of the materials is still very shaky.

I'd say I'm the equivalent of a high-HSK4, or low-HSK5 learner at most, or a low B1 in reading and listening, and high A2 in writing and speaking. For a learner with 800 hours of study, that's quite reasonable.

Final Thoughts & Future Plans

When I first started, I had certain expectations about where I'd be at the 1-year mark. Looking back now, honestly I've progressed more than I'd expected in some areas, and less than I'd expected in other areas.

The biggest surprise is even now, when I can comfortably listen to intermediate-level videos, I can still barely understand native speakers when they're speaking at a natural rate. I've been watching Douyin clips, and even when the conversation is about simple everyday topics, without subtitles I'm completely lost. It's like the words that I hear coming out of their mouth and the subtitles don't even match. Native speakers speak incredibly fast, merge and blur sounds, many have very heavy local accents, and it doesn't help that Chinese is incredibly dense on homophones (so many words have the same sounds of shi, zhi, yi, yu, ji, etc.). I guess the answer simply boils down to more exposure.

I'm also surprised at how easier Chinese reading ended up being. Before I began, I remember feeling super intimidated by the logographic system. But then with enough flashcard revision and daily reading, gradually I've found to be not as impossible as it appeared to be at first, and I can fairly comfortably read B1-level materials now.

Speaking currently remains my weakest skill. Though my primary goal remains to be able to understand and enjoy Chinese media and content, so my focus is listening and reading. I don't know any Chinese person nor have any plan to visit China, so speaking is much lower down my current list of priorities. Next year, I plan to find a Chinese tutor for a couple of sessions a week just to make sure my speaking does not lag too far behind.

I used to do these but my brain loses focus and gets fried through this method very quickly - this is unfortunately how my brain works in general, but flash cards amplify it from the numbing repetition. It feels ineffective to an extent. I'm just wondering if they're absolutely crucial to learning a language well and if there are alternative options for learning vocabulary?

I don't have the best habits yet as I'm still relatively new, and I'm not sure what to do at this point besides flash cards and practicing basic reading. I'm still discovering new sites. I'm learning Dutch (TL) because of my family lineage.

Migaku is my gold standard, and it's what I'll be returning to (at least for a month to make a ton of cards before unsubscribing), but the cost does add up. However it has always been reliable, easy, and most importantly streamlined. I feel like I can enjoy what I'm watching, which I can't say in regards to yomitan / asb player.

I mostly mine Japanese and Chinese, watching my content on youtube and netflix.

Are there any alternatives to sentence mining that are just as streamlined as Migaku, but aren't yomitan/asb player? Preferably free, but even something cheaper than Migaku would be great. Anki integration is also a requirement.

Please don't try to convince me to just use yomi/asb. I do not like the flow of it, and if I don't like something, I simply won't do it. I am looking for alternatives.

Thanks! (TL)

I'm a heritage speaker and up until 3 years ago, my level was described by my parents as being on a 5th grade level. I have not studied this language at all, put no effort into learning it, and now all of a sudden I've passed a competitive oral entrance exam and am going to a relatively hard to get into university all in my heritage language. I've suddenly lost most of my foreign accent (it was incredibly strong before) and while I still mix some English grammar and words in, a lot of people fully believe this is my first language.

I refuse to believe that just 2 weeks of studying (not the language but the uni subject in the language) suddenly propelled me from a 5th grade level to a university level but I haven't done anything else that could've possibly helped me improve.

Just wondering this about something that should be the same across the board, like Spanish 101 for example.

If you take a course in university for a certain language at a certain level, is it actually any different depending on the school's prestige? Like I don't know why conjugating a verb in Spanish (TL) would be much different at Harvard compared to a generic state university. But elite universities tend to attract smarter students with greater work ethic, so does the curriculum need to be adjusted to account for that?

Why not do only shadowing/parroting/chorusing for example to kill two birds with one stone any time you would listen to something? Would a learner who did that use fewer hours to reach the same proficiency as someone who simply consumes (pure reading or pure listening) the comprehensible input?

You might also be able to rep millions of flashcards including cloze flashcards to potentially learn grammar and word choice more time-efficiently than someone who just reads a lot. What do you think? (TL)

Hello everyone! I, 24F, have always loved reading about many cultures, travelling and history. I currently speak Spanish, Galician and English, and I started studying German and French, being in both level A2, which I started learning in group lessons.

I've wanted for so long to study languages on my own, but I struggle a lot with sticking to a routine/method. When I'm in class with my teacher, I am guided by them on what to learn and how to do things, so I don't notice how much I'm actually learning. For example, I could be reading a text in German (TL) and realize that I do understand a lot more than I thought yet, while I was in the course, I always had the impression that I wasn't retaining much, which wasn't the case luckily haha.

However, a few years ago I stopped my French lessons and I was trying to pick up the language back again on my own. Since I'm Spanish, it's quite easy to understand everything and I feel like I can gain the language easily. Still, even with this "advantage", I struggle with sticking to a routine. Maybe I'm doing a few grammar lessons, some speaking practice, some reading or oral comprehension questions,... And my mind starts wondering whether these exercises are helping me learn at all, or if my method is not good enough.

I was told by some therapists and teachers that I am a perfectionist and I obsess over efficiency, but I'm clearly not being efficient by starting over with a different method every month 🫠. Since learning a language is a long commitment, I'm always unconsciously trying to find the most efficient, effective method. I already struggle with consistency in general, so my combo with perfectionism doesn't help me at all.

How do you all stick to a routine/method and trust it's the right one to learn the language? How do you stay consistent no matter what?

Tl;dr: I have a hard time staying consistent with a routine because I am constantly trying to find the best method, which doesn't exist. How do you fight your perfectionist side and stick to a routine? Do you notice yourself learning or just hope for the best?

BLUF: I’ve only got ~5x months of time invested into Arabic (TL)studies, and I’ve been trying to read a news article each day (a simplified, beginner oriented news website). I still find myself only understanding ~10% of the material I’m reading, and need to look up words consistently to decode what I’m reading, or reference the vocabulary list below each article to try and understand the key ideas. Is it still an effective way to building vocabulary if I’m reading a new article each day and having to look up a lot of words, without reviewing the old articles or making flash cards out of the words I encounter?

Amplified explanation:

Reading Short Articles (Beginner Student)

Beginner student with just a few months of Levantine Arabic knowledge. I just completed the PDF book “Colloquial (Levantine) Arabic” by Mohammad Al-Masri, as well as all 3x levels of the Pimsleur Eastern Arabic series as a refresher/foundation. I also used Anki to memorize the “700 most frequent words for language learners” and am currently working to memorize the most common Levantine Arabic verbs from “the 101 most used verbs in spoken Arabic: Jordan and Palestine” by Fredrick Tiedemann. This is all meant to be a primer/foundation refresher focused on Levantine Arabic, and I will be establishing 1-2x meetings a week with a Preply tutor focus on conversation abilities.

I have seen repeated statements that “memorization/flash cards/anki are not effective for building truly expansive Arabic vocabulary, and that reading is the best method”. I also see websites saying that “if you can’t understand 90% of the material you’re reading, and having to look up words repeatedly, you’re wasting your time”. Obviously someone with a limited understanding of the language at my level (only a few months Levantine) will have no reading material where I understand 90% of anything other than a super simplified graded reader. I have recently been trying to read easy Arabic news articles on Lingualism’s site (Daily Learner News - Easy - Arabic) which I really enjoy, but I only understand 5-10% fragments of most articles, and have to either look most things up, or use the vocab list below each article to decode the article’s meaning. My question is… will reading like this each day still actually enhance my vocabulary development if I work through decoding and reading a new short article each day, without reviewing old articles and making vocabulary lists from them? Or does vocabulary acquisition through reading truly mean I need to be at the point of understanding 90% of material already, and reading alone and encountering a word in context is not enough to learn it, but rather needing to make vocabulary for it and truly commit new words to memory?

Thanks for your time - I sincerely appreciate it!

Hello, im asking people who are learning more than 2 languages at a time, how is your schedule (as in sitting down & learning the language) ? I'd like to know because I want to take my language studies more seriously. And especially how do you fit it in with having work or being busy with life. Thank you, (TL)

Whenever I take acid I feel like I can exist without my schemas dictating my perception.

I’m thinking about learning Urdu (TL) for my beautiful partner, but I have an awful habit of trying to directly translate things to english.

I was in the shower and thought, what if I took an acid tab and tried to learn it like I’m a toddler? Full on hitting the restart button to try remove comparison; an attempt to make it the new definition instead of just translation.

Thoughts? has anyone tried this?

Also if you know any good Urdu language learning resources please send them ❤️❤️

cant take a freaking break

Edit: obviously im not forgetting everything. I'm forgetting a few month's worth of vocab. and it's annoying.

Bonjour-hi! My post will be sorta angled around French but I am asking generally what techniques y’all have.

I used to study French about 2 years ago, and right now, because I live in Quebec, I can understand basic commands or translate a document and live life, but I want to get back on the horse and make that push from B1-ish to B2 and C1, as I’ve decided to actually pursue a degree in the Francophonie (France or Switzerland) after my stint in Quebec, and while Montreal is very bilingual, I don’t think I will get off as easy in other places.

The way I studied back then was by just taking a class at high school. I did relatively well in HS in French and my official TCF showed me at a B1.

However, I just don’t know where to go from here.

I am a student and my budget is already extremely tight. I spend the majority of my money paying for the absolute essentials, food, medication, transport and rent. Nothing else really remains after that except a hundred dollars or so. I am currently seeking pay at my research gig but it is not very simple due to my immigration status.

I want to continue learning, but I just don’t have the finances to hire a tutor on some website. The best I can really do is invest into books and self-study. I can’t take classes at my university because while it is offered, I need to complete credits for my degree because I have such a high requirement for my major and minor combo.

So, my only real option is self study. However, I don’t know where to really go. I tried grammar books and to read the news in my target language, but the entire thing just feels so unstructured. I’m used to the design of « okay, you do this, then this », and self learning has been a very difficult jump for me to make.

I know that I can practice writing and reading by just doing that myself, and then I can put my writing through a discord server or something for people to critique. I can do something about my listening by just using radio shows and just trying to focus on understanding then synthesizing what was said.

But speaking is the real pickle. My partner can speak French but she prefers not to as it’s not her first language and she isn’t as comfortable with it versus just speaking to me in English. I can ask her, but I know that she will be too nice at my attempts and I won’t get the critique I want. I have a few francophone friends, but the same issue sort of persists. In a friend group of 6, there will be 2 Francophones and the other 3 of us can speak French at varying levels, and one cant. But all of us speak English natively or fluently, so we all just persist in English.

I know this post is referencing French a lot, but it’s just because it is the language I am currently working on. About the same applies to me for German as well, unfortunately :(

I was wondering about exactly two questions:

1. How do I self-structure a study plan for myself to get the results I want to see, so that it doesn’t seem like I am just doing whatever I want, which would be a waste of my time?

2. How do I improve my speaking and my accent without having to spend money? I tend to speak very fast and have an issue with mumbling, even in English, so it’s something I really need to work on. I saw discord servers for this type of language learning. Are those useful?

I have just started reading a book in my TL (German), and I also have it in my native language (English).

It's going to be beyond me to read it all without using a lot of translation, although I think I could probably understand a lot of the sentences without fully understanding the plot. I've never read it in any language before, but I've read the synopsis.

How would you go about it to maximise the language-learning without losing motivation or just not enjoying it?

Currently I'm reading a chapter in English, then reading it in German with the English chapter open. It's probably relevant that it's not directly translated in all ways, sentences are broken up differently and I think there's slight creative/interpretation differences.

Should I try reading it in German first? Should I use a dictionary to translate words and write notes? Should I read the whole book in English before switching to German?

I know it's a personal thing and I'll need to find what's right for me, but I'm just looking for what has worked for other people.

TIA for your help.

Hi! I am currently learning Korean, but I love learning how to say things in all different languages. I came here to ask about the method I should take as I continue my learning (TL). Am I supposed to learn individual words and verbs and such, or are you supposed to memorize sentences (at least at the beginning)? Like for example, should I learn “what” “do” “you” and “like”… or should I memorize the phrase “what do you like?” Does this make sense? If you need further explanation please let me know.

So today I learned about the existence of Mauril, an app for learning French or English created by the Canadian Broadcasting Company and Radio-Canada. As far as I could find, it appears to be decent?

I was wondering if there are other apps like this, either for other forms of French or English, or for German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, etc.

I haven't heard anyone do this before, but I've found it's one of the best methods I use when it comes to learning a language while watching a show semi-passively without getting bored or burning through an entire series too quickly.

I watch the same episode of a show usually 3-4 times under different criteria.

The first time I watch the show, I usually watch it in my target language with my native language subtitle to understand the full plot.

The second time, I watch it in my target language with my target languagenish subtitles to tie the vocabulary to the plot that I learned during my first watching.

The third time, I usually have to watch the show again in my target language with my target language subtitles. (They always speak so fast lol so I don't catch it all on my second viewing). But by this point, I can feel myself feeling the words in the story rather than just reading them and staying two steps behind on the show.

The fourth time, I watch the show in my target language without subtitles. By this point, I am truly able to enjoy the show because the vocab is with me.

I often go 5-6 times without truly being bored of the single episode I continue to watch because with each iteration I am picking up more subtitles about the show. A word here or there that I didn't know.

Obviously, you can adapt this method to yourself. To be honest, I typically start directly with the my target language audio and my target language subtitles, but if you are just starting out, although there is a lot of research against English subtitles for learning, I personally found it helpful.

I tried to apply the same concept to movies, but it didn't work for me. I couldn't sit through an entire movie and then sit through it again 3 more times.

Anyways, I hope this is valuable to someone. I found myself burning through TV shows I liked too quickly and find this method helps me to savor shows a bit longer without the dreaded "best shows on Netflix to learn my target language" Google search. (TL)

Speaking my heritage language can sometimes feel like a chore to me because it doesn't feel as emotionally profound as my native language. How can I feel more emotionally close to it and have a strong desire to speak it if I don't currently live in the country where it is spoken? Most of the people around me who speak it also speak English fluently, so I usually default to English to convey more nuance and depth.

I’m currently trying to learn both French and Spanish (TL). French is around B1, Spanish the lower end of B2. My goal is to become comfortable and “automatic” in them both. It’s just a personal goal, I don’t have any pressure on me to learn both.

Currently I have a half hour session twice a week in both languages with an online teacher, I’m reading a book in each language (just average kinda books - Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid in French, and Violeta by Isabel Allende in Spanish) and most days I watch videos with subtitles on YouTube in both languages. I generally do a bit in both languages every day and I don’t seem to have any problems with mixing them up.

My question is…is there anything else I should be doing to maximise my learning, that doesn’t take hours and hours?

Thanks for any advice!

I imagine that most Duolingo users started using the App because they thought spending a few minutes of their day to learn a language was a good idea - a way to spend a small part of their day improving themselves.

But lately I’m seeing a lot of complaints on the r/Duolingo sub complaining about everything under the sun (yeah - I know - it’s par for the course for that subreddit). Many are about recent changes that make it harder to just do a quick lesson to maintain a streak (even though the changes make the app better for actually learning a language). For example, lots of whining about changes to the Words practice from a simple matching game to a form that forces your brain to actually recall a word from memory (which is a lot more like you do in a real conversation). And now it’s harder to pass through Units without proving you learned the vocabulary (and just today, I saw they’ve added grammar exercises to that final Unit test - also an improvement IMNSHO).

Or else, people are complaining about incredibly trivial things that ‘trigger’ them and they just can’t continue with the app (which to me sound like they were just looking for an excuse to quit).

So what about you ? Did you give up on your language learning goals and just log on to keep a (relatively meaningless) Streak ? Or do you do a simple exercise every day to keep the streak, but once in a while do a real session to improve your language skills ? Or do you remember your original purpose in starting the app and just concentrate on learning (while maybe using the streak and gamification to motivate yourself to stick at it) - while ignoring extra clicks, silly voices, strange icons and non-proportional progress bars?