My Progress as a Mandarin Beginner

Progress when learning a language is often difficult to measure, and learning Chinese is no different. It is easy to forget our level when we started to study Mandarin; nevertheless, learning Chinese is very easy to track. I started my Chinese learning journey as a complete beginner. While I still have much to learn, I feel that I have made great progress with my spoken Chinese skills. Additionally, KellynKai’s tutoring has improved my reading skills, and I am impressed at what I can do. For example, Chinese uses Pinyin to describe characters and tones, and I feel that I have mastered pronunciation.

To a new Chinese learner, pronunciation can be confusing. Pinyin words are often spelled the same but they are pronounced differently. Pinyin includes accent markers that indicate how to inflect your voice when pronouncing a word. After taking classes with KellynKai, I learned how to recognize these pronunciation guides and sound out the vowels they represent. What helped me the most was KellynKai’s flashcard app and my Chinese tutors. My tutors corrected my pronunciation and taught me how to change my tones. The flashcard app also reads out Chinese characters and phrases to aid my pronunciation and recognition. Although it still takes me a second to remember Chinese characters and I still don’t know all vowels, I can pronounce the ones I recognize.  

Of course, there is much more for me to learn and I still have a long way to go with Chinese, however, I feel that I am making progress in every class. A summer ago, I attempted to learn Mandarin using Duolingo. It was interesting for me to use this app because it stimulated my interest in Chinese; however, I was not making tangible progress. Duolingo is not a tutoring service; therefore, it does not effectively teach students Mandarin. Additionally, I had forgotten everything I learned on Duolingo before my tutoring with KellynKai. The only things I recall from my Duolingo lessons were a few numbers. For example, I think I could recall the Chinese words for one and two, but I did not know if my Mandarin pronunciation was correct.

I feel I have made good progress learning Chinese, and hopefully I can continue to learn Mandarin and become an intermittent speaker.