Mandarin is one of the most useful languages to learn, with a large part of the world able to speak it. It doesn’t hurt either that a lot of businesses are now moving operations in China. In a survey of experienced Mandarin speakers, these tips turned out to be the most frequently dispensed when advising non-speakers interested in getting acquainted with the language.
1. Get involved in a local group with plenty of Chinese members. This one should vary depending on your locale, but the idea is the same. The more you can practice your Mandarin around better speakers than you, the faster your improvement is likely to be.
2. Start with the spoken language and save the written for later. Spoken Mandarin is very straightforward and resembles English sentence construction in a lot of ways, making it easier to get into than the written counterpart.
3. Pay strict attention to the tones. Unlike many languages, you can’t learn decent Mandarin while sticking to rudimentary tones – the language just doesn’t work that way. As such, learn them and practice as much as you can.
4. Use a good language learning software with a wide range of components, such as audio and interactive exercises, for a complete learning experience. That’s one of software’s innate strengths – why not take advantage of it.