Congrats on your progress! and happy birthday!!!
1 Like
Happy belated birthday!!
What’s your current daily lesson limit out of curiosity?
Thanks Phil!
I’ve got it maxed out for my account type at 20 lessons per day. What I meant here was that I changed the max number of vocab for that day so that I forced more Hanzi to be in the lesson since usually I only get seven hanzi per day with the settings I usually use.
Cheers!
This one’s a pretty big one… just completed HSK 7-9!!! Onto the last group of Hanzi in the current HH Simplified Chinese course.
I’m at 3000 Hanzi and 4500 words!
Its quite the coincidence since I’m hopping on a flight to China tonight to get some more grammar and speaking practice in. I’ll be in Guangxi province for the next three weeks.
I also made a little video on my Chinese learning journey so far here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfSQSGV4oJo
Thanks for the support y’all and let’s keep pushing!!
- Mike
9 Likes
Congrats! Huge milestone, also if that was only 18 months (based on the video link, but also your previous posts above) super fast. Very impressive.
Has your spoken language kept up with your character learning?
2 Likes
love how you write your lowercase As!
1 Like
Huge accomplishment! Congratulations Mike! Your progress updates (along with everyone else’s study logs) have been pretty inspirational for me whenever I’m feeling down about the amount of time it takes to learn these characters.
It’s always good to see these posts and remind myself again that this is a marathon and that showing up consistently every day is ultimately the most important thing in learning Mandarin (or any language).
2 Likes
Watched the video, great job. I would guess this is 1-3 hours a day every day for a year and a half? A lot but definitely doable if you maintain that focus and motivation for a long term payoff that you describe in the video. Thanks for the inspiration.
1 Like
Thank you all for your kind words!!!
I’ve just been getting settled down here in Yangshuo after a long flight and time change but everything has been really good.
To answer some of the questions:
- Because I spent 8 months living in China last year I spent a lot of time speaking. I’ve also been chatting with Chinese friends for a good amount of time each week so I’d say my spoken Chinese has mostly been able to keep up. I do find that there are words I can read just fine that get stuck on the tip of my tongue when I first encounter a use for them in the “wild”. I find that if there is a useful word I want to have in my quiver I need to make a concerted effort to try to force it into a conversation somehow in order to remember it next time.
- And yes! I started learning Chinese in January of 2024 but had been listening to a ton of Chinese anime for several years prior. I spent about an hour and a half a day on Hanzi Hero most days even if it was after coming home from drinking etc. I have been very diligent which like I mentioned in the video has historically been difficult for me but for some reason I’ve been able to keep up with Chinese even though some days I wasn’t looking forward to it at all.
I’m going to take a break from HH while I’m here for the next few weeks as a little treat to myself and come back to it fresh for the last little push.
Once again, thanks for the kind words and looking forward to watching you guys continue to progress as well!!
Let’s do this!!
- Mike
6 Likes
WOAH! That’s an awesome accomplishment! Enjoy your time in China 
1 Like
Super inspired by your progress post and video here … One question: with the 20 items a day setting, how many items did you end up with in terms of daily reviews asymptotically?
1 Like
Hey, I’m glad it gave you some inspiration!!
It would up being somewhere around 130 per day which I found to be a bit strenuous but manageable after you got into the groove. The only drawback was really that if you skip a day now you’re looking at 200+ reviews and that can make it a bit of a drag.
Keep it up!
3 Likes
The day has come! 587 days of Hanzi Hero brings me to the end of the course! I’ve learned all the characters and have one day’s worth of words left once I pass tomorrow’s reviews.
It’s been an amazing ride and I want to thank everyone for keeping me motivated and for pushing forward alongside me. I’m moving to Tokyo, Japan in three weeks and will likely put a pause on my Chinese studies to level up my Japanese. Perhaps in a few months when I’m through the adjustment I’ll hop back on and do some reviews/check out the traditional course.
Keep up the great work and we’ll see ya’ll around!
Signing off,
Michael
PS: This last time I was in Yangshuo, I also filmed a mini-documentary about my favorite 包子 and 油茶 restaurant. If you’re interested, check it out!
Xiang Su Bao 香酥包 | Steamed Buns, Oil Tea, and Community
12 Likes
Huge congrats! Enjoy Japan!!!
3 Likes
Epic work as always - would love to borrow your HH dedication now you don’t need it any more 
3 Likes
Congratulations on completing the course!
I see the maxed out HSK 7-9 has a small misalignment… need to fix that 
5 Likes