Hello everyone! I’ve been lurking and reading everyone’s study logs for inspiration and thought I would add in my own now that I’ve made some progress with my Chinese learning.
I started learning Mandarin near the end of December 2024 with HanziHero and I’m pleased to report I’ve now learned over 600 hanzi and completed the HSK2 hanzi!
I’m super happy with HanziHero’s layout and the mnemonic structure. I was a bit unsure at first but when I actually started being able to read and recall hanzi, I was all in. It’s helped a lot in maintaining the habit of reviewing and learning Mandarin (and picking it back up whenever I do have some kind of break).
I have my settings set to teach me 20 items, with an equal split between characters and words, so based on my calculations, I should get close to learning around 2000 hanzi by the end of the year. Wish me luck!
Do you have any big milestones in mind when it comes to Chinese or is it more of something you work on and off with? I’m also curious if you have any other supplemental material you’re working through at the moment, but I also understand wanting to work up to ~1k characters first
Thanks so much for the encouragement and for your work with HanziHero!
I initially had my mind set on doing the HSK but at the end of the day, I want to be able to hold conversations and read, and there are plenty of people who have passed language exams only to struggle with actually speaking the language with natives (e.g. me with Spanish haha).
I’ll probably set up some milestones soon but honestly, I believe more in actions than goals. I know if I practice Mandarin every day, I’ll get to a good place with it, so I’m focusing on just showing up consistently.
In terms of what I’m doing, it’s shifted around a bit but here’s what I’m using:
Pimsleur for speaking and listening
HanziHero for learning hanzi
DuChinese for reading, listening, and speaking. I’m reading their newbie grader readers right now and even though the stories are simple, it feels so good to say “I’m reading Chinese – and understanding it!”
Pleco for English-Mandarin and Mandarin-English dictionary
Outlier Linguistics for two resources: their add-on to Pleco that adds more breakdowns of the origins of hanzi, as well as their Chinese Character Masterclass which breaks down the logic of hanzi. I’m still going through the course but it’s already been super useful. I love how useful the mnemonics have been but I would like to apply other methods in the long-term, so learning about form, sound, and meaning components and using them to deduce the sound and meaning of a character has been incredibly useful. There have been new hanzi I’ve learned over the past few weeks where I didn’t need the mnemonic because I could recognize familiar form and sound components from previous characters and just use those to recall the sound and meaning of a character.
I’ve been most consistent with HanziHero since the reviews and lessons are right there but I now plan to do Pimsleur first thing (30-minute lesson) to practice speaking and then do Hanzi Hero (reviews and learning new characters).
If you have any suggestions for other resources, please share!
I’ve been super consistent with HanziHero over the past few weeks. Less so with Pimsleur, but I’m wrapping up Unit 1 of 5 and am getting more comfortable with speaking and grammar (although le5 and de5 will definitely need more time to gestate in my mind).
I’m still miles away from fluency, but it’s gratifying to see progress. I can read more and more Chinese signs in my neighbourhood. I’m able to understand bits and pieces of Mandarin when I walk past some Chinese speakers. I went to a concert recently where it was boiling, and I realized I could say “I feel very warm” in Mandarin. Small wins!
Nice work! That’s a sweet graph for your last few months! Still on the 20 new items a day? How long do you end up on HH reviews with a graph that steep?
Thanks! Yeah, still doing 20 new items a day. Reviews can range from 90 - 150 items, depending on whether I learn any additional dictionary words (which I have a couple of at this moment to expand my vocabulary and add some other connecting words).
It can feel like a lot sometimes but it usually motivates me to get them all done since if I don’t, I’ll have to deal with 200 - 300 items for review the next day (which I have done before, but I don’t want to make a habit haha).
On days when I really don’t feel like doing Chinese, I’ll at least try to do my reviews and not worry about learning any new characters. I’m currently at the point where progress is addictive and I want to max out those HSK character circles, so I’m trying to do my new lessons daily.
It’s funny: I thought I would actually get discouraged at this point since there are still thousands of hanzi to learn. But with the knowledge of all the basic and advanced components I’ve learned, I’m learning hanzi faster. And I’m at the point now where I can recognize most hanzi in my audio lessons and when reading on DuChinese.
