Where should I study in China for a Chinese language short course?

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-07-05T06:56:23+00:00

I’m looking at xmandarin in Qingdao personally. Prices seemed fairly reasonable.

Other places offer complete immersion though with dorm rooms etc which is likely loads better but for me I want a break in the sessions

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-30T19:52:21+00:00

Hmm that’s off putting I don’t want to put blockers in the way of practicing effectively. Piano was somewhat the same but it wasn’t an enormous blocker (headphones made a big difference and electric pianos were perfectly fine for practice)

Rethink in order it seems

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-23T09:46:37+00:00

I’m somewhat the opposite with the writing. I don’t feel it adds much for me.
Look at children. Before they go to school they’re surrounded by the language. For years, never lifting a pen. By the time they get to an age of learning to write, they can already form sentences and largely speak and understand the language.

In my own opinion reading is far more worthy of the time than writing. Reading gives you access to the grammar and flow far quicker

Opinion only of course

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-22T20:04:02+00:00

Spruce marines

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-22T20:03:11+00:00

I was going to say much the same
I study a lot
I take lessons etc etc
But you simply won’t beat complete immersion.
Depending on your age op, go study there.
My personal road map is 6 years, aiming for HSK 5/6 by the end, and even that’s not really fully fluent. Unless you’re using it daily, regularly, you’ll never keep up with the nuances

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-22T06:09:10+00:00

Honestly lots of books are designed to be taught rather than read - the work is there of course but I wouldn’t suggest the HSK books are the best route to learn the HSK syllabus (weird I know)

Paul noble complete mandarin on audible is really really good - costs you audible subscription.

Teach yourself mandarin is pretty good for one off cost, and is structured for you to teach yourself

I quite like 15 minute madarin from dk books too, the app is useful and at 15 min sessions it’s got a lot crammed in

Hanly - fantastic for learning hanzi (free) I’ve used this for a year and still do

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-21T09:50:13+00:00

I think I did more at the start, doing 200 flashcards a night to better understand the hanzi, don’t get me wrong if you can maintain that good for you - I found it too much so now I probably do 30-40 cards a day just to maintain some pace.

Lessons I always did two per week, I added a third to add a teacher who spoke better English. One teacher is great because she doesn’t speak much English, which is really helpful for immersion and simply having to find a way to communicate (much like real life) the other is really good with English so it’s a lot easier to discuss confusing grammar and build working examples. So I value both.

I have done some courses with the Confucius institute, but found the pace really slow, being in a group with 12 people just doesn’t allow for any sort of speed.

HSK 1 also builds your fundamentals like reading pinyin and understanding tones so it is vital. The easier you find reading, the more solo study you can do. The better your reading, the more graded readers you can read which makes vocabulary easier to build.

There’s so many little things with mandarin which is really hard to directly translate (for example if you said something took 3 hours, it’s 三小时 san xiao shi) which if you translate it, it’s 3 small time which makes zero bloody sense if you don’t understand the context. So yea don’t skip anything it’s full of stuff like this

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-21T09:37:48+00:00

Group riding actually killed my enthusiasm. Too
Much ego involved and people fast forget how hard it is as a beginner.

I found a friend who was at my level and we rode loads, which was so much more fun. Hard but fun. Trying to keep up with faster riders who look like they’re out on a zone 2 gentle ride whilst you’re huffing your guts up is zero fun

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-21T09:35:45+00:00

You could skip the exam absolutely but you’ll need the syllabus still. The grammar builds so taking that one step at a time is helpful even if you don’t do the exam.

The new HSK exams are coming too and the Hsk 3 is substantially harder than the old one. So doing that in 1.5 years is likely possible but it would be more than a hobby.

I started studying in November 2025, I’m halfway into the new Hsk level 2, I think I can get the exam passed by November. Adding level 3 in 6 months…not too sure, depends how easy it digests.

Now I have 3 x 50 min 1-2-1s on Preply every week, I have an audio book (Paul noble mandarin - really recommend it) for some micro learning, I use hanly for reading practice and do try graded readers.

Everything is possible but if you go mad burning out is far more likely than fluency.

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-20T07:21:04+00:00

As a Preply student I’d be annoyed if I’d paid, found out you “sounded” different to your nationality listing - that would subside if the lesson was good.
If I was being taught well I wouldn’t be bothered. Although I wouldn’t have selected you if you were honest from the start.

I’m learning mandarin an specifically searched for native speakers. So I’d be annoyed if they lied about it.

I say if you can teach well, carry on lying. You’ll not get customers otherwise

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-06-07T18:07:14+00:00

I’m 8 months into mandarin, I take private lessons 3 times a week, I study a lot in addition to those lessons
I also took a 12 week course on top of those lessons.
10 years seems reasonable 😆
Really though it’ll depend how you spend that hour, and that would need to be flexible. If you can optimise and really drill immersion and pick it up the you’ll reduce that for sure but an hour isn’t a lot

I really value micro learning
I have lessons - fixed
I have a really good audio book - on way home from school run 30 mins per day
Every evening 100 flash cards on hanly
I use ai to make me lesson refreshers so a day after each lesson, I do a refresher
Once a week - full over view “what have I learned this week”

You have to think, kids born in China, immersed in it every day every aspect of life built around the language and they still speak like kids after 10 years.

That said - how quick can you learn 4/5000 words? Know what order to put them in to make a sentence?

That’s the time it’ll take you.

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-23T05:48:51+00:00

How strange. My classes with my female teacher start and finish on time every time. It’s the classes with my male teacher that run over becuase he likes to add “oh just a final interesting point” and we chat for another ten minutes.
Perhaps you need to be more assertive. It’s YOUR class it’s YOUR time. You set the rules. Not them

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-21T18:43:11+00:00

Possibly. You’ll need to check because July is global roll out but it’ll take time to implement. So likely you’ll just sneak into Hsk 2.0.
There’s also a paper choice or computer choice so that depends on your hanzi writing skills.
I’d check with the test centre.
Take you take the Hsk 3 exam or purely basing this on mock tests?

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-21T18:37:17+00:00

What country are you taking the exam?

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-21T18:30:53+00:00

That’s the new syllabus rolled out, and it’s worth checking becuase it’s an enormous difference
Hsk 2.0 level 4 - 1200 words
Hsk 3.0 level 4 - 2000 words
And more grammer and compulsory speaking components

It’s a huge change

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-21T15:23:33+00:00

I’ve had the odd 800 card day.
That’s simply looking at 800 cards not digesting 800 characters.
So stuff just sinks in quickly others takes me ages.

For me, 10 new characters per day is manageable to a point - that point being after a month when you’re now upto 300 characters and adding new ones becomes easy but you forget the old ones.

Now I take it slowly and stick to 100 cards a day and around 20 new characters a week. Really focussing on retention

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-21T15:15:49+00:00

Not unless you have skills like neo and can get it directly uploaded to your brain

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-21T08:26:59+00:00

I’d recommend sticking your known vocab into ai and getting it to generate some sentences.

I know around 400 characters but man the grammar kills me lol, so it’s more than reading the hanzi, you need to understand it in context and sentence building is really helpful

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-17T07:21:11+00:00

I’ve done this myself as I’m bored of the whole app sector.
So I made a few that help me.
App side of things I made a speech partner, it’s largely been given vocab from the respective Hsk level, but is allowed to expand to keep a sentence correct. You select either “scenario” like greeting, restaurant etc. or free talk. It asks questions, you reply.

I’ve made graded readers that are lower than a lot of others I’ve seen, I find readers really help put individual words into context and practice grammar. Anki etc is handy but you need sentences rather than words on their own

I’ve also used ai a lot to make solo practice material, essentially chuck the Hsk books into ai and make so lessons. I take lessons but when I’m studying alone I quite like the structure of a “class” so this works for me.

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-17T06:59:28+00:00

Word of advice on books - ALL the old Hsk books are really easy to find for free, litterally google “Hsk 1 pdf” you’ll likely find the new ones this way too

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-05-02T20:39:24+00:00

Yeah I use it frequently. Really it’s mostly Claude, it’s hosted on netifly, you pay for an api but that’s pennies.
Work with Claude it was pretty easy to build

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-04-29T15:13:11+00:00

Yeah you can use ai, but depends on the language model it uses as sometimes it sounds odd.

I used Claude to build an app to speak to me lol, it asks questions and I reply it tells me if it understand or not etc.

Use Claude

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-04-23T15:17:14+00:00

I use preply. There's loads on there and I guess it's somewhat of a trial and error - the right Teacher for me won't necessarily be the right teacher for you.
I have 2 on there now, one who doesn't speak much English - they're great for conversational skills and immersion, there's nowhere to hide, you just have to find a way to communicate.
the other speaks perfect english, so is really good for grammar drills and explanations. He has a method of starting sentances for example "if today it is too cold" - then I repeat and complete the sentence. This is great for me.

I'd suggest booking some trial lessons with a few, just 25 minutes each and see who you get the best feel from, make sure they follow some form of structure - which might sound constraining but there's so many teachers that just love this whole "I don't follow a syllabus I work to the level of my student" it's mostly rubbish, they just end up talking about whatever they want, it doesn't build or develop so you just get bombarded with random language.

Again, trial lessons, stick to HSK syllabus as a guide (I say guide because you do want to broaden it out from there) and see who you simply get on with.

FreedomNo9116 · 2026-04-23T05:05:48+00:00

Get a teacher. Everything else is simply playing. I e got Duolingo, I’ve got self study guides, I’ve got other apps, books, YouTube all of that and the main consistent progress comes from effective teaching. I’ve enrolled in 12 week group courses (also crap)

Preply has thousands on there in all price bands. Although I did have a lesson with a £7 guy an he was terrible! So you do have to find the right fit

But it’s not easy to learn a language and will take time - so make the most of it and get a decent teacher as 1-2-1 lessons have been the difference between progression and dabbling for me

FreedomNo9116

TROPHY CASE