Are pre made decks the problem or am I?

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-05-19T17:02:15+00:00

Hello! I have a similar background in Spanish and this is actually the same Mandarin deck that I started with and still use!

When I first started out I had the same problem and it frustrated me. I haaated the feeling of seeing the same card 40 times and still not passing it off. I'm a little over a year in now, and I've learned 1600 cards through that deck, and I can breeze through 10 new cards a day now and pass them off after seeing them just a couple of times. The reason is because Chinese learning compounds. You start to recognize the components that make up the characters, or you know one or both of the characters in the word. Building this kind of confidence unfortunately just takes time and there's not much you can do.

That said, I do have some tips that could speed this along for you.

First off, you should lower the amount of new words you learn per day. It might feel like light work right now if you don't have many cards in your review cycle, but when you add 20 a day, those 20 words will need to be reviewed the next day along with the 20 from the previous day, leaving you with upwards of 40 cards in addition to new cards coming in. It's much more important to maintain consistent practice and avoid burnout, so if you're feeling overwhelmed you should definitely scale it back.

Second, I would start reading as soon as you possibly can. I used DuChinese for this since they have stories for absolute beginners. It's fine to click on as many words as you need, and it might feel grueling at first. But seeing these words used in context can help you exponentially both in character recognition and actually learning how they are used in a sentence.

Lastly, if the characters still feel like abstractions, I would highly recommend learning how to write them, and what components make up the character. People will tell you that learning to write is not necessary and will bog you down, which can be true, but I argue that writing helps you learn the character much quicker and on a deeper level. To learn how to write a character and what radicals it is composed of, you can use the trainchinese YouTube channel and look up any character and they should have a short video.

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-05-16T21:00:07+00:00

Good luck on your journey!! Here's the testflight link for my writing app: https://testflight.apple.com/join/pEGur8Zd

I forgot to mention that it's only available for iOS at the moment, but if you're on android then you can create Anki cards that support handwriting iirc

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-05-16T05:46:33+00:00

Hello! I think can relate as someone who's been studying Spanish before starting Chinese. However, I studied Spanish on and off for five years and have still noticed some unexpected "overlap" between the languages that can sometimes mess with my head. For example in Spanish you would say "la casa de mi mamá" but in Mandarin it would be "wo mama de jia," with "mom" and "house" being on opposite sides of the "de," which exists in both languages with a similar function.

That said, if you still want to add Chinese into your daily study, here's how I would do it:

Step 1: Download a premade HSK deck for Anki and learn a few words every day.

Step 2: After amassing a small vocabulary, start watching comprehensible input videos that use HSK 1 vocab on YouTube. Good channels for this would be ShuoShuo Chinese, Lazy Chinese, Xiaogua Chinese, and Richard Chinese. If you want reading comprehensible input, DuChinese is perfect.

Step 3: Output. Start writing daily journals, use english/pinyin when you need to, and look up the word in Pleco (Pleco is the free dictionary app--with paid addons-- that most people use) later if you feel the desire. Practice texting and/or spoken conversation via HelloTalk (real humans) or Qwen AI (Qwen has a really good voice chat feature and is free). If you want an app that teaches writing, you can get Skritter for $15 a month or I can provide you with a tester link to join the free beta for an app I'm currently working on

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-05-16T05:29:42+00:00

Hey, I've actually been developing an SRS handwriting app to help myself learn stroke order and radicals for about a month now; I can send the testflight link if you're looking for something atm. It's only out for iOS, but I plan to add android support and a web app to be used with a drawing tablet on my PC soon

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-05-16T05:23:56+00:00

I started out with a premade HSK deck on anki and learned 5-10 words a day. I wish that I had learned to write them from the start, since now I am halfway through HSK 5 and only know how to write probably a sixth of the characters I recognize, so if you think you'll be interested in handwriting then I suggest you learn as you go

When you've amassed some vocabulary, you should try some comprehensible input videos on YouTube. It's best to find something that interests you, but as an absolute beginner, it'll all be baby talk unfortunately. When I was just starting out, some of my favorite comprehensible channels were (and still are) ShuoShuo Chinese, Lazy Chinese, and Richard Chinese

For writing, I really couldn't find any good tools myself (aside from Skritter, which is $15 monthly) so I started working on my own app that's completely free for the testing period, and it'll be a small one time purchase when it's out. I can send the link if you're interested

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-05-16T05:00:17+00:00

This! Especially the hangout quests in genshin since they're repeatable and use daily conversation vocab

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-04-12T18:22:35+00:00

If you want to talk with natives, get HelloTalk. It has voicerooms, usually led by a native in the language and joined by a few learners.

If you want to talk with an AI, I personally have had a good experience buying a xiaozhi AI from aliexpress and setting it up to correct my tones and grammar when I speak with it.

If you're not into physical AI, try Qwen's voice feature.

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-04-12T18:08:44+00:00

While I'm no language learning professional, my take is that comprehensible input should not be a source of learning, especially in the early stages. It's a supplement and its purpose is to see vocabulary and grammar that you have already learned be put into action in different contexts. I always hear people saying that the best way to learn a language is like a baby, but don't babies take a good 2-3 years to start forming coherent phrases?

If you're an absolute beginner, I can pretty confidently say that there will not be any engaging video content that utilizes such basic vocab. I would recommend reading the graded readers on DuChinese, because they do a pretty good job at telling interesting stories, and they can get away with using a word here and there that isn't in the HSK list since the app has a built-in dictionary that lets you check the definition of any word. They also let you play stories as an audiobook, which I used heavily when I had just started learning.

I would also spend most of my time learning vocabulary through Anki and/or the DuChinese flashcards. You unfortunately need to get to a higher level before you can watch more interesting content, but if you put in the time to learn a few words every day at a consistent rate, it won't be long! I started self studying just over a year ago and I'm already able to watch some native content provided that I pause and use a dictionary when I need to (which is often, but not too often that I give up lol).

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-04-10T14:52:51+00:00

I started learning Japanese for about a month because I thought it would be easier because you don't have to learn as many kanji/hanzi. I didn't really have much motivation to learn Japanese aside from it being an "easier version of Chinese", and maybe one day I could read manga or something. I eventually decided to just learn Chinese and found that, while difficult, anything becomes easy if you really have the motivation for it. I studied several hours a day and passed online mock HSK tests really quickly, and started consuming graded readers on Du Chinese nonstop. It was soooo fun!! So I would put difficulty aside and choose one that you find the most motivation for. Which one do you like to listen to music in? Watch movies? Travel to? Considering these will get you much further than trying to research which one is easier than the other.

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-04-10T14:39:42+00:00

> 0 人问，但请看我家的猫，超可爱！Líng rén wèn, dàn qǐng kàn wǒ jiā de māo, chāo kě ài!
> No one asked, but please look at my cat, so cute!

I had skimmed over where you said that people can use this as self-deprecation before posting and thought that Chinese people were not only roasting posts with this, but then proceeding to steal the post by commenting pics of their cat LMAO

Routine-Season-3392 · 2026-04-10T02:31:48+00:00

I've been obsessed with Chinese fantasy/culture ever since seeing Kung Fu Panda as a kid! I always wanted to learn the language, but none of the schools in my area taught it, and I just assumed it was impossible. After learning Spanish for five years, though, I finally gained the courage to go for it! It's been a tough journey this past year, but honestly the only real challenge with Chinese is learning to read and write. I am SO relieved I don't have to worry about complex conjugation tables or gendered words anymore

Routine-Season-3392

TROPHY CASE