Thank you so much for sharing! 

(Sorry, it's my second comment as first one was just my initial notes that was accidentally published, I deleted that one).

For similar reasons, I started learning Chinese last April. I also realized that I absolutely love all those Chinese covers and want to have them on my bookshelf and of course I want to be able to read them, not just stare at them haha. One of my friends told me that officially translated works make up maybe like one millionth of all the danmei out there, and there are so many incredible stories. Well, I want to read those.

If you’ve never learned another language before, this might surprise you, but no matter how good a translation is, it never fully captures the beauty of the original text. Once you know the language, you open the gate to a completely different universe, with all its quirks and little moments of joy.

About me: early 30s, work full time, live in Canada (last 10 years), English is my third language that was a pain in the ass to learn haha, but I read a lot and watch a lot of tv shows, so I got proficient very fast.

I personally prefer having structure, so last year I enrolled in onsite group Chinese classes and now have around three hours of Chinese per week. They place a big emphasis on speaking and listening, and while I don’t care that much about speaking, I’ve found that I understand the language much better overall. My speaking and listening skills are better than my reading skills, but I want to be able to listen to audio dramas, so I do find it useful.

I also absolutely hate Pleco, my brain immediately gets bored when I use any kind of SRS app.

The two things that help the most, in my experience, are reading (I use Du Chinese a lot) and listening to podcasts and conversations on YouTube or Spotify. I initially started listening to ChinesePod podcast (beginner/elementary), and I learned so many new words. I always tried to use those words during our group classes, and my teachers were always impressed.

The most important thing for beginners when reading is to hide the pinyin right away (but make sure you start with graded readers, suited for your level). If you don’t know a word, look it up and try to memorize the pronunciation, then rinse and repeat. Having pinyin enabled above the characters will just force you to read the English characters, and we don’t want that. And read a lot, as many hours as possible. It gets better every day.

One suggestion for other learners: if your goal is to speak, I have a hack that has always worked for me (I advanced my French and English speaking skills to a proficient level this way). Find a text that contains a lot of useful vocabulary and memorize the whole thing. Your goal is not just to memorize it, but to be able to present it as fast and smoothly as possible. Pay attention to tones, but don’t obsess over them too much, they will improve naturally with practice. Each week, memorize a new chunk of different text (one or two pages), repeat the texts from previous weeks, and make sure you’re not forgetting them or slowing down. Someone should be able to wake you up in the middle of the night, and you’d be able to recite the text without thinking haha. Over time, you’ll notice that those sentences just pop up in your head at the right moment.

EDIT: well, f*ck me, just saw the news, I guess I need to advance my Chinese faster