I’ve been learning for a bit over a week now. Been using the app HelloChinese and some YouTube videos. Also made It a goal for myself by the end of the week to learn about 100 character. To which I was relatively successful at. Though I think I still need some work. The whole tonal thing is a bit confusing to me since I’m a tad deaf when It comes to accents but I think I’m getting the hang of It slowly.

What really motivated me was meeting nice native Chinese folk on Rednote and the current US-China trade war. Hell when I could read the name of the app I was ecstatic lol.

My goal for now is knowing enough to have basic to average conversations and read basic stuff like food menu’s and signs. But If I’m still really motivated I might have to learn 2000-3000 characters which is probably enough to read a book.

I’ll still see. Not sure what the point of this post was but I hope this motivates ya’ll to learn a bit too.

    • SamotsvetyVIA [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      1 day ago

      If you want to boost your reading ability try Du Chinese, they have a bunch of graded readers, and they regularly turn the premium ones into free ones for a time so you can read a bunch without paying a cent. After a certain point you can turn off the pinyin assist. Make liberal use of the flashcards functionality in there.

    • RNAi [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      You should download Pleco, and try Ankidroid.

      If you buy the HelloChinese, buy the top premium, the cheap “premium” is a scam, and yiu can’t upgrade without paying the full price again.

      Oh and DeepSeek for explaining long phrase translations, nuances and etc, tho it’s a lib and wont translate/explain “violent” phrases like Death to America