Megan has traveled, lived, and taught on five continents, and is constantly in pursuit of spicy food, fussy coffee, hiking trails, and conversations with strangers (later friends). Her online writing covers China, travel, and education, and she has been published on websites such as US News and World Report, Nerd Wallet, GoAbroad.com, among others. Keep up with Megan’s caffeinated adventures at Low Key Coffee Snobs.
Chinese reading exercises might not have the sexy swagger of, say, watching a hip Chinese sitcom or meeting up with your language buddy for a drink. But—did you know that they can improve your language learning acquisition leaps and bounds? Read on to learn why (and how) Chinese reading exercises can boost your fluency quickly.
Why focus on Chinese reading practice?
There is a mountain of research that shows that if Chinese language students only read, it will also improve their listening, speaking, and writing skills. However, continued academic research in the field of extensive reading has shown that if we combine reading with activities that facilitate listening, speaking, and writing, students can experience accelerated gains in their overall language knowledge and proficiency.
And we’re all trying to *hack* learning Chinese, right? Right!
“Few, if any, language professionals dispute the value of extensive reading for improving students’ reading abilities, motivation to read, self-concept as readers, vocabulary, and other skills,”
Stories, texts, and articles written in Chinese, that are also interesting and engaging, can be used as the basis for exceptional discussion and writing activities. The key is to choose stories that enrich readers’ lives and awareness of the world around them and, in the process, you will improve your reading and writing skills. As Day and Bamford claim:
“The beauty of extensive reading is that it leads to ‘reading gain without reading pain.’”
When students are reading books that they enjoy—and not dreading Chinese reading practice—it is much easier for a student to develop ideas and opinions which they would like to express. Extensive Chinese reading activities like the ones below are suggestions for ways you can express your ideas and opinions, all while leveling up your abilities to read Chinese text!
3 effective Chinese reading exercises
1. Writing, Re-Writing, and Adding Chapters to a Book
After you’ve finished reading a Chinese text, such as Journey to the Center of the Earth, sit down and get ready to add new content tothe story in your own words.
Write an Additional Chapter: What happens next? Write a brand new chapter to continue the plot or storyline in some way, including some or all of the characters you love—or maybe adding brand new characters of your own!
Rewrite the Ending: Come up with a new outcome (we’d mention it here, but no spoilers!) to create a new plot that is different than the original story.
Write a New Story Altogether: Select a main character, a minor character, or even an unnamed character, and tell a brand new story about their adventures. You can change the point of view, change the circumstances, add new plot elements, take them to Hawaii instead. You call the shots!
You can write as much or as little as you think is necessary for each of these activities, but we’ve found the students who are dedicated to writing creatively (even looking up new words and phrases to bring their chapters to life) can get the most value out of Chinese reading exercises like these.
Who doesn’t love a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story? This type of Chinese reading practice will get your creative juices seriously flowing.
Check out Twine to improve your Chinese reading skills
This activity challenges you, as a Chinese language learner, to develop writing, decision making, logic, and creative writing skills.
Basically, you can use pre-made visual editors like Twine, Quest, or Squiffy to create an interactive story (or “IF game”).
Using the actual characters and storyline from your most recent read, like The Prince and the Pauper, begin creating choices for the reader that results in different consequences and multiple possible storylines.
For example:
Based on The Country of the Blind, the main character becomes angry at the people in the village, all who are blind. He yells at them and runs out into the field where they come looking for him. The story could start at this point and begins with a choice for the reader to…
a) “You throw rocks at the men” or
b) “You run off into the mountains” or
c) “You calm down and go back to the village.”
Each choice leads to different consequences and different choices for readers and writers alike. This is an especially fun Chinese reading activity if you can get a friend or two in on the action!
3. Reading Check Ins with Friends
There are dozens of ways to discuss shared reads with your friends, but structured activities and discussion questions can help challenge your reading comprehension. You can play 20 questions (Which character am I?), predict the story (helpful when you read a handful of chapters at a time), or deep dive into questions like “What motivates this character?” “What should they have done?” “What shouldn’t they have done?”
These kinds of Chinese reading exercises can be done online or in-person and pair well with a book you both love and a tasty beverage (matcha, anyone?).
Finding accessible Chinese texts is easier said than done. We’ve found the following aren’t actually helpful for most Chinese learners aiming for fluency:
Books for Chinese kids.
Books with un-scientific level standards.
Books with pinyin over the characters.
Books that aren’t long enough to provide sufficient context and repetition.
That’s where graded readers come in (and where they thrive). Graded readers are story books written for learners at different difficulty levels (“grades”). They incorporate a very careful analysis of words used (corpus analysis), disciplined writing, and creative storytelling. In the end, you’re given options for books that are fun to read AND designed to fit your specific skill level.
Decades of research by the Extensive Reading Foundation shows that we learn best at a 98% level of comprehension.
At Mandarin Companion, we’ve worked hard over the last several years to build a collection of Chinese graded readers that are useful, interesting, and affordable. You can buy physical copies of our graded readers or access a digital copy via your Kindle. So if you’re trying to find where to read Chinese online, look no further! Dig through our Chinese novels for learners, find the right grade for you, and get cracking—you’ll be able read Chinese text like a pro in no time.
A beautiful illustration from Journey to the Center of the Earth
Reading Chinese isn’t always easy, but these tips can help!
“Good things happen to students who read a great deal in the new language. Research studies show they become better and more confident readers, they write better, their listening and speaking abilities improve, and their vocabularies get richer” (Cambridge). Prioritizing Chinese reading exercises, and reading in Chinese in general, will help you reach fluency faster than you can say 很快 [hěn kuài].
Do you need a Chinese tutor to help teach yourself Mandarin? Are you hoping to supplement your AP Chinese, HSK, or college classroom learning with the help of a native Chinese speaker?
Could you use some help to follow through on your study plan and language learning goals?
A lot of people are out there looking for a Chinese tutor to help them learn Chinese. Right now, there is a huge demand for Mandarin tutors because even though a lot of people can’t go to school, they are still looking to keep up their Chinese or take this time (the pandemic) to try to learn a little bit more Chinese.
Whether you aim to learn Chinese online, self-study, or hit the internet to search for a “private Chinese tutor near me,” here’s our best advice on how to source a top-notch Chinese tutor.
But First: Who We Are
Ni haody! ? We’re John & Jared, the brains behind Mandarin Companion and the You Can Learn Chinese podcast
We like to think we’re pretty qualified to give advice on finding a Chinese tutor.
John, co-founder of Mandarin Companion and founder of All Set Learning: “Tutors is one thing I have a lot of experience with. It’s how I got my Chinese up from intermediate to being able to go to a master’s program in Chinese, with Chinese classmates. I think tutors can definitely be the best, most cost effective way to do it.”
John’s company, All Set Learning, is focused primarily on individual tutoring and understands how to find the perfect Chinese tutor. They provide a highly customized curriculum suited to the individual needs of the learner. He specifically works with tutors to help them teach Chinese effectively to people.
“We try to take the best of both worlds of tutors and schools, so you have the personalization associated with tutors, but then you have a bit more control and management associated with schools. Some of the biggest pitfalls with tutors are scheduling and/or the Mandarin tutors not really knowing how to design a curriculum.” – John
John has worked with no fewer than 150 Mandarin Chinese teachers to help them excel as tutors and meet the needs of Chinese learners. He’s viewed countless demo lessons and evaluated teaching skills. He’s collected copious amounts of feedback from clients on their tutor, including their strengths and weaknesses.
Needless to say, he has a little bit of experience in this area. “It’s something that I’m involved with every day.” Keep reading to learn what you should look for when hiring a potential Chinese tutor.
3 Things to Look for When Hiring a Chinese Tutor
Three crucial factors that separate an OK tutor and a GREAT tutor are their experience, personality, and availability. Here, we unpack what each of these important elements mean for your overarching work towards Chinese fluency.
1. EXPERIENCE
They Have the Right Experience
You want to find a tutor with experience. Sure. That’s a no brainer, but what does that mean, really? Because if your indicator of experience is just “I’ve been teaching Chinese for X years” and they put that on their resume, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
Jared points out “I worked in market research and I remember one guy I worked with who had 10 years of experience, but it was like, what kind of experience did he have? It was doing some things that he, in my opinion, wasn’t quite qualified to work on.”
Questions to ask to assess a tutor’s prior experience:
Why did you want to be a Chinese tutor?
Could you tell me about your Chinese teaching experience?
How do you plan a curriculum for your students?
What kind of success have your students had?
What can I expect from you as my tutor?
For example, if the tutor primarily has experience in a classroom as a teacher and this is their first ever one-on-one tutoring gig, you might find the overall experience to be a bit “classroom-y.” If they’ve never done anything else or taught as a tutor, they may not be so good at customizing content and interacting in a fun way.
“That’s a big deal because the dynamics of Chinese tutoring one-on-one is very different than a classroom experience. When hiring Chinese tutors online or in-person, look for people with different kinds of experience, as a variety of experience tends to lead to a much more seasoned veteran of a teacher,” shares John.
You want someone who can think quickly on their feet, who is adaptable, and has a lot more going on in their imagination. Otherwise, you can expect to just go through the curriculum of a textbook or a class. ZzzzZZzzz
So… so… close…
Here are some Chinese tutor tips to know if your potential instructor will adapt to your Chinese level:
Find out if they’re solely classroom teachers. This is something that you can totally gauge by looking at a resume or a potential Chinese tutor’s list of the work experience. Have they had classroom experience only, or have they had tutoring experience or other kinds of experience individualizing a learning process? If they’ve taught Chinese for 20 years using the same textbook in the classroom, they may have trouble unlearning their classroom approach.
Tune into your first-demo feelings. You can’t really see some things until you have a demo or first lesson and see how they interact with you.
They Don’t Just Praise You Constantly
If you’re at the elementary level, your Chinese is not amazing. And if the teacher just won’t stop gushing over your Chinese, this is a word of caution.
“To me, that smacks of inexperience. If a teacher has had a lot of learners of different levels, they’re going to be encouraging and not put you down, but they’re not going to be flipping out all the time about your Chinese.”
What we find in psychology is that you don’t praise the result—you praise the effort. That leads to a fixed rather than a growth mindset, which can psychologically make you more adverse to taking risks.
“One thing that our teachers like to praise, and I like to praise among our clients, is that ‘I can tell you did a lot of prep work preparing for this lesson, and that is great.’”
That’s praising effort. And that’s what sticks.
They Will Push You
If you know that your pronunciation has issues and your tones are all over the place, is the Mandarin tutor barely correcting you? Then that right there is a signal that this teacher may not have high standards that are good for you in the long run.
“For me and my clients, we maintain those high standards. One day, we want our pronunciation to be native-like or as close as possible. So we want Chinese tutors that are going to help us get there.”
This is a bit of a balancing act, because you don’t really want the teacher to be correcting every single sound that comes out of your mouth, but at the same time, you want to feel like they’re pushing you.
不好意思 (bù hǎo yì si)….
They Will Give Regular, Well-Timed Feedback
It can be tough to know when a teacher should stop you and correct you or if they should group feedback after-the-fact. Here’s what John recommends:
“There is a two pronged approach. If you’re doing pronunciation practice, which I think is really good and everyone should be doing, especially at the elementary and even at intermediate levels, the teachers should be giving you immediate feedback on every word or line that comes out of your mouth. That’s the whole point of pronunciation practice, immediate feedback.”
That’s the whole point of pronunciation practice, immediate feedback.
John Pasden
“The other way to think about finding a Chinese language tutor that will correct you is to consider conversation practice. If you are talking about something, this is the real purpose of language; communication. You’re trying to tell the other person what you’re thinking, how you feel.”
“And if you’re interrupting everything that’s coming out of their mouth, then the communication is getting stifled and it quickly becomes annoying. Some people are more tolerant of it than others, but as a general rule, a teacher should not be breaking up the communication at every pause.”
As a general rule, a teacher should not be breaking up the communication at every pause.
John Pasden
When it comes to conversation practice, find Mandarin tutors who will take notes. They can point out where you’re consistently saying things incorrectly at a natural stopping point. This is helpful, corrective feedback. You should look for this when figuring out how to find the perfect Chinese tutor.
“One other form of correction that is especially good for intermediate learners while maintaining the flow of conversation is called recasting,” shares John.
Here is how recasting works. When the learner says something a little bit wrong, the teacher repeats it in a questioning tone, sort of like a confirmation that I hear you. However, as they repeat it, the tutor is actually correcting it. Then the learner, if they’re observant, will pick up on this, correct themselves, and keep going.
It’s more of a gentle reminder.
“If you’re talking about a specific topic, and there’s a keyword that the student is going to be using over and over again but they’re pronouncing it wrong, it’s nice to get the correction early on. In this way, they can start repeating it correctly and get that correct reinforcement, rather than discovering at the end that they had been saying the word wrong 20 times.”
2. PERSONALITY
This is a person you’re going to be having long conversations with and, especially if you’re intermediate level or higher, you’re going to be having real conversations, not just “what time do you get up in the morning” conversations.
Common Interests
If the teacher doesn’t have any interests in common with you, that’s kind of a red flag.
Do you enjoy talking to them? Do you love movies and they don’t? Are they big time readers but you only watch TV series?
If you’re at a level that you can actually discuss topics to some degree, and what you want to talk about isn’t something they have any experience with, studying together may be more challenging.
“One of the key things about having a tutor is to improve your overall Chinese. Speaking and listening skills are a key element of that, so if you have nothing to talk about or it’s stilted, you’re going to have a problem moving forward.”
The better situation is that they’re interesting and your conversations are part of what motivates you to continue improving and show up to your Chinese lessons. You can make progress with a boring tutor who is just a task master but it won’t be as much fun.
Try to find a tutor with a shining personality!
Star Personality Traits, like Patience
When we talk about personality traits, this is not simply commonalities or interests, but what the Mandarin tutor’s personality is really like.
Key traits you should look for include:
Patience. It takes patience to communicate with someone who’s not good at communicating in that language or continues to make the same mistakes over and over. You want a tutor who doesn’t jump in quickly to “rescue” you at the first sign of distress. You need a person who can let you struggle a little bit—to give you time to make a connection and form a new neural pathway. They need to have patience to let you be challenged, which can lead to direct progress. In the end, if you still can’t get it and you need help, then they are there to help you.
Extrovert or introvert? If you’re a talker, then you might not want to find a teacher who’s a total talker. If you’re very introverted and you hire a teacher who’s very introverted, you could be in for an awkward series of lessons. When you’re dealing with an unknown tutor, you don’t know how much they’re willing to change their behaviors to specifically accommodate YOU. It can be easier to simply find a tutor with a personality that’s going to match better with yours.
Conversational. Do they have prompts? Can they be prepared to elicit conversation or discussion and give you an opportunity to use your language, ideally in a way that’s engaging and relevant to you? TALK. A key point of a lesson is to get lots of good practice speaking. If you do a demo lesson or something, and they’re not getting you talking, they may not be asking any interesting questions.
Make sure that you truly jive with your tutor, regardless if you’re trying to learn Chinese online or in-person.
3. AVAILABILITY
Number three on the list for what to look for in a Chinese language tutor is a very practical one: availability.
John shares: “You know for a fact that sometimes you will need to reschedule. At times, you might not be able to have more than a couple lessons a month with this person. And even if they’re a good Chinese tutor online or in-person, you need to consider a teacher’s flexibility and schedule.”
There are some teachers who have very rigid schedules that are not very flexible. Sometimes, tutoring is a part-time job or a side hustle for this person and you have to be prepared to become second-fiddle to their full time gig.
“I think it really comes down to how serious are you about learning Chinese. If your Chinese tutor is not serious and you are, then you probably should find someone who’s on the same level of seriousness.”
I think it really comes down to how serious are you about learning Chinese. Because if your Chinese tutor is not serious and you are, then you probably should find someone who’s on the same level of seriousness.
John Pasden
Be Wary of Chinese Tutor Burnout
A cautionary tale:
You can easily Google “Chinese tutors near me” and find someone who seems pretty good. Perhaps they don’t have a lot of experience, but the tutor is serious and competent.
They decide to start lessons and they go pretty well. However, as time goes on, the tutor and the student become friends, and the student starts to notice that the teacher is doing less and less prep for each session. Then it devolves to the tutors showing up and simply saying, “what do you want to talk about today?”
The student doesn’t know if they prepped, and the tutor didn’t prep either. The student has no direction and they’re not getting much corrective feedback or being pushed at all.
That is something that you need to be aware of. It can sometimes be awkward to admit you don’t want to keep learning lessons with a particular Chinese tutor.
“Are you going to pursue excellence and switch tutors if you have to? That’s up to you.”
“Are you going to pursue excellence and switch tutors if you have to? That’s up to you.”
Jared Turner
Pro Tip: Consider a Language Exchange Partner
The “cousin” of Chinese tutors is a language exchange partner. If you have a tutor who’s just showing up without prepping, you might consider finding a language exchange partner instead.
What is a language exchange? It’s when you find another Chinese person who is learning English. You then arrange meet up’s, virtual or in person, where you practice your Chinese with them and they practice their English with you.
“You may be able to get to similar results. They’re great, especially for cash-poor students. I did that while at the University of Florida and made a great friend. Plus it really helped my cultural understanding of China as I was planning to go to China for the first time. It was super useful.” – John
Graded Readers Can Help
You can use any of Mandarin Companion’s graded readers as a launch point for conversations with your tutor. Simply come prepared to your lesson having read a chapter or two and ready to discuss it.
There are pre-made discussion questions in the back of each book to get the ball rolling. It’s a great way to adjust to your new tutor and make a learning plan that fits your goals. “You can just talk about the book and that can be very effective,” shares John.
“When you’re selecting a Chinese tutor, you need someone who can understand the learner’s perspective. This became so apparent to me when we started Mandarin Companion.
When you’re selecting a Chinese tutor, you need someone who can understand the learner’s perspective.
Jared Turner
“I remember the early days when we were finding writers to write for Mandarin Companion. When we looked through the writing samples from potential authors, the people who wrote the most readable texts for Chinese learners were all tutors. They all understood how learners struggle with the language.”
Your Ideal Chinese Tutor is Out There
You might kiss a few frogs before you find your prince/princess, but you shouldn’t be kissing your tutors. ? With this advice on how to find a great Chinese tutor online or in-person, you’ll be ready to 读 Dú, 写 Xiě, 听 Tīng, or 说 Shuō Mandarin ASAP.
Why are you studying Chinese? It seems that everyone has different reasons to learn Chinese, but your reason is critical to your success in learning Chinese. Without motivation to learn Chinese, your efforts will likely flounder.
Here, Jared and John discuss the importance of having a personal reason to learn Chinese and cultivating existing and new motivations. If you don’t have a reason to learn, you wont get far with the language.
How important is motivation in learning of a second language?
Today, the topic that we’re discussing: Why do people want to learn Mandarin? This was something that was brought up to us, so we’re going to talk a little bit today about some of the motivations to learn Chinese. Like, why are you learning Mandarin? Anyone who’s been listening to our podcast for any length of time knows that when I interview someone, I always lead out with this question:
Hey, why did you start learning Chinese?
What prompted that whole big decision of your life?
After interviewing all these people, do we have a sense that the answers tend to be all different, or is there a trend?
In short: Everyone has to have their own individual motivation and everyone’s motivation to learn Chinese seems a little bit different, but you’ve got to have it because if you don’t have it, you’ll never progress towards any level of proficiency or fluency.
It’s interesting to think about what kind of motivations work and what don’t. About 10 years ago, there was a big spike in the amount of people learning Chinese. And it became like this big, hot thing, like, Oh, Chinese, “language of the future,” you got to learn it. Then you see all these new products flooding into the market and they confuse us. Promoting Chinese became very active in the United States especially.
But, because it’s “hot” and because maybe I’ll need it in the future, is usually not a good enough motivator for most people. So the result was…
A lot of people started, but not many people followed through.
The good news is, if you look at the overall trend, even compensating for that spike, learning Chinese is going up because Chinese is getting more and more important in the world. And not because maybe it’ll be useful for the job, but because more and more people are coming into contact with Chinese and Chinese people. More and more people are feeling a new motivation to get started.
Jared’s motivations for learning Chinese
I think it might be good to share a little bit of my story.
John’s like story about how he started learning Chinese, you can look at the third episode. I have no idea what I’ve said. We need someone to catalog that for us, right? It’s going to be a broken record here.
He moved to China without knowing Mandarin
Well, anyway, my story was is that I hadn’t learned any Chinese at all. China was never even on my map, not even in my wildest dreams, 2009, I was finishing a graduate degree at Purdue University, shout out to Purdue Boilermakers, and I had a couple job offers. It was a tough economy at the time, but my wife and I, we just really, I don’t know.
It sounds crazy to tell the story now, but we just really felt like, maybe we wanted to move abroad. And it’s kind of funny when I go back and think about this.,I wasn’t even thinking about learning another language I was thinking about, Hey, it’d be cool to go live overseas.
So we just kind of said, it’s kind of now or never. So I just burned the ships and it took a little time, but I just moved to China. I moved to Shanghai. I’d had no job or anything. I just moved there before I went though. I remember thinking that I’m going to learn Chinese. And I thought like, I’ll take me about a year.
I’ll learn Chinese. And I didn’t get so serious about it. And it was one night I had a dream and it was just like, I am this guy, my dream was like, are you studying Chinese? And I said, no. And he said, well, you better try. And I woke up thinking: OK!
So I got some CDs. It was kind of this multimedia program where I was learning that as done. No, it wasn’t Rosetta Stone. I think it was Fluenz. So I got this, a program and I started learning Chinese a little bit. And when I got to China, uh, I actually had some roundabouts, some connections with a guy who I lived with there.
Jared’s key motivators
Finding a job
I went out there by myself. First. I left my wife and kid here and he spoke really good Chinese during the first three months I was there. I would just was like, on the streets, just trying to practice Chinese, but I was really trying hard because I didn’t have a job. I needed to start to learn some Chinese and I needed to communicate and I knew it was going to help me.
I eventually did get a job, but one thing I realized and I think going back, one of the key motivations for me to really continue on and try to really build my Chinese proficiency was that I was working for small Chinese companies there in Shanghai.
And later on, I started some of my own businesses and my kids when we got to China, they were not in school yet, and I knew that it was not likely that I was going to be in a situation to pay for them to go to like an international school.
His kids and family (and how $$$$ international schools can be abroad)
If anyone who’s looking at international schools in China, Shanghai, specifically, you’re looking at like $25,000 a year for tuition. And I knew that was going to be a little beyond our means.
And so I was expecting that we were going to have to send our kids to a local Chinese school. And so one of the key things and motivations for me was that in order to survive and allow my kids to get education, that they’re going to have to go to the local school. And if that was going to happen, I was going to have to be able to support them in a way in their education.
I took it upon myself to really focus on learning Chinese, to be able to help and support them. No, that doesn’t go into real story, how I got proficiency, but that for me was a motivator, which really kept me trying to improve and progress along my Chinese.
His personal values, like curiosity, especially for other cultures
We wanted to be in China at the time, but we have moved back to the United States since a couple of years ago. I wanted my kids to have that experience of growing up in another culture and learning another language. All these things pulled together to really give me some motivation to learn Chinese and continue to progress.
His business’ success
I ended up starting some of my own businesses in China. I opened a bakery. It’s still running for you, listeners. Yes. I have a bakery. It’s a cinnamon roll bakery in Shanghai. It’s in the heart of Jin district there near the Jin temple. We do cinnamon rolls. That’s it. And in order to do that, my Chinese became much more important because I was just trying to open the business by myself.
I had to go through all the health licensing process by myself. I even set up the business by myself and I had some Chinese at, at some point to help with some of these things, but largely, I had to do a lot of this by myself. So my Chinese became very important for me functioning and for my also livelihood there when I was in Shanghai.
It sounds like you kind of put yourself in a sink or swim situation. Yeah. And so I had to swim.
John’s motivations for learning Chinese
When people ask John about his motivation, “I feel like I don’t have anything. That’s really impressive. It’s like you studied to such a high level, like you must be super motivated and have some kind of really deep, interesting motivations.”
His main motivators
“I like it”
And it’s more like, Oh, I like it. And I think it’s interesting because I like it so much. I also chose a career path, which was completely intertwined with learning Chinese. Even now when I have advanced clients and they’re focused on things like digital media marketing or finance, or the psychology of child rearing, they’re going into these pretty difficult topics in Chinese and are managing their studies.
Career path and prospects
Then of course, I’m reading a bunch of stuff about these topics myself. I don’t know. It’s just interest and combined with my career because I kind of engineered it that way. They kind of keep each other going. This kind of gets back to, you have to have some sort of motivation to learn Chinese and continue learning the language.
Other common motivators for learning Chinese
Let’s talk about a handful of other common or popular motives / reasons to learn Chinese.
To connect deeply to the culture
Now I think it would go through some other stories of people that I’ve heard and maybe we haven’t even covered it on a show. I did an article on our Mandarin Companion blog of a guy. He was in his sixties and he had started learning Chinese because he wanted to read about Tai Chi in Chinese. It was his obsession.
And now you can find some books in English, but for him, he wanted to connect with the deep cultural roots of Tai Chi, and in order to do that, he said, “I need to learn Chinese.” And so, when I had gotten in touch with him, he’d been studying for a couple of years, and he had actually read through all of our graded readers and he was moving on to higher level stuff.
Another motivator to stick it out and learn Chinese? THE FOOD
Communication goals
I find that if you want really fluent Mandarin, it’s often most useful to have a goal related to communication. More than even an interest in Chinese history or Chinese medicine or whatever. Then you can just immerse yourself in books, get good at reading, and never really talk to anybody. But most of the learners I encounter really want to be a fluent speaker.
In this case, it’s good to have a motivation that relates to communication.
If anyone doesn’t know Steve Kaufman, he is a famous polyglot. He speaks a roughly 20 languages, but his real motivation for learning languages was to be able to communicate and connect with new cultures. And that was like, I mean, if you think about it, Like, why are you going to go out and learn 20 languages?
He’s in the seventies and he’s still learning new languages.
But his motivation to learn Chinese now is, like I said, go out there, experience new cultures and connect with them in a way that you can’t through translation. And I think that’s true for a lot of people. You don’t realize that they really want to make that connection with another culture. But, um, I think for a lot of us, we kind of have this inherent interest.
Genuine curiosity
It’s, it’s probably just curiosity. A lot of us know deep down that if you don’t learn another language, you can’t truly connect with another culture and some kind of deep, meaningful way. If you just think about it, if there was no way to communicate, if you don’t speak their language or they don’t speak yours, I mean, how can you really connect?
It’s a very difficult, you can’t understand someone’s emotions, what they’re feeling, what they’re thinking or what you even trying to do. Yeah.
To gain “access” to more people
If you only ever communicate with really well-educated speakers of another language, then there’s this whole other section of society that you have no contact with.
You have no idea what they think about what they, what they talk about. What they know about your country. And so I always find it super interesting to just talk to everyday people, people that don’t speak any English and have no hope of ever really gaining proficiency in it, and maybe thought that they’d never in their life even be able to communicate directly with a foreigner. Those kinds of conversations are super rewarding.
“Bad” motivators to learn Chinese
Curious….
So I kind of want to flip it on its head a little bit here. What are somethings that I’ve seen are maybe not good motivations, or maybe not sustainable motivations to learn the language?
To prove someone wrong
Motivation is short lived when people are learning a language just to prove someone wrong. Sometimes you can carry you through, but I have seen some people like I’m going to learn language cause they said I can’t write. Well, once that person may be out of your life or you just get over that, you need to find some times like a better motivation to learn Chinese.
Because it’s hard
And I had talked to someone who said they started learning Chinese because someone said it was so hard and you couldn’t learn it.
I mean, I did find other motivations, but the challenge aspect was a part of it in the beginning.
Definitely, but ultimately you’re gonna need to find some other motivations along the way because the appetite for challenge isn’t going to see you all the way through to a high level of proficiency.
Because you “should”
Another thing I’ve seen too, is learning a language because someone else is expecting you to do it.
Now, this goes into a lot of other things too, is that maybe you set an own your own expectation that I should be able to learn this. Or if someone says, I want you to learn this, I’ve seen this sometimes with parents towards kids, but, maybe that child, or maybe you, you don’t have your own intrinsic reason or motivation to do it so you can remain disciplined and you can remain studying and focusing on it and memorizing things.
But if you never really find that own spark and that own real reason to learn, then you’re really not going to get far.
I mean, I’ve seen people and some of those situations and they’re not quite conversational because it’s not really their interest. It’s not something they really want to do.
So I’m just kinda throwing out that, that you, you also, even if you’re very disciplined and so on, even as half as high expect expectations for you to learn the language, you’re going to still need to find your own steps along the way. If you really want to put that together and really connect with the language.
Because you feel bad or guilty
I’ve seen two different kinds learners. One is the Chinese heritage learners. Their family insists that they learn it. And in some cases, they don’t even want to, but they feel like they have to. I sympathize with those types of learners, but there’s another guy which is really interesting that I’ve come into contact with maybe once or twice in Shanghai through my business.
And it’s non-Chinese, the foreigners who come to China to live and work in China and they don’t really want to learn Chinese. Like they don’t have a strong interest, but they realize that they “should.” And so they study out of guilt. And so like, that’s the only reason they’re trying to learn Chinese because, well, I’ve lived here for five years.
The “I should learn it” folks are focusing on the absolute worst motivation. Those people make the slowest progress. I support them in their goal of learning Chinese, but
It’s really a good idea to work beyond the guilt and find other things that interest you about the language, people aspects of the culture or whatever, because relaying on guilt as a motivating force is just not going to work.
How to find YOUR reason to learn Chinese
So, John, let’s talk about how to find your purpose, how to find your reason and your motivation to learn Chinese.
Focus on what’s useful
Well remember that a lot of my experience is working with learners here in Shanghai. And so it’s a different situation because they’re in China and they can actually go out and use it. So what we always do with our personalized curriculum here in Shanghai. We find something that they can learn, which ideally immediately after their lesson, they can go and use.
So you don’t study something that you’re not going to use and you do study stuff that you’re going to use immediately. You focus on high-frequency language. Even if it’s not the most exciting thing, if it’s something that, you can immediately use and see the results. That is super motivating.
You might feel motivated to learn Chinese so you can make new friends or find a new romantic interest
And by the same token, I’ve found that some people, they come all the way to Shanghai. They’re super pumped about learning Chinese and they just go to some random schools, sign up for a Chinese course, everything seems fine. And they find that after, two or three months or so, their motivation to learn Chinese is really lagging and they blame themselves.
Then they suddenly think “I don’t actually want to learn Chinese anymore. I remember I used to want to, but now there must be something wrong with me. I’m losing interest even though they’re blaming themselves.”
If you just look at their textbook and you’ll see that it’s a horrible, horrible textbook, chapter one, going to the post office, etc. which nobody actually uses stuff like that.
And it’s just a bunch of useless, outdated stuff and they’re just. Spending hours every day learning this stuff, and they’re not learning the stuff that they could actually use in their daily lives, which they would enjoy using. And they would benefit from like, that is a motivation killer. So you have good motivations and then you have ways of killing your motivations that you really need to avoid.
Be mindful of the difficulty level of you’re learning
We talk about comprehensible input and making sure you like what you’re reading at the right level. There are three stages of reading: 1) there’s extensive reading, 2) intensive reading, and 3) reading pain. Something that can kill that motivation to learn Chinese in when you get in that reading pain category and trying to read below 90% comprehension.
Oh man. And I’ve seen this on sometimes polyglot Reddits. Threads people saying, Oh, I’m going to start learning Chinese. And they have like, you know, some classical Chinese book in the dictionary. I’m like, Oh my gosh, you’re not going to get very far. Cause that stuff that’ll, that’ll beat you down.
In a lot of interviews, Chinese learners talk about how they went through really difficult times learning Chinese, or they had a very difficult teacher professor. I’m like, Whoa, how did you get through that? And sometimes people got through just by sheer will, but you gotta remember for any one person who got through that just by sheer will, there’s probably 10 others that just ditched out.
Keep at it
Motivation is actually something that can be cultivated. And I think that’s often forgotten.
So sometimes you find that an initial motivation, something as stupid as you say, I can’t do it. Well, also you, but if you can find other motivations and then cultivate them or bridge to new motivations, It can be really effective. So what do I mean by cultivating motivations? If, uh, maybe realistically speaking, you need Chinese for your future career and you can’t use it at all until it’s advanced, it’s pretty hard to just commit to years and years of study to eventually get fluent enough to use it for your job. Right.
You have to find the aspects of the language that you’re actually interested in that can start working your way up and fluency and proficiency.
To give an example. I have a client, he works in finance for a long time, his Chinese was too low to have any kinds of conversations in the office better than, you know, nihao. So rather than just working for years at finance, he would find stuff that he was interested in and it turned out he was really interested in certain Chinese TV programs. And so he’d focus on that, knowing that it wasn’t directly applicable to his work, but he was making overall progress, and once he got to a certain point, it was much easier to start plugging in a work-related vocabulary and then making the relevant progress towards his career.
Celebrate little wins
Think about maintaining your motivation and finding the motivation to continue on. Have little wins along the way.
At Mandarin Companion, we try to create books that are easy for people to read. And I can’t count the number of emails and comments we have from people that like, Oh, “I read this book and I never thought I could do it!”
And that just became the huge motivation to learn the Chinese continually. That breakthrough moment for a lot of people.
That can be some significant motivation to learn Chinese to continue on, but sometimes it’s that either you finally connect with someone in the language, you got to get out there and you got to use it. Cause that is one of the key things are about finding your motivation.
Ultimately at the end of the day, you’re going to need to use your language in an effective way. And by doing so and connecting either with something written, spoken, audio, visual, whatever that is going to create experiences and moments that are memorable to you and are motivating. To help you continue learning Chinese.
Reward yourself
And it’s not just about wins, but also about rewards. If you’re in a course of study where all you ever get is feedback about what mistakes you’re making, then, uh, yeah, you can make progress, but it’s super de-motivating. And just like someone who’s on a diet occasionally lets them cheat, have a little dessert, you also need rewards.
Boba, party of 1
You need to give yourself something in Chinese, which you legitimately enjoy, in the cleverest way you can. Some way that it’s somehow related to your main goal, but even if it isn’t a Chinese girlfriend, that’s the number one joke. I always says, like it trying to like, you know how to learn Chinese, get a Chinese girlfriend.
Reward yourself with things that you really find interesting that are somehow also related to your ultimate goal. But even if it’s not, it’s better to do something which you enjoy that’s in Chinese and keeps you going then just burning out and quitting.
If your goal is to be able to talk about finance and Chinese, but you really enjoy reading Level Two: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Mandarin Companion then there’s nothing wrong with that. ? Nothing wrong at all. So the point is guys find your motivation and keep finding new things that will motivate you.
Where have you found motivation to learn Chinese?
Those things are going to help you continue to learn a language and advance to higher levels of proficiency. So get out there and do it. You can do it. You can do it guys. There’s no one answer and it’s a very personal thing, but it’s definitely possible.
Are you ready to embark on the wildly fantastic journey that is Chinese reading for beginners?
Awesome.
It’s not always easy and sometimes there are tears, but if your sincere goal is to advance your language proficiency, reading Chinese is an effective tactic.
Keep scrolling to learn how to engage in Chinese reading practice. You’ll increase your fluency in as little as 一二三 (yī’ èr sān).
FAQs on Chinese Reading for Beginners
Why is reading in Chinese so hard?
Some say learning Chinese is easy. Many others, even famous author David Moser, agree that it can be really, really hard. The truth is that it’s somewhere in between. Many learners of the Chinese language particularly struggle when it comes to Chinese reading because the characters are so foreign. There’s no “alphabet” to rely on or use to “sound words out” like we’re accustomed to in English. Further, while radicals can help, it can sometimes feel impossible to make sense of the meaning of the word by looking at the character alone.
According to SinoSplice, to fluently read 99.5% of everything thrown at you in books or articles written for Chinese natives, you will need to have mastered at least 3,500 characters. That’s a LOT!
Extensive reading is a tried and true strategy every learner should incorporate into their study plan. Extensive reading focuses on reading quickly at a high level (98%) of comprehension without frequently stopping to look up characters.
This is different than intensive reading which is reading at a 90-98% level of comprehension. Most readers are familiar with this type which is slower and requires a dictionary or reading aides that require the reader to frequently stop and look up words and characters. This is the type normally found in articles found in textbooks and on the web, and while helpful, is not as effective as extensive reading.
Should I Chinese reading practice with pinyin?
Pinyin is essential but every learner should be careful about building an over reliance wherein it becomes the “crippling crutch“. Avoid reading materials with pinyin over the characters if you are serious about increasing your Chinese reading skills.
It may seem counterintuitive at first, but if you need the pinyin in order to read everything, then you should look for something closer to your level. If you develop an over reliance on pinyin, you’ll never really learn to read the characters.
Yes, we need pinyin, and we’re very happy we have it, but too much of it can be counterproductive to our literacy development. The appearance of pinyin causes you to get lazy about memorizing the character, its sound, and its meaning—we know it can be tempting, but avoid conducting Chinese reading practice with pinyin. You’ll thank us later.
Where can I find beginner Chinese reading material?
Finding books or stories that are appropriate as Chinese reading practice for beginners can be difficult to find. We’ve worked really hard to fill that gap with our “Breakthrough level graded Chinese readers,” books designed specifically for those just getting their Mandarin legs.
Graded readers have proven time and again their usefulness in improving Chinese reading skills for all levels, but especially beginners who can track their progress as they level up their fluency levels. It’s hard to describe the level of satisfaction you will feel when you advance up to Level 1 or Level 2 when you’ve started using the books as Chinese reading practice for beginners. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up like Jared (one of our founders and authors, who used graded readers to become fluent in Chinese in less than three months!).
7 tips to help with Chinese reading for beginners
1. Learn pinyin and tones.
These are essential tools. Without pinyin, we simply cannot know the proper pronunciation of a character. However, pinyin is not pronounced the way it looks to an English speaker. Take the time to master pinyin, understand how it is pronounced, and feel comfortable reading and using it.
2. Learn common phrases and sentences in pinyin.
Find things you want to say and take the time to learn them. Practice speaking these sentences until you are very familiar with them. Use them in different ways and change out various objects and verbs in the sentences. Become so familiar that you could do this in your sleep.
3. Read the sentences in characters.
With these sentences you have learned and know well, eliminate the pinyin and start reading the characters. Match the sound with the squiggle. Read them over and over and start rearranging the sentences by changing the objects and verbs. Don’t fall into the pinyin trap!
4. Read, re-read, and read again
Go to point #4 in this article for great tips from a teacher on this. Whether you are trying to read Chinese online or in a text book, it’s important that you take your time. Many beginner Chinese readers will extol the value of re-reading texts to fully grasp the material.
One strategy is to read once for context without stopping to clarify missing vocabulary. Next, re-read with the intention of pausing to define any characters, phrases, or grammar structures that are new to you. Lastly, re-read for a third time, putting the first two pieces together.
It might seem arduous now, but it will help improve your vocab and retention in the long run.
5. Learn radicals
“So it’s not “this great way to learn Chinese”; it’s the only way to really learn Chinese characters, unless you’re going to stop at a few dozen. Just as one does not typically learn to read English by skipping the alphabet, or begin studies in classical music by skipping musical notation, one does not tackle reading Chinese without learning about radicals.” —John Pasden
If you want to read in Chinese, you should take the time to understand and become proficient in radicals (部首), also referred to as character components. Radicals are distinct graphic components of Chinese characters. They’re your friends because they often give indications or clues to the meaning and/or sound of a character.
Radicals: Know them. Use them. Love them.
6. Read at the right level for you
Just like no newbie to the English language wants to jump right in to read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or a James Joyce novel, you probably don’t want to read a book that is beyond your current language capabilities. If you do, you’re at risk for disappointment, frustration, and temptation to just “give up.”
Instead, set yourself up for success. The graded readers approach allow you to pick texts that are right for your current proficiency and character acumen. These stories are specifically designed to be not too hard (though you can expect some new-to-you vocabulary) but not too easy (the concepts won’t be beneath you and your skill level). Think of these books as the Goldie Locks of Chinese fluency: juuuust right.
Raise your hand if even reading in your native language can feel like a chore sometimes. ?♂️ This reality makes it essential that you choose texts, stories, and novels that you think you will like to read. Leave the boring stories for the next guy. If reading is fun, you’re more likely to do it, take your time with it, and fully realize the benefits of it.
Recommended Chinese reading books for beginners
If you’re looking for easy Chinese books, you’ve come to the right corner of the internet. We always recommend starting your Chinese reading practice with low level graded readers. These gradually more challenging Chinese stories will not only help you more deeply know the characters already in your repertoire, but they strategically and helpfully provide additional vocab along the way.
Extensive reading is the secret sauce to mastering Chinese fluency, so by starting with these beginner Chinese reading materials, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a 中国通 (Chinese genius!).
A fiction story inspired by popular stories like Alice in Wonderland and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a young boy is mid-walk through the mountains when he comes across a traditional home. Suddenly, an old lady beckons him in and challenges him to find “Hua Ma.” The boy is suddenly transported to the Chinese island of Hainan and sets out on his quest.
A Breakthrough level Chinese graded reader, this book challenges beginners who have learned up to 150 characters.
While in college, two best friends meet a beautiful new student. Though they promise one another not to pursue the beautiful new girl in school, one can’t help himself. What unfolds is two great guys seeking the affection of one girl. Who will win, and will they stay friends?
Thanks to its familiar story of love won and love lost, this breakthrough level graded reader provides easy Chinese reading for beginners.
Space is cool, right? That’s what the main characters of this Chinese reading practice story think—that is, until their new teacher knows an oddly impressive amount of information about not only the planet Mars, but all of outer space in general.
Is their teacher actually from another planet? Is it all in their heads? After all, it can’t possibly be true to have a teacher who is a martian. Or is it? You won’t know til you take this awesome book for a spin!
Mischief and wit go together like dumplings and black vinegar. That’s the moral of this story, which follows a young boy through his antics at his parent’s Chinese shop.
From inventing recipes to helping deliver orders and more, find out if the main character, Zhou Haisheng, can save his family’s restaurant when a similar noodle shop opens in the neighborhood.
Pro tip: Reward yourself for reading this book with your own piping hot bowl of 拉面 lāmiàn (noodles).
If you love a good mystery, this is the breakthrough Chinese graded reader for you. Follow Xiao Ming (name) as he helps uncover the school thief with the power of observation and deduction. You’ll never guess who is behind all the shenanigans!
We love combining easy Chinese books and a good “Whodunnit” story—no wonder this is one of our most popular graded readers to date.
Chinese reading for beginners: You can 读 (dú) it
Chinese reading practice is crucial for improving your overall language skills, not to mention impressing your mother when you go out to dinner at your local Chinese restaurant. What other resources for reading Chinese for beginners have you found? Let us know in the comments!
