by John Fotheringham | Apr 22, 2022
Andrew Methven is the creator of Slow Chinese 每周漫闻, a weekly newsletter that helps Mandarin Chinese learners immerse themselves in authentic, colloquial language via interesting stories and news events handpicked from Chinese media, social media, and TV. Instead of learning the stilted and stuffy language of Chinese textbooks, Andrew’s excellent newsletter trains you to understand the way people really speak and write the language today. In the interview, Andrew shares how he first fell in love with Chinese, differences between Mandarin between Mainland China and Taiwan, and his top tips for language learners.
by John Fotheringham | Mar 4, 2022
From full-time Mandarin immersion at Peking University and Shanghai’s Fudan University to years of independent study online, Daniel Nalesnik has spent the last 13+ years on a mission to figure out the most fun and effective way to learn Mandarin Chinese. The result? The creation of Hack Chinese, a powerful spaced repetition tool designed from the ground up just for Mandarin learners, unlike generic SRS apps that struggle to properly handle Chinese characters, tones, etc. In our conversation, Daniel shares the lessons he’s learned, what he would do differently if he started from scratch, and how new language learners can get started.
by John Fotheringham | Mar 2, 2022
The short answer? It depends. It depends on your goals. It depends on your level. And it depends on how much time and discipline you are willing to invest.
by John Fotheringham | Feb 16, 2022
From its beginning as a lean, bootstrapped startup to its recent $50 million acquisition, Drops represents a seriously impressive origin story. But this is a blog about languages, not start-ups. So the question remains: Does Drops actually work? Will it help you get fluent in a language? That is precisely what I answer in the detailed review, over one year in the making!
by John Fotheringham | Jan 14, 2022
In this episode of the Language Mastery Show, I share three more tips for building the three foundations of mastery: 🧠 Master Your Mind — Realize that mastering a language is more about psychology than ability. ⏱ Master Your Day — Make language learning your primary focus. 📍 Master Your Environment — Decide not to decide by making your target language the default.
by John Fotheringham | Jan 12, 2022
Mastering a foreign language is at once extremely complex and predictively simple. On the one hand, you have to learn the nuanced meanings of thousands of words, internalize hundreds of grammar patterns, and be able to understand and use these terms and structures at rapid speed. On the other hand, most of the complexity happens at a subconscious level. Our brains do almost all of the heavy lifting for us if we get enough exposure and practice. In essence, you just have to show up. But how you show up matters. Contrary to popular belief, we don’t learn languages by osmosis. Just being around foreign languages is not enough. Read on to see the 3 essential ingredients you need to ensure that this exposure will lead to fluency.
