Mandarin Monkey Podcast

Friday mailbag time. Chinese and English together, as always.Today you get listener stories about:• Stress gestures that looked like a love confession • Soft Mandarin that sounded like poetry underwater • Motivation, guilt, discipline and VR boxing • Ten minutes of bus auntie story with zero context • Scooter fails in Taiwan and panic Mandarin • Sounding fluent while saying nonsense • Noodle theft in a Bristol flat • Turning passive vocab into active speechWe talk through:• How to describe emotions without strange vibes • Why quiet Mandarin feels impossible to decode • When to push through and when to rest • How confidence helps even if the vocab falls apartEmail your story for a future mailbag: chat@mandarinmonkey.comLessons, community, and all the good stuff: mandarinmonkey.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join for a delightful chat mixing Christmas laughs with insightful conversations about UK food labels and excessive sugar. Discover the quirks of Taiwanese menus and the challenges of planning life with kids. Hear about the liberating experience of moving to Taiwan with little foresight, and how past choices shape the present. Reflect on balancing present enjoyment with future goals while navigating adulthood's responsibilities. A perfect blend of humor and real-life planning, all while practicing Mandarin and English!

Friday mailbag. Mandarin and English. Real listener questions.We start with a chat about long-term goals. Safety, peace, fun, love and connection. Where we want the kids to be in ten years. Where we want to live. How to build something bigger than “exercise more”.Then the mailbag.A night-shift worker in Leeds knows the vocab but freezes when building sentences. A Birmingham listener orders bubble tea in Taichung without the cashier switching to English. A software engineer in Dublin wants real conversations, not grammar workshops. A listener in Seattle can hear J, Q and X but cannot say them. A teacher in Wellington reads well but loses everything without subtitles.We talk about progress, language habits, relationships, pronunciation, listening skills and how to keep going even when it feels slow.Send your stories or questions to chat@mandarinmonkey.com.For lessons or hangouts, visit mandarinmonkey.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode starts in the strangest way possible, then turns into a full life update. We talk about Kairi wanting to learn Chinese, Dragon Ball socks, why none of us sleep, work changes, and the chaos of parenting three young kids.We also get into • How bad nights ruin your brain • Why our youngest saves all his wee for nighttime • New directions in our work • Whether to make a movie at home • How animation voiceovers actually work • Moving abroad and the career gap problem • New plans for Mandarin Monkey • Our goal to set up a separate studio and a new company • What’s coming next for usIt’s real, chaotic, and very us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We skip the small talk and jump straight into chaos. One of us wears noise-cancelling headphones with brown noise blasting. The other says sentences in Mandarin and English. The goal is simple. Lip read the line. No clues. No questions.The results are a mess. “You squeezed it before I was ready,” becomes cheesecake. 羊羹 becomes “some kind of rat.” Twice becomes twat. And a totally normal Chinese sentence turns into Argentina.If you enjoy Mandarin learning mixed with confusion, misread lips, and unearned confidence, this game delivers.Send your sentences or game ideas to chat@mandarinmonkey.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wrong day, wrong week, right podcast. Today’s mailbag episode starts with that weird moment when your brain swears Friday arrived, but the calendar says otherwise, then drifts into lottery fantasies, nannies who only speak Mandarin, and baldness fear. Standard Mandarin Monkey energy.Then listener stories:• Daniel in Manchester used Mandarin to survive lockdown loneliness and asks how to practice speaking when nerves block every sentence.• John in Southern California listened to the whole podcast three times and still wants more. Respect.• Debbie in Lagos started Mandarin because C-drama subtitles missed the point and now fights double audio and dodgy subs.• Olivia fell in from the short clips, forgets new words in days, and wants to keep going without burnout.• Vivi did “immersion” in Kaohsiung, made international friends, defaulted to English, and now only understands Mandarin with heavy context.We talk about:• Why tutors hear every mistake already and still support learners• How mirroring and shadowing native speakers trains tones and rhythm• Why motivation fades and discipline keeps progress alive• How to use scripts, news, and audio to train listening without subtitles• Single-channel brains, overwhelm, and why context helps more than people admitBilingual as always. Ula speaks Mandarin, Tom speaks English, you follow along.Send your story or question to:chat@mandarinmonkey.comor DM on Instagram / Facebook.Your email might show up in the next mailbag. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We put on noise-canceling headphones, blasted brown noise, and tried to read each other’s lips in Chinese.Spoiler: “Are you the king of Mandarin Monkey?” turned into “Are you licking a mandarin monkey?”We also talk about Tom’s 3D-printed bust mini-movie, the “shi” tongue twister that broke him, and why bringing back the silly side of Mandarin Monkey might be the best idea yet.Send your stories for Friday Mailbag: chat@mandarinmonkey.comLessons and more at mandarinmonkey.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mailbag time. Phoebe’s moving to China in a week, Jasmine’s torn between Simplified and Traditional, Mark nails his first all-Mandarin order, Anna shares tonal research, and Katie reminds us to slow down. We talk avoiding the foreigner bubble, finding a “language parent,” sleep habits, and why progress feels slow, until it doesn’t. Send your story: chat@mandarinmonkey.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Practice Mandarin listening with a native Taiwanese Mandarin speaker and English support. We cover cold-weather camping at 3°C, off-grid power, food, health, and planning a sensible motorbike tour through Europe. Great for beginners to intermediate, HSK prep, and heritage Chinese/Taiwanese learners keeping both languages fresh.You’ll learn: camping and travel vocab, opinion phrases, modal verbs for suggestions, health/food terms, and natural Taiwanese rhythm.Resources• Free transcripts/clips on our YouTube (search “Mandarin Monkey listening practice”)• Book a lesson with a Taiwanese teacher (all levels)• Mailbag: send a short story (Mandarin or English) to chat@mandarinmonkey.com for feedback Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today’s Listener Mailbag is stacked: Mandarin at the bus stop, writing a sky-lantern wish in Pingxi, ordering dinner in Kunming with zero English, the strange peace of visa lines with a podcast in your ears, and a market auntie gifting a spring onion for luck. Plus: dogs, Edinburgh place names, and whether American English secretly makes more sense. Perfect for immersive Mandarin listening practice - Ula in Mandarin, Tom in English - so you can follow along and pick up real phrases in context.Send your story for a future episode: chat@mandarinmonkey.comBook lessons / join the community: mandarinmonkey.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.