Links: Peak Mandarin Discord server: https://discord.gg/BtT6t7fK Interview with Karen Chung: https://imlearningmandarin.com/2022/06/26/how-to-achieve-a-near-native-chinese-accent-with-professor-karen-chung-podcast/ My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook -- Recently a member of our Peak Mandarin Discord server posted a short clip of a native Mandarin speaker saying a sentence in mid-conversation at full-blown speed. The sentence was: 这么复杂的东西怎么学得会啊不可能的嘛对吧。Zhème fùzá de dōngxī zěnme xué de huì a bù kěnéng de ma duì ba. Something this complicated, how could I possibly learn it? It's impossible, right? The challenge was laid out for members of the server to mimic the sentence and post their attempts on the thread to receive feedback from other learners. So I decided to deploy the methods I often use to mimic native speech and give it a go. In this episode I’m going to break down step by step how I went from struggling to keep up to being able to deliver the sentence with natural rhythm and accurate tones at lightning speed. A word of caution, this sentence was particularly challenging, so if you don’t have much experience mimicking Mandarin, it’s advisable to start with something shorter and much slower.

Links: My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook Our Peak Mandarin Discord Server: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p Joshua's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@jlykes -- On today’s episode, I interview Joshua Lykes, an up-and-coming YouTuber whose recent videos on learning Chinese have been creating waves in the community. Joshua recently posted an hour-long video documenting in detail his first year of Mandarin learning. And one of the things that stood out to me about that video Joshua’s use of technology, much of which wasn’t available to me when I first started learning Chinese. It strikes me that in the last year or two, the sudden exposition of AI has had a tremendously deep impact on how we learn Chinese and that’s only going to increase going forward. So after meeting Joshua on our Peak Mandarin Discord server and learning about his journey, I decided to get him on the podcast to chat about his experiences using AI to learn Chinese, as well as his hopes for the future of technology and language learning.

Link to Discord Server: https://discord.gg/gvWFSDbj -- One thing I’ve found that’s often missing for a lot of learners is this sense of community, of belonging to a network of other learners who share similar goals and can support each other. This is something I try and provide here through my blog. But I’d like to expand this further. So today, we’re announcing the launch of our Peak Mandarin Discord community, a space where Mandarin learners can hang out, share tips and learning experiences and support each other to achieve our goals. To join the community you can click this link. If you don’t already have a Discord account you’ll be prompted to create one and then join the Peak Mandarin server. Once in the server feel free to write a post introducing yourself to the community, share your experiences and get involved in discussions. To explain more about why we’re creating this online community and what we hope to achieve through it I sat down to chat with three of our community moderators, Lewys, Jered and Philipp.

Links: My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook My blog: imlearningmandarin.com In my first few years of learning Chinese, there were many occasions when I’d suddenly be made aware of a huge flaw in my Chinese I had previously been blind to. This might take the form of a direct comment from a native speaker who is less polite than normal. Or it might be an embarrassing failed attempt to communicate in Mandarin. These moments can be pivotal in shaping our learning experience for better or worse. Recently I was talking about this to one of my students, Lewys, who I’ve previously interviewed on this podcast. Lewys has experienced plenty of what he calls – ‘wet fish moments’ some of which affected his confidence and even caused him to give up. So in this episode, we share our experiences of having our egos crushed in the process of learning Mandarin and offer our tips for other learners on how best to avoid similar experiences.

Links: Get 20% off first month of Mandarin Mosaic: https://mandarinmosaic.com/imlearningmandarin Karl's blog on ChatGPT: http://imlearningmandarin.com/2024/05/19/does-chatgpt-speak-authentic-chinese-the-results-of-my-study-may-surprise-you/ -- My guest on this week’s episode is an app designer who has made several appearances here in the past. Karl Baker, recently launched his new Mandarin learning app, Mandarin Mosaic. The App seeks to make sentence mining accessible. Like Anki, but easier to use and And if you’re interested in trying it out, you can go go mandarinmosaic.com/imlearningmandarin to get 20% off your first month. I caught up with Karl and began by asking him all about his new launch, as well as his plans for the future.

Links: Peak Mandarin Newsletter: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook My blog reflecting on the summer camp experience: http://imlearningmandarin.com/2024/08/04/5-things-i-learned-from-5-days-of-total-mandarin-immersion/ Will's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@willhartmandarin/videos -- Last week I attended a five-day immersive Mandarin Retreat Summer Camp as a lead organiser. A group of 14 of us, including learners, organisers volunteers, and native tutors got together in Cheddar, in the south-west of England, and spoke nothing but Chinese for five days straight. While it’s all still fresh in my mind, I decided to get my colleague and co-founder of Peak Mandarin, Will Hart, to chat about the experience. Will also attended the retreat as an organiser and in this episode, we chat about what the experience of deep immersion was like and how we plan to make these camps bigger and better in the future.

Links: Phillipps blog: https://philippmarxen.com/?p=256 My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook My Blog: imlearningmandarin.com -- In this podcast and on my blog, I've often discussed how Anki flashcards can be used to boost your Mandarin learning. Anki is a Spaced Repetition flashcards program that enables you to drill and create flashcards to aid your memory's retention of new information. And my guest on today's podcast recently decided to take the Anki plunge, setting himself an ambitious challenge to drill flashcards for several hours a day every day, while documenting his progress on his blog. Philipp Marxen is from Germany and has been learning Mandarin on and off for over two decades. In this episode, we discuss his recent one-month challenge, including how he structured his learning and what it was like drilling Anki for several hours a day. Does he recommend the method to others? Listen on to hear more. If you like this episode please don't forget to subscribe on your favoured podcast provider. Now onto the episode!

Links: Follow along with a transcript and translation on: imlearningmandarin.com Get your free copy of my eBook on: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook Subscribe to Will's YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/@willhartmandarin/videos -- Today's podcast episode features a Chinese learning superstar who should need no introduction. Will Hart, created waves in the Mandarin learning community when he reached an incredible level of fluency in just 1.5 years while living in the UK during the Covid pandemic. Will is the co-founder of our learning platform Peak Mandarin. And he's also the subject of my eBook, Lessons from a Chinese Learning Phenomenon, in which I unpack how he used a mixture of immersion and sentence-mining techniques to become fluent in Chinese - and how I put his methods into practice to learn the language myself. In today's episode, Will talks in Mandarin about his recent attempts to learn Spanish using similar methods to the ones that previously worked so well for him. As usual, you can follow along with a transcript below, as well as an English translation. And if you like this podcast, please don't forget to subscribe to your favourite podcast provider. Now on to Will's Spanish learning adventures!

Links: Kristen's Instagram Channel: https://www.instagram.com/learnchinesewithkristen/ My Free Mandarin Learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook My blog: imlearningmandarin.com -- On today’s episode, I speak to Kristen, a Mandarin speaker and teacher from Canada.   Kristen has been learning Chinese since 2013. Like me, she initially began learning outside China, and is full of insights based on her experience of overcoming barriers on the path to spoken Chinese fluency.  More recently, Kristen turned her attention to helping others learn Chinese, teaching the language through her popular Instagram channel. And with over 15,000 followers, she’s become well-known within the online Mandarin learning community for her short reels teaching Chinese grammar points, phrases and pronunciation tips.  My interview with Kristen is full of gems for anyone looking to become a fluent Chinese speaker. In particular, listen out for her tips on learning Mandarin outside the classroom and structuring your learning around your interests. For anyone interested in checking out her channel, I’ve left a link to it in the description.  And as usual, if you enjoy this podcast please don’t forget to hit the subscribe button on your favoured podcast provider.  Now on to today’s interview with Kisten!

In this engaging discussion, Stacy Bridges, a dedicated Mandarin learner from the US, shares his decades-long journey with the language, starting from a school crush in the '80s. He highlights the uphill battle with tones and speaking skills, offering practical strategies such as sentence mining and mimicking native speakers. Stacy emphasizes the importance of community support and active conversation to bolster fluency, revealing that self-awareness and methodical practice are key in navigating the intricate world of Mandarin.