Exactly what it says in the title – I’m thinking of learning Mandarin Chinese and I’ve found a promising tool for it. Anki is a spaced repetition system that helps you memorize stuff, Google it. And in addition to uploading your own sentences, you can also download pre-made decks where people have compiled and shared their vocabulary lists, sentences, etc. I’m already using four of these intermittently for Korean and Cantonese:
FSI Cantonese
Cantonese Words
Korean Grammar Sentences by Evita
Korean 한자어 Vocabulary Builder (Sino-Korean words)
Now I just added one more: SpoonFed Chinese. 8000+ Mandarin sentences supposedly arranged in order of difficulty so they regularly introduce new vocabulary items and grammar concepts. The idea is that by the time you work through the whole deck, you will have a ton of vocabs and grammar as well as reading and listening practice so you will be functionally competent in Mandarin.
Does it work? I googled around for a bit, but didn’t get enough results to prove it. Most people who use the SpoonFed Chinese deck do so with a number of other resources, and those who said they would use it exclusively have never reported back on their results. I myself plan to use it exclusively at first, but will branch out into other stuff if I find Mandarin interesting enough to stick with.
Full disclaimer: I’m not a complete beginner at Mandarin Chinese. I took a semester of Chinese in college ages ago and I’ve been learning Cantonese for many years now. I would say I’m an upper beginner in Mandarin and maybe medium-intermediate in Cantonese? So if I come back months later and say “Hey, look at all these cool things I can do with Mandarin now!” you should know that I didn’t start from zero. I.e. “results may not be typical.”
Before I go, I should answer the question no one is asking: why Mandarin, and why now? I took that semester in Chinese in college and dropped it because I wasn’t very interested in China or in Chinese culture. And I’m still not, not really. But in the past year I’ve been reading more Chinese webtoons and romance web novels, and some of them are pretty fun.
I’m really grateful to the companies and fan translators who make it possible for me to enjoy the better series (especially the non-rapey, non-abusive prince/CEO titles, which are like 1 in a million). At the same time, sometimes you see a series on NovelUpdates and it has over 1000 chapters… but only 10 are translated. Case in point, The Delicate Prince and His Shrewd Peasant Consort.
I appreciate the free translations, but in the 2.5+ years it would take for this series to be fully translated, I’m pretty sure I could learn enough Chinese to read it for myself. Assuming I put in a lot of hard work and didn’t lose motivation, which is a big “assuming.” Which is also why I’m not spending money on many resources or books or anything. Just SpoonFed Chinese to begin with, then we’ll see.
How often will I update on this pet project? Not very often, because I’m not that serious about it. Korean and Cantonese still come first before Mandarin. Let’s aim for either updates every 6 months or every 10% of the deck, whichever comes first. Either way it will be a fun experiment, so look forward to the results!
