In the beginning phases of learning Mandarin the grammar is surprisingly similar to English. Basic Chinese phrases will share the same subect-verb-object (SVO) word order that is found in English. 

A closer look at some of the intricacies of Chinese grammar

However once you're past the basics, Chinese word start to look a lot different than English, making it difficult for native English speakers.

Chinese Mandarin also features some other foreign aspects of grammar like resultative verb compounds and polysemy, but we won't get into those here. 

The important thing to remember that a good Chinese course will make an effort to explain and breakdown the more difficult parts of grammar.

Mandarin is a tonal language. This means the same sound spoken in a different tone (think voice inflection or pitch) will completely change the meaning of a word. Thus tones are extremely important when learning Chinese. 

An intro to the Chinese tones

Some language courses overlook this and fail to break down the tonal system, and don't help learners learn correct Chinese pronunciation. A good learning program will give adequate attention to this highly important topic. 

The Chinese writing system doesn't use an alphabet. Instead Chinese characters are logographic, meaning that they represent words or phrases and not sounds (as in the English alphabet).

This means that to read Chinese you have to memorize a large number of characters (think 2,000-3,000) just to read a newspaper. 

An excellent explanation of Chinese characters

Theoretically you don't need to know Chinese characters to speak the language, but if you're serious about being fluent you won't be able to avoid them forever. 

When you're learning Mandarin it's best to start learning characters early on, so that you give yourself a solid foundation from the get go. 

A good Chinese program will help you learn the Chinese character system.

There are a lot of language courses out there, but not all are made equal. A good Mandarin course is one that respects the language and teaches it according to its unique features. 

Hopefully this list will help you find the program that's right for you. Either way, remember that  Whichever method you use isn't as important as committing yourself to learning the language! 

Mandarin Chinese may be one of the most rewarding foreign languages to learn. The whole experience of learning the language from the culture, the people, to the places is amazing. 

But Mandarin is almost always mentioned among the hardest languages to learn alongside Japanese and Arabic. I’m not going to sugar coat things. Learning Chinese is hard and takes a lot of work.

While Yabla isn’t a cure for all of your learning problems, here’s 3 specific ways you can use the site to help you learn Chinese.

You can read a more in-depth review of the site here. This article is about how Yabla can specifically help students who are learning Mandarin Chinese.

1) It’s Great for Chinese tone shadowing

If you’re learning Mandarin, you’re well aware that the tones can be pretty difficult. Yabla is a perfect tool for practicing them.

 One of the best ways to master tones in Mandarin is to mimic or shadow native speakers. The slow playback, loop, and subtitles in the video player make it easy to dissect what you hear so that you can copy the sounds yourself.

Try playing a video back one piece at a time. Use the slow play option in Yabla’s video player to hear it at a reduced speed. Listen to the audio and try speaking along with it. Pay special attention to the speaker’s intonation and inflection.

 Next try saying it by yourself and play the video back to double check your tones and pronunciation. You can even try recording yourself and compare the recording to the video. This sort of vocal mimicry will help you internalize the tones of Mandarin.

2) It helps you memorize Chinese characters

Chinese characters are what make reading and writing in Chinese so tough. Chinese children are typically taught the script system through rote memorization over several years.

This isn’t a promising prospect if you’re learning Mandarin. Yabla can take some of the edge off the process. Of course you can watch videos with the traditional subtitles on and then add ones you don’t know to your flashcard deck to review later.

That’s all well and good, but try this to get more out of Yabla: Think of ways to associate characters with the context of the video you found them in. A great way to do this is to create flashcards in Anki and add a screenshot of the video scene where you first saw the word. 

Pick a scene from the clip that best reminds you of the word. That way when you’ll see the script and the picture you’ll be able to recall the conversation the word was used in. This simple association can help you retain and remember the characters you learn. The more connections your brain can associate to the character the less likely you are to forget it.

Yabla is often used by schools to supplement their language programs

3) It helps immerse you in the language

The best thing about using Yabla to learn Mandarin is that it immerses you in the language. When you watch and interact with native Chinese video it forces your brain to activate the Mandarin you know. You can learn a new Mandarin word or grammar rule, but it’s a whole another thing to see it in action.

But the immersion also goes beyond your language skills. Because the videos are actually made in China you get a feel for the culture as well. It’s no replacement for a plane ticket, but it’s still a cool way to be exposed to the country.

Conclusion

Yabla isn’t a full fledged course for Mandarin, but if you use it right it’s a great learning tool. It’s also pretty affordable with a one month subscription starting at $9.95 for 1 month. The site also has some free demo videos in Chinese so you can get a feel for their platform. If you’re serious about learning Mandarin then it’s definitely worth checking out!

Rosetta Stone is the big name in the world of language learning. Some people have serious problems with their courses, while others swear by them. 

Rosetta Stone courses certainly have their share of strengths and weakness. We discuss the Rosetta Stone method in depth in our ultimate Rosetta Stone review. 

This this post we're looking at the The Rosetta Stone courses for Chinese Mandarin. Usually with languages that are far removed from English, the Rosetta Stone method isn't that effective, but that's not quite the case here.

To be honest we were a little surprised at how well the course can work for Mandarin...

Yes if you've a beginner

Rosetta Stone designs and markets their courses for new learners. If you were to complete all 5 levels of their Mandarin courses you can expect to have up to a low intermediate level of understanding in Mandarin. 

Rosetta Stone is best used as a primer for Mandarin. You will learn the basic ins and outs of Chinese grammar and vocabulary if you work through their courses.

Mandarin learners who have a higher level in the language are less likely to find as much value in the Rosetta Stone courses. Rosetta Stone works reasonably well as a foundational learning tool.  After the basics you'll want to move on to a different resource. 

One of the common weaknesses of Rosetta Stone courses is the lack of practical vocabulary. While you learn how the language works and can construct sentences and basic phrases, the actual words you use in Rosetta Stone aren't always the most practical. 

The course does pay off more in the higher levels, but it will take some time to get there after working through the lower ones. 

Rosetta Stone works well for languages that are similar to English, but it fails miserably for languages that don't share any similarities with English.

Surprisingly Mandarin grammar has more in common with the English language then you might expect, and so Rosetta Stone works well with the language. 

Basic sentences function similar to English ones. Both languages use a SVO word order (subject, verb, object). In this way English sentences will resemble their Chinese counterparts. 

This means Rosetta Stone's no translation method will work pretty well with basic phrases and sentences. 

Rosetta Stone isn't usually the first course we recommend to improve your pronunciation. Nomarlly we'd write off Rosetta Stone entirely for pronunciation and  point people to other courses like Pimsleur or maybe Chineseclass101.

While those courses are great Rosetta Stone does surprisingly well in this area. 

If you don't know already tones are extremely important in Mandarin. The way you inflect a word often changes its meaning entirely. For native speakers of English this is can seem like a huge problem because our language isn't tonal. 

While Rosetta Stone's voice recognition software is questionable, one thing I like is that the course emphasizes making the correct tones in the context of a whole sentence. Typically you learn tones one by one via individual words.

Rosetta Stone does its best to get the user used to hearing and imitating correct tones as words are used together. This improves your accent, as well as your speaking and listening abilities. 

Not much help with Chinese characters

Rosetta Stone gives you the option to display characters as well as pinyin. Their method is centered on recognizing basic words by hearing and seeing them. 

You're likely to remember a few characters this way but learning to read and write Chinese requires more than the Rosetta Stone courses give. Things like stroke order and common character components simply aren't mentioned.. 

Complex grammar can get confusing

While simple Mandarin sentences resemble English ones, this isn't true when you start using more complicated ones. The word order changes and looks different from what a native English speaker is used to. 

A brief intro on how the word order can change in Mandarin.

Rosetta Stone follows a strict no translation policy, meaning that there are zero explanations in English in any of their courses. While you can pick up basic sentences from audio and pictures, the meaning of a sentence or word can be confusing with no explanations. 

Rocket Chinese

Rosetta Stone Chinese is a good option for new leaners who want to get comfortable in the basics of the Mandarin language.

While the Chinese courses share many of the common weaknesses of Rosetta Stone courses, they are still an effective way to learn basic grammar and vocabulary, as well work on pronunciation.  

Ask someone which language is the hardest for native English speakers to learn and you’re very likely to hear “Chinese Mandarin” alongside other notoriously difficult languages like Japanese, Korean, and Arabic.

While it’s up for debate whether or not Mandarin is the hardest of all, you can’t deny that it presents some unique difficulties to English learners.

It’s writing system, pronunciation, syntax, and tones are all markedly different than the English language. This makes the idea of an effective Chinese audio course sound well...unlikely. But there are some good audio courses out there. One of the most well-known is Pimsleur.

Pimsleur has a mixed reputation in language learning circles. Whether or not it’s good depends on who you ask. We take an in depth look at the Pimsleur method in our Ultimate Pimsleur Review.

In this article we’re specifically going to look at Pimsleur Chinese (Mandarin). We’ll look at what’s unique about it compared to other Pimsleur language courses, and we’ll point out the pros and cons of using Pimsleur to learn Mandarin.

Summary of Pimsleur Method

(all languages)