If yes, how’s it going? What do you like about it? What don’t you like? What challenges are you encountering? How are you approaching it?
I ask because my partner and i both decided last year we would start doing a little language learning in our spare time, and it’s been quite nice to have that “back to school” feeling again after so many years.
Sounds like you’re further along than i am. I don’t really have the money right now for any paid apps, so i’m just making do with what i can find for free. Listening comprehension is still my biggest weakness in Chinese. I can form basic sentences ok but i need to learn more vocabulary before i can use it in any real scenario.
At this stage you should consume a lot of content made for learners. I recommend making a separate Google account for Chinese study and watch videos from the following accounts. You can also echo the speaker and pay attention to tones and pronunciation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=140DowW_FBs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCNjXBL6ZMQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SylMUnCgHDE
Videos about how to shape the mouth during pronunciation are also helpful. Many initials are subtlely different from how you would expect them to be pronounced based on the pinyin and English phonology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpQ3IMd4AMg
You can also use Anki flashcards with phrase level context to aid memory. When you make a flashcard there should only be one word on it and you should prefer to make Chinese only flashcards. This is a relatively slow method but you can learn vocab reliably.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11CPWnGmsas
Thank you for the recommendations! I actually already do some of those things. I don’t really struggle with the basic pronunciation, it’s remembering the tones that doesn’t come naturally. Also i’m finding some sounds hard to distinguish when spoken by native speakers. For some reason i find that non-native speakers sometimes have clearer, more distinct pronunciation.
A lot of the tones get elided or deemphasized in fast speech.
I’ve more or less settled with the fact that i’m going to have trouble with tones for a long time. Right now i’m talking more about hearing the difference between for example “-n” and “-ng” endings, or “z-” and “c-” initials. In theory i know the distinction but in practice it’s often hard to hear.
Regardless you should still study hearing the tones. You can use Anki for tone pairs you find bothersome, help you draw a distinction between them. For initials and finals I found IPA helpful, although to be honest I didn’t find either of those especially troublesome. You could try the channel I linked about zh, sh, ch distinction, they may have videos that are helpful for improving understanding of the difference between these sounds.
Ok, thank you!
Dong Chinese has a free section where you can drill recognizing tones and syllables that I find helpful. Though I’m still a beginner so this might be below your skill level.
I’ve actually done a lot of that. In isolation i don’t have too much trouble recognizing the difference, and i can pronounce them just fine. It’s just when spoken fast in a sentence sometimes the sounds become hard to distinguish. But it’s fine. I know that i just need more exposure to media in the language and then i will get better at the listening comprehension over time.