Being
able to speak Chinese fluently is the goal of many learners. But it is probably
one of the hardest parts of Chinese to master and many students struggle with
it even long after leaving the beginner stage of learning. In this article, I
have summarized 5 best tips on how to improve your Chinese speaking
ability.
1.
Mind Your
Pronunciation.
One
of the first steps in learning Mandarin Chinese is
becoming accustomed to Mandarin pronunciation. Learning how to pronounce
Mandarin helps with speaking and listening skills. Chinese pronunciation is
known as pinyin, which is composed of initials, finals and tones. They can be
combined together to create more than 400 mono-syllabic sounds. Similar to
English, you should learn to hear the differences and work on learning how to
pronounce Mandarin sound. Practice pinyin sound with four tones as much as you can - they will provide the
foundation learning how to pronounce Mandarin.
2.
Practice
Speaking on a Regular Basis.
You
should speak for half an hour to an hour every day. A good practice is to just
force yourself to translate everything you are currently thinking into Chinese.
Speaking will build up your vocabulary skills and make sure to keep adding
words to your vocabulary list. On a regular basis, you should review your list
of errors to find any patterns and then discover what you need to fix in order
to address those patterns. The next step is to routinely practice the corrected
pronunciation.
3.
Find
a Partner.
If
possible, find a language exchange partner as soon as you can. Ideally this is
someone you can meet in person twice or three times a week. If finding a
partner in person is not allowed, you can consider hiring an online tutor, who
can guide you in speaking. There are many online tutoring companies that offer
Chinese speaking lessons. Some of the best websites include MeetMandarin and
italki.
Italki
is good because you are allowed to choose from a range of options. You can
carry on a casual talk with your language partners randomly. For a long term, professional
lessons by one-on-one private teachers are recommended. You might consider
MeetMandarin. The teachers give you a free assessment of your studies and
organize best plan to fits your levels and needs. The course rates are more
fair and reasonable compared with other online institutions.
4.
Listen
as Much as You Can.
You
will find it helpful to listen to a variety of audio in Chinese; podcasts,
movies, TV shows, and the radio are good options for this. Additionally, you
can listen to the range of native speakers’ accents and voices to learn how the
Chinese language is consistent from one person to another. Think of it as
training your ears to the music of Chinese, just like a musician! Listening to
Chinese every day should be a fun and easy task to accomplish. Look for movie
and TV shows in genres you already enjoy watching.
For
a more formal listening lesson with dialogues, vocabulary words and a few pop-up
quizzes, you can try iChinesePoscast
which is completely free to use!
5.
Think
Natively
As
a language learner, you should have a sense of how culture and the way people
think and interact influence the language. We all know that there are many
phrases in a language that you can’t translate word for word. Sometimes,
language just goes beyond literal translations. The Chinese language also
reflects its culture and what is socially acceptable. One of the most effective
way is to improve your speaking is to try changing your entire train of thought
into Chinese. You can do this more explicitly in several ways, such as counting
in Chinese, describing what you’re currently doing in Chinese or weighting pros
and cons of certain choices in Chinese.
Speaking Chinese fluently isn’t as impossible to achieve
as you might think. However, it requires a lot of work. You will need to master
listening, speaking, and all the fun, complex grammar that goes along with
developing those skills. Hope anyone who’s motivated enough can reach
conversational fluency reasonably fast!
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