大家好！Hi everyone! 😊 It’s the time for setting goals for the New Year. I like to set 10 goals for each year, which includes my one(s) for language learning. My suggestion for language learning is to pick a big, inspiring goal, then break it down into realistic, achievable chunks. This year (aside from maintaining my Mandarin of course!) my goal is to re-gain my fluency in speaking French. 🗣️🇫🇷 I learnt French for years in school and reached a decent intermediate level. However, as the saying goes, if you don’t use it you lose it. When I started learning Mandarin, that became my priority and I stopped practicing French almost completely. Therefore, over the years, my French passive knowledge has remained but my active skills of speaking and writing have diminished greatly. So my plan this year is to change that! I have a trip to Marseille booked in May and I would love to be able to speak more confidently and fluently again by that time. My approach is going to be… ✅Step 1: Shadowing practice to improve pronunciation and intonation (I already do a lot of this using apps / podcasts/ videos etc., but I want to practice more regularly.) ✅ Step 2: Speak with others and get feedback (This is the biggest area I need to work on!) ✅ Step 3: Daily immersion (I listen to French music a lot! But I need to incorporate more speaking immersion into my daily/weekly routine). ⭐️My big, inspiring goal is: Speak French more fluently by May. 🎯 My smaller, more realistic daily / weekly targets: > Listen to French podcasts a few times a week. (Comprehensible input). > Shadow French phrases/sentences several times a week. (Using apps/textbook audios/youtube videos/ podcasts etc.) > Find a language partner and practice speaking French with them, with feedback. > Speak out loud to myself in French more often e.g. narrating my daily activities, express my thoughts out loud using French. This can help me to realise very quickly what I can and can’t say. 📝 You can use our Weekly Checklist resource to help you plan your smaller targets and make consistent progress towards your goal this year: https://trusty-weekly-flow.lovable.app

Join us this Saturday for a FREE live Study Buddy call where you can listen to real Mandarin, practise speaking, and ask questions in a relaxed, supportive space. This session is especially helpful if you’re a beginner or not fully confident speaking yet. Our topics will be: 1. Describing yourself and others (appearance + personality etc.) 2. Giving opinions on things e.g. your hobbies, things you like and dislike + why. 3. Asking people about their hobbies, likes, dislikes etc. Comment below if you’re planning to come along! + Any questions you have. To support you in preparing for the session, feel free to check out the resources in our Free Essentials course in the classroom tab. Look forward to seeing some of you there! 星期六见！See you Saturday!

Hi everyone! I’ve been working on something really valuable that will help everyone with their learning. I have created a ‘Mandarin Weekly Focus Checklist.’ 👉 https://trusty-weekly-flow.lovable.app It's a Weekly Checklist that gives Mandarin learners a clear process to work toward fluency, one week at a time. This will help people with busy lives, who don't feel they have enough time to make the progress they want with learning Mandarin. The Checklist is something you can go back to weekly, and update. Making sure that even the smallest amount of practice daily is all it takes to make progress, week on week. The Checklist will also help you keep up good habits, and build consistency. Please take a look and let me know your thoughts, I think this will be really helpful for a lot of you! If you have any questions please just ask :) P.S - You can also find it in the "classroom" section tab, at the top. This is where it will stay so you can find it.

We have now reached over 300 members on Trusty Chinese! Huge thank you to everyone in the community and your contributions. 💜 The community is growing faster than I ever expected and it’s amazing to interact with so many people excited the learning Mandarin! If you have a moment, reflect of this (and maybe share!): What’s one thing you’re proud of since starting your Mandarin learning journey? 🤔

Step 1: Learn a new word (written + spoken). Step 2: See it applied in an example sentence. (Context). Step 3: Choose a skill to practice: A. Write your own sentence using the key word + submit for feedback. B. Listen + repeat the example sentence for pronunciation practice (shadowing) + submit for feedback. C. Write the example sentence to practice characters + submit for feedback. 生词 New word：健康 jiàn kāng = healthy/ health E.g. 运动很健康。 他的生活方式不健康。