Just a quick one before the New Year, I think it’s amazing that there are so many of you inside the community now. I started this community unsure about if people would join, but the growth has been far bigger than I expected. So thank you. 🙏 As we have a lot of new members. I wanted to say that my goal for this community is of course to provide value, and help everyone reach their Mandarin learning goals. 🎯 But also, I want this to be a space where people can communicate with others on the same journey, from all over the world. With the same goal. Connect with people and grow. It’s great to have the regulars who have been in the community for a while, engaging and connecting. But I really encourage others to join in, it’s such a powerful tool. With the messages in feed, and the group calls I host. Thanks again everyone. Can’t wait to see everyone’s progress in 2026! 🎉

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

A short post about Christmas in Chinese! Christmas is not a national holiday in China, nor is it widely celebrated as a religious festival there (although there are Chinese Christians who will celebrate it as such). It’s most celebrated as a commercial holiday. One way that people celebrate Christmas is by gifting apples, often with messages carved into them or with decorations. I’ve attached some images below! This is because of a play on words, which are very common in Mandarin!: 平安夜 píng ān yè = peaceful night = Christmas Eve. 苹果 píng guǒ = apple. Both characters for píng in these words shared the same component 平. (The one in apple just has the ‘grass’ radical on top of it too). These Christmas apples are known as 平安果 (Peace apples). Some other Christmas key words: 过 guò - to pass/celebrate 庆祝 qìng zhù - to celebrate 圣诞节 shèng dàn jié - Christmas 祝你 zhù nǐ - wish you 圣诞快乐 shèng dàn kuài lè - Christmas happy > Happy Christmas 和家人一起 hé jiā rén yī qǐ - with family 送礼物 sòng lǐ wù - give presents/gifts 吃圣诞大餐 chī shèng dàn dà cān - eat Christmas dinner 教堂 jiào táng - church So, to everyone celebrating Christmas, 我祝你们 圣诞快乐！🎄🎉

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.

Welcome to the November monthly challenge! This month we’re focusing on speaking/writing in Mandarin everyday. Each day I will ask you a question (spoken + written), you need to use my tips to produce an answer to the question (spoken / written). When you’ve prepared your answer, submit it below + I will give you feedback go work on (e.g. grammar, tones, word choice etc.) ❓Question for today: 你有兄弟姐妹吗？(Do you have siblings?) ⭐️ Tips: Change ‘you’ to ‘I’, then add ‘have/don’t have’ and the siblings words. (In the word ‘sibling’ we use 兄 as older brother. But usually in modern Mandarin, we use 哥哥 for older brother when it’s used separately.) Remove ‘ma’ because it’s no longer a question. 💪 Extra challenge: Say how many you have (number + measure word + sibling word). You can introduce their name / age / hobbies etc. 🧠 Remember - use Pleco / YellowBridge.com to search for words you don’t know but would like to use! 有 (have) is one of our 7 power verbs! If you want to learn how to get the most out of this verb and be able to make hundreds of useful sentences, find the cheat sheet in the FREE essentials course, then learn more about the full course by clicking on the Mandarin Unlocked course in the classroom.