Welcome to Jiāotán

Hi friend! My name is Andrew and I made this site as a personal roadmap to help me with learning Chinese. It can be difficult and confusing to understand all the learning content out there on the web so I found mapping out the tools and approach for language learning was a big help. While this is my personal tool kit, of course I am very happy to share with you and see if the tools and links here can also help you in your Chinese language study.

Jiāotán or in hanzi, 交谈 - means 'chat'. I thought this was an appropriate name because getting yourself to the point of being able to have a simple 'chat' in your target language is an important milestone to becoming conversational.

Let me say right away that I am no Mandarin expert - I'm still a beginner! I built this site to help me overcome my personal obstacles in my Mandarin journey. So you might get more from the tools and content here if you are still starting out like me rather than if you are a more advanced student.

While it's true I am a beginner with my Chinese, I have been 'begining' now for quite a long time (I am embarrassed to admit it is measured in the years)! During all this time I have had several stops and starts and in-between I have done quite a lot of research into why it takes me so long, how I can speed up my language acquistion and what I can do better to stay motivated. I have also scoured the web for all kinds of free and paid content to help me in my quest. The good news is there are 1.4 billion people speaking this language so there is no shortage of content!

If you take a look at the Approach section I talk about the approach I have finally settled on and how it seems to be work for me. You will also find links to videos with tips, tricks and various methods for learning new languages. It can be helpful and interesting to understand the methods of learning just as much as the language content and vocabulary itself.

My method, which is a custom mix of language learning approaches, may work for you too or you may find a different mixed approach works better. Everyone has their own prefernces so either way I hope I have gathered enough different types of content and 'inputs' here for you to use as building blocks so you can build your own personalised language training regime.

In the Toolkit section you will find several hand picked vocabulary lists for various stages of your learning. The goal here is not to be comprehensive but provide just enough tools in your toolkit to get you started in a conversation and keep you there.

The Inputs section has lots of links to various forms of Mandarin input. I have categorised content into different mediums and use cases. Please note that all the external content I link to is owned and produced by the respective owners. I am not responsible for it, I am merely cataloguing it here for my own convenience (and yours). If you enjoy and get value from this content you should defintiely provide feedback to the original artists and producers and support them with likes, follows, purchases, good will and patreon sponsorships.

Finally, the Schedules section is my attempt to provide you with some tools and patterns to help your build your discipline and language learning routines. Consistency is key here - take it from someone who has had many stops and starts. If you don't get into a regular learning rythm you will find it tough. Use these tools to build a schedule that works for you, with the content that works for you.

As for this site, everything here, all the tools and lists I have personally built, are free for you to use for your personal language learning journey. Please don't resell or claim to own any of my content, designs or formats - it's here for the language learning community. I may, at some point, include some unobtrusive web ads to help pay for internet hosting but hopefully that will be it.

If you have any ideas or want to help out with creating and publishing Mandarin learning content feel free to contact me using the link below.

Welcome again - I hope I can provide some help and motivation to you for your Chinese language journey - there are more than 1.4 billion Chinese speakers on this planet of ours - so let's take this adventure together and get chatting with them!