These days, you can learn how to do just about anything online. From business fundamentals to sewing, teaching to astronomy – there are even online driver’s education courses! When it comes to learning Chinese online, the opportunities are endless. Hundreds of companies, universities, and online apps offer online courses in Mandarin, but they are not all alike. If you’re trying to find the best way to learn Mandarin Chinese online, you should consider these helpful tips.
Evaluate Your Needs and Background
Before you start researching courses, figure out your needs and goals.
How much money do you want to spend? How much time? What kind of background do you have in Mandarin?
It’s also important to figure out why you want to learn Mandarin in the first place. You will want to make sure the online language program you select matches your goals. If you want to speak Mandarin to relatives living in China, your needs will likely be different than if you just want to learn enough Mandarin to get by in a conversation with a stranger in the United States.
Explore All Options
The days of sitting in a classroom to learn a new language are now moments of the past. There are now countless ways you can learn Mandarin online.
You can enroll in online classes through a university, although this tends to be the most cost-prohibitive option. Plus, the learning materials are gone once you finish the course.
There are also MOOC (massive open online courses) you can enroll in, but since these are often free, they only brush the surface of language learning and don’t help you get into the nuts and bolts of the language.
Other options include online tutoring (which can be frustrating if you need help once the tutor has finished for the day) and apps.
Explore all of the options and their various benefits and disadvantages before you enroll in a program – and know that there are some programs, like Mandarin Reading Club, that offer the best of all of these components and tools.
Know the Difference Between Learning and Remembering
There is a difference between learning something once and remembering it for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, many online courses in all subjects – not just Mandarin – focus on learning something once, often just enough to scrape by on a test or quiz.
However, if you want to remember a language for the rest of your life, you need to find ways to retain that information. What’s the point of learning Mandarin if you forget it as soon as the class is done?
The major challenge for many students learning Mandarin is that they don’t have enough opportunities to practice the language in real life. To truly learn, you need to know how to read the language so you can constantly expose yourself to new learning opportunities and material – and you need to learn the proper pronunciation and actual usage of the language, too.
Use the Mandarin Reading Club
Without a doubt, if you are looking for the best way to learn Mandarin Chinese online, look no further than the Mandarin Reading Club. You’ll have access to both in-person tutoring as well as other resources that will teach you how to read on your own so that the learning can continue once the tutor signs off.
The Mandarin Reading Club offers a variety of resources so you can learn on your own, with content covering various topics like STEM geography, fiction, nature, culture, and more. You’ll graduate from this program with the skills necessary to read and converse in Mandarin – for the rest of your life!
