I want to learn Chinese after Japanese. I am not in China and there are no Chinese language schools nearby. Is my plan good? + a little Japanese rant

[gintama]

4 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

TheChairMansBao has short news articles that are fun and enjoyable to read. They have difficulty ratings from HSK 1-HSK6+. You can review your vocabulary and grammar with their APP and learn them as you go along. The TheChairMansBao also has an audio recording for every article

WOW that sounds amazing! I took a quick look and it sounds promising!

 

4 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

I would not bother with ChineseZerotoHero unless you absolutely want to study for an HSK level or HSK exam. If you just want to learn Chinese, there are other resources, which are not as confined to the HSK curriculum.

I see. True with all the others I don't feel like it has a need anymore. The only reason I picked up HSK standard course was because ChineseZerotoHero uses them. Yes I only want to learn chinese I don't really care about HSK. I looked around and integrated Chinese is recommended a lot so I think I might start with it

 

Thank you!

 

[roddy]

The useful thing about the HSK exams is that it forces you to keep all your skills up - you have to do some reading, some listening, etc. You can't ignore anything. If you are conscientious enough to do that yourself, fine. But lots of people find it useful to have an exam in the calendar for that reason. You don't necessarily need to use HSK textbooks, although it would obviously be useful to at least look at some materials before the exam. 

[gintama]

26 minutes ago, roddy said:

If you are conscientious enough to do that yourself, fine.

Currently, I care about them all but I can't guarantee that I won't lose track midway. I guess I will tell my teacher to keep an eye on me lol.

I guess I want to take it eventually just to challenge myself. But right now in the next couple of years, I think I would better focus on actual language skills

 

Thank you a lot! you have been replying to all of my questions I can't thank you enough!

[Flickserve]

33 minutes ago, gintama said:

I think I would better focus on actual language skills

It’s good you can keep focussed on your objectives of listening and speaking.
 

Sometimes I think there is so much material, it’s hard to get organised and just pick a few resources to work on. I guess humans by nature are always a bit over zealous in getting material. I haven’t done much reading myself, just mainly concentrate on listening and a bit on speaking. 

[gintama]

3 minutes ago, Flickserve said:

Sometimes I think there is so much material, it’s hard to get organised and just pick a few resources to work on.

Absolutely agree. I have two weeks until my finals are done so I am using this period to choose carefully. I used to be a perfectionist -still am but to a lesser degree-, and I found that choosing one thing no matter how bad and sticking to it is the key to success. That is why I want to choose wisely and spend the money to start learning. Because once I start I don't plan on changing anything until I am done with them, then evaluate myself and go from there. I know this might not be the best approach but I have noticed that if I gave myself the chance, I would be changing resources each time.

 

Right now, I have narrowed them down to:

1. Anki
2. integrated Chinese textbooks + workbooks
3. For speaking and writing: italki
4. For listening and reading: du chinese

 

I feel like those are enough to be well-rounded. I will stick to them until I finish integrated Chinese then evaluate my progress

 

Thank you everybody

[Lu]

2 hours ago, Flickserve said:

I guess humans by nature are always a bit over zealous in getting material.

Buying textbooks instead of studying them is a form of procrastination. Don't fall for it! An hour of studying from a mediocre textbook is still better than ten hours of searching for and buying better textbooks.