Do your kids crawl under the table and say, “I don’t want to learn anymore,” whenever it’s time to learn Chinese?
Do your teenagers always fall asleep while trying to memorize tons of Chinese characters?
Or, are you someone who was once interested but now is too bored to read a super long article written in Chinese?
We can totally relate! As fellow Chinese language learners, we know precisely how the outdated way of learning Chinese can make you not interested in learning Chinese anymore. Even if you know having Chinese as your second language is super beneficial.
But, the good news is you don’t have to worry about it anymore!
As education and technology have progressed rapidly, there have been many fun learning methods to make learning more effortless and more enjoyable.
Read on to know five fun ways to learn Chinese—that actually work and have been proven by our own students.
Image: freepik.com
- Use Stories with A Lot of Pictures
When you’re reading an English storybook, do you try to translate each of the words to understand the story, or do you just try to understand what the story is about and guess some of the words that you didn’t understand?
That’s exactly how the storybook will help you or your kids learn Chinese. An exciting story, especially with big pictures in it, will make you want to keep reading to find out how the story will unfold.
While trying to figure out the context of the story, you will recognize the new vocabulary you are exposed to.
We introduce just the right amount of new vocabulary in a short story, so our students do not get overwhelmed and not learn anything.
- Ask engaging questions
Another effective way to memorize new vocabulary is through storytelling and answering questions related to the story.
By re-telling the story you have just read, it will help you to understand the story comprehensively. And as a bonus, you will memorize the new vocabulary while telling or answering the questions related to the story.
- Play Word Games
This method is our elementary students’ favorite. There are many types of games to test your memory of new vocabularies: guess the meaning, guess the words, draw the line, complete the words, or even crosswords.
To keep our students motivated, points and rewards are also given to those who can get the correct answer.
- Sing along to the Chinese songs
This is also one of the most fun ways to learn Chinese vocabulary. You can try with the most popular Chinese movie soundtrack nowadays: Reflection from Disney’s Mulan Mandarin Version. Or you can start with songs as simple as 新年好 (Xīnnián hǎo), the kids’ Chinese New Year song.
- Watch Chinese cartoons
Still related to the previous point, we usually reward our students by letting them watch a short cartoon dubbed in Chinese at the end of the class. Like learning new vocabularies through stories and beautiful pictures, watching Chinese cartoons also helps students learn how to use the vocabularies in daily conversations.
Summary
If you or your kids think that Mandarin is challenging and too dull to learn, the wrong learning method might be the case. There are many fun ways of learning Mandarin that can keep you motivated and end up memorizing a lot of Characters without even realizing it. You can use a story with a lot of pictures, play word games, and even sing along to Chinese songs.
About MandarinBoss
If you are currently looking for a place that provides fun and effective ways to learn Mandarin, you can choose MandarinBoss! Here in MandarinBoss, we strive to build a fun learning method and environment to keep you or your kids eager to learn. We customize the curriculum based on our students’ current knowledge level and establish an effective learning method to help them achieve the learning goal.
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Written by: Suci Fransiska