Mandarin · Chapter 1 · Lesson 1 · Introduction
Introduction to Mandarin
Read this first. The orientation: how Mandarin works, what it costs in hours, what the apps get wrong, and how to use this curriculum.
The short version
- FSI Category V, the hardest band there is - around 2,200 hours. That is four times Spanish, and worth knowing before you start rather than after.
- The difficulty is unevenly distributed. The grammar is genuinely simple: no gender, no plurals, no conjugation, no tenses.
- Tones and characters are the work. Both reward daily drilling far more than they reward long sessions.
- Simplified or Traditional is a fork set by where you are looking - the mainland or Taiwan and Hong Kong.
- The wall is around HSK 4, where the character load compounds and the beginner tricks stop paying.
Lesson 1 of 8 in this chapter