I posted a short video of my 3 year progress

Mandarin 普通话
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Today marks exactly 3 years from the day I signed up for my first Chinese course, studying Beginning Chinese. I’ve studied at least an hour pretty much every day since then. I thought I’d make a video of me speaking to record my progress. I’m not reading from a paper or anything, just trying to speak from my mind. Feel free to point out any mistakes or problems.

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Love that Phil, very well done mate! Keep it up and you’ll pass that HSK4 and 5 in no time.

You have a gift many don’t have… you’ve got Mandarin on your doorstep, 24/7! Keep using it and keep smashing it!

Great share :v:

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Well done. And great tones and pronunciation too.
Something to be proud of. 加油

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Awesome achievement! :slight_smile:

好好学习天天向上！

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This is so awesome! Thanks for sharing this Phillip!

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First thing I noticed: great pronunciation!! Studying one hour a day for the past 3 years is a great achievement, and what a determination you’ve got :muscle: you’ll definitely pass the next HSK exams brilliantly

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I love this! Awesome! also really cool to see your neighbourhood :slight_smile:

I have also just passed 3 years of study :smiley: maybe I will record something similar and show you guys Taipei :slight_smile:

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And maybe I’ll do the same from Chinatown here in London!

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Thanks for all the positive feedback!

Yes

Yes

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@Feng2.Zhe2-HSK_4_plus :+1: :sunglasses:
Give me another year to speak freely ;-).
In the meantime, I’ll continue with my best tip for “practising speaking”:
I talk to myself every day and check if Google understands me, and if not, why. (Google’s problem, or if mine: pronunciation or not the usual grammar or expression…)

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While that sounds like a good idea @Sonja-Mandarin-HSK_3, don’t try that with Siri… English is my first language and Siri doesn’t understand me, so I never use it in English. :woman_shrugging: :laughing:

Well done @Feng2.Zhe2-HSK_4_plus!

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I have heard that WeChat voice input “gets used” to your pronunciation and will guess the word based on your pronunciation. So, therefore it may not be reliable as a guage for checking whether you are on or off. It may be the same with google. This is just something I heard somewhere, so take it with a grain of salt.

I have also tested WeChat mandarin input by saying one word purposely wrong in a sentence but it still puts in the right character. However, I have also tried things like Shui4Jiao4 and Shui3jiao3, lian4xi2 and lian2xi4 - it distinguishes them correctly every time.

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That’s interesting. Google never understood my zh, but does now. And also, of course google tries to understand what could be the sense of my sentence and will ignore my pronunciation for the sense’s sake. :wink: Infact I am “already” quite “disappointed” with google. It doesn’t know much grammar and ignores if I want to say “not the usual thing”.
But still, it is good for checking easy things, to check the very easy ways to say something.
I also use DeepL - it has no pinyin and no audio, but it is way better in translation and even gives alternatives
Google audio:

  • it is often quicker to dictate in Ch, E, D, for my flashcards,
  • I check quickly by audio whether I remember the right tone/ character.
    E.g. this morning:
    whether I cut my daughter’s hair or fried it in a pan. (剪头发，煎头发) :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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因为学习了越南语才有机会来到这个forum，没想到看到这个视频。Philip的中文水平让我觉得很吃惊，发音吐字非常清晰，各种连词使用地也非常准确，而且是即兴地演说，在没有任何准备地情况下，能表达的这么流利、准确，绝对超出了3级的水平。
Amazing！I was surprised by Philip’s Chinese level. His pronunciation was very clear and his use of various conjunctions was very accurate. He was able to express himself so fluently and accurately without any preparation, which is definitely beyond the level 3.