I’m not fluent in Mandarin yet, and I don’t have any official certificates or credentials, I’m still learning and refining as I go. Everything I’ve written on these grammar pages reflects what I’ve studied so far and what I’m continuing to work on. Please feel free to fact-check anything or do your own research to make sure it all checks out.
(And if you spot a mistake, don’t hesitate to correct me!)
All of my grammar breakdowns are written in Pinyin (Romanized version of mandarin with tones). Since I don’t plan to learn how to read Chinese, you won’t find Chinese characters here. If your goal is to take the HSK or learn to read Chinese, I recommend supplementing this with another resource, or even using ChatGPT to study grammar in more depth.
(You can also check out the r/languagelearning and r/LearnJapanese subreddits for more resources, recommendations, and advice.)
I try to explain grammar as clearly and simply as I can. If anything is confusing, ChatGPT is a great tool for breaking down concepts further, testing your understanding, or generating example sentences. You can also check out my weekly progress updates and study vlogs to see how I practice and learn.
Each week, I post a weekly progress page for Mandarin (and any other language I’m studying), including a quick video of me speaking or weekly update, a small reflection of the week, the criteria for my current rank, my notes, and test results, mistakes and all:
👉 Weekly Language Progress Updates
There’s probably a more “official” or “efficient” way to learn Mandarin grammar (fortunately there’s not a lot of rules), but I’ve organized these pages in the order I personally believe should be learned first and would recommend to other learners.
I’ve never really taught before, nor do I consider myself especially good at explaining things, but my goal is to make these pages as clear and beginner-friendly as possible. I’m constantly trying to figure out how much context and information to include, so that readers can understand without feeling overwhelmed or needing to drastically their mindset, or change how they naturally learn.
Thanks for being patient with me 🙏, and I hope the content here is helpful on your own language journey!