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Comment by prehistacct123 | Hacker News Reader

people need to go massive input either in country or online

having actually learnt to the point of watching news tv shows and reading chinese forums i can say that going the classroom or exam route is a waste of time and money

learn the top 50 to 70 chars then start watching dual subtitled programs like cctv4

do it actively meaning pausing rewinding attempting to read subtitles before the speaker etc but never touch a dictionary in flow only much later if you couldnt figure from context repeatedly ie greater than 6 7 context attempts fail

1.5 years and you will be much ahead of anyone else

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I echo this approach.

If it is not for the hollywood movies/western RPGs, I won't find my inner calling to conquer English at all. I picked up writing by simply want to have a reasonable discussion with people on the Reddit (well, that was years ago, not sure it is possible nowadays).

To some degree, I see there is similarity between how human/algorithm approaches language. The trick is always data-driven: expose yourself/model more to the true distribution, which in this case the society where the language is used natively, the more the better.

It's clearly worked for you because you are using what I would consider very idiomatic phrases. Good job, this is obviously not easy to do.

Hi, that cctv4 looks like a great resource; thanks! Can you recommend any others? Are there archives of cctv4?

youtube has cctv4 shows going back years and also livestreams

https://m.youtube.com/user/cctvch

i learnt chinese pretty much just watching Homeland Dreamland 远方的家 and Across China 走遍中国 from about 2016 to mid 2017 after which i was able to watch purely chinese shows without english subtitles

these are travel and tech shows so you learn about people places and lot more than just the language

also keeps it fresh and never boring so you never lose motivation for long

100s of hours of content all dual subtitled

This is the ultimate site for learning colloquial, idiomatic Chinese IMO (it has other languages too):

https://www.viki.com/explore?country=china

It has a huge database of modern Chinese TV shows (ranging from ancient dramas to modern CSI-esque crime).

But the greatest part about it is that it has a "learn mode" that provides instant translations when you hover over characters you don't know, and pauses the show automatically [1].

[1]https://support.viki.com/hc/en-us/articles/231829048

Highly recommended.

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