So I noticed that during the first lockdown of spring 2020 I was doing a lot of these wacky video diaries, sort of vlogs from just my bedroom where I was just documenting what I was doing.

So I thought, you know, I might as well do it again.

So here it is and today I thought I'd tell you guys a little story and yeah, I'm going to do it in my pajamas because that was kind of, you know, that's what's up just to get everything straight.

What exactly do I mean when I say that I learned chinese in 10 months in the school year 2018 to 2019 I did a study a branch in Beijing china for you guessed it 10 months.

And at the end of my exchange I achieved the Hsk A five level of chinese, which is the second highest level of chinese that one can achieve.

And I'm not claiming that my chinese was ever on that level.

I think I passed the exam with my slightly higher Hsk a four level of chinese and a lot of kind of relying on my sixth sense of what answer could be right based on what I already know, but I guess that counts as well.

So here's how I did it.

It's safe to say that I wouldn't be able to achieve it without two main things.

First of all, physically being in china, living with a host family and spending my, you know, day to day life amongst only almost only chinese people seeing signs and mandarin on the street every day has already helped me so much because it's immersion when you're surrounded by a foreign language everywhere, you kind of have no other option than to start learning it because well instinctively you always want to make your quality of life better easier.

So yeah of course of course you're going to learn the language and second of all I had such good teachers, they were absolute angels when it came to explaining thoroughly sentence structure, different grammar points, it was just amazing.

So shout out to lille Asher and yellow shirt because they taught me everything, everything that I know.

So for the first five months I was in the International Department of my high school in Beijing which also by the way I should mention was one of the top 10 high schools in all Beijing.

So it was quite a big deal that they let us do our exchange there there in the international department, I would learn chinese on average every day for six hours, six hours a day of pure chinese, this was our schedule.

These are the days of the week from monday to friday, these are the classes before lunch and after lunch.

The red squares where's in dhaka or an intensive reading class where we would learn new characters, new vocabulary, read chinese texts, write stories completely in chinese characters, try to remember like a three page text and then in 10 minutes retailer to the teacher, this class was sometimes really hardcore, but honestly it was one of my favorite ones because I just learned so much in that class.

My brain was never more challenged when it comes to language learning.

So I owe a lot to the methods of my teacher and launcher that she, she was just able to teach me so much holy fun, it was fun, it was, oh my God, it was so much fun.

This class were so much fun.

The green squares where coal you cook or conversation classes where the teacher would either put us in different situations where we'd have to use new vocabulary in different scenarios with her or with our classmates.

I think it was also the class that was the most focused on grammar overall and again, our teacher lee lasher, she was so good at explaining grammar quickly the blue squares were fiandaca or more chilled out reading classes where we cover some more not that important reading exercises, The yellow squares were to asia or reading and writing classes, where I think the class was just all about us, perfecting our, you know, orientation in chinese characters ability.

Um, also the teacher was super bad ass because she had a high proficiency in chinese japanese korean and she knew basics in english.

So like that's badass.

Okay then the pink squares this year where self study classes or classes without a t shirt where we would either just like do our homework that we didn't want to do at home or straight up just sleep because some days were really just exhausting that it would just sleep for those 15 minutes of the class.

Yeah, I think actually they knew that self study was the best class, the best fix for a mandarin students sleep deprivation and then the rest was just pe or some art or culture classes, Hsuehshan which was learning math, vocabulary and math itself in chinese, which I did not enjoy a bit and if I'm correct from that class, I still remember Poundland, which is multiple choice and then king kong which is fill in the blank, I think I really like the international department because all the teachers, there were super kind and they had the determination to teach us as much chinese as possible, but also to make us all comfortable in this new country, this new environment where everybody was alone without anybody that they knew prior to the exchange, there were korean people, japanese people thai people to girls from Sudan me and other people from europe and with that kind of, you know, intensive learning as I said six hours a day from monday to friday, I was able to start feeling comfortable in daily conversations in mandarin after my first four months.

So it took me four months until I got like, until I kind of like cracked my shell and was like, oh I can actually express myself now.

What also really helped was that in my class there was only five people, so the teacher was really able to answer every question and give attention to each student individually which also helped so much.

Now I'm gonna show you guys the textbooks that I myself have used during those 10 months.

Now, I can't really tell you that these are the books that you know, I can think to for my success.

No because I don't really know if what I learned what I achieved in those 10 months was thanks to those textbooks or thanks to my teachers that were able to apply the exercises in the textbooks into there, you know, overall curriculum but I know that people are going to be interested.

So these are the ones that I used, these were used for conversation classes.

Really nice textbooks, different situations for conversations, a new vocabulary etcetera.

These are the books that were used for intensive reading, probably my favorites because there was so much new vocabulary that you could learn from these books and you know different stories in chinese that were based on the vocabulary that you learned each lesson.

Yeah some more books for reading and writing classes.

I don't really remember these that much.

Also in addition to all the textbooks that we used for learning chinese, I also wrote my own vocabulary books where I you know sort of vocabulary based on different categories.

So if it was an occupation, uh food, electronic school work objectives.

So yeah these were just really handy and I'm just really happy that I did them because it's even helpful now what I'm trying to remember specific word that I can't find in any dictionary.

I just look it up here.

Anyways after me and my friends passed our first five months in the international department, our teachers decided that it might be cool to like put us individually into different chinese classes in the chinese department, full of chinese kids that only spoke chinese, which was actually fine.

So from then on we spent our first five morning classes every day in the chinese department.

And then for the remaining three afternoon classes we would go back to the international department to study more grammar and to just always progress in chinese when it comes to the subjects and teachers and the classes that all the chinese kids had in mandarin, we didn't have to do well in those classes, we didn't have to take tests or anything.

We could participate in the classes and we felt like it but we really didn't have to, our main goal there was to kind of just like listen to the teachers, try to understand as much as possible during the classes and during breaks and lunch we would try to socialize with our chinese classmates, so we would practice our chinese with them and they would practice their english with us.

It was pretty cool.

I met some pretty interesting people there and honestly some friends that I wish that I kept in touch with more after china.

But we didn't really, it's it's really hard anyways during weekends or even weekday sometimes we would go out with my friend Jacob where we would just explore Beijing.

There are so many adventures that we had in Beijing which by the way are all documented here on this channel.

I made a lot of blocks from china so you can definitely check those out and you know subscribe while you're at it, what you're doing, where's that subscribe button that.

But my point is sometimes on the weekends we would still meet up to study even more maybe in a library or in a coffee shop keep going.

Especially before our Hsk exam which was hard time for both of us, me and Jacob but that's I guess the harsh truth of learning a foreign language, you need to put an immense amounts of work because even if you are in that country, being in that country on a student exchange that's one part.

But all the studying and everything that was on us that was our responsibility by the way the H.

S.

K.

Stands for high you shaping culture which means the chinese language proficiency exam.

Uh just if you were wondering would Hs what what is H.

S.

K.

Stand for?

Too many things were helpful during that exam and that was this official Hsk a vocabulary book.

Uh that is so good.

So for example you have this right so new word this word right here or it means once in a while or occasionally and then immediately here you have example sentences how to use that word in different scenario brilliant this book.

Especially if you're trying to you know, complete your Hsk exam.

Anyway, second thing that really helped is placko, which Klecko is this dictionary on your phone that you can download is the best chinese dictionary ever.

Uh if you have Plec oh you don't need any other chinese dictionary.

And for the end of the video I'd like to give you guys some chinese tips for those who are maybe thinking about trying to learn chinese or for those of you who already picked it up.

Some tips that maybe your teachers or textbooks won't put emphasis on right away a lot of times in mandarin when foreigners want to express that they didn't understand something or they want the person to repeat.

They're often taught the phrase what what in Bhutan which literally means I can't understand, I can't understand what you're saying.

But that phrase kind of also means that you don't really know how to speak chinese.

If you say that to someone, he's automatically gonna assume that okay so let me switch to english.

So it's not the perfect phrase for when you want to practise your chinese with other people.

So if you want to keep talking to them in chinese and practice your chinese with them you can say something like I'm sorry.

How is while mating thing?

True I didn't hear it clearly boo.

How is while mating thing to or you can say uh that's really please say it again or you can combine it uh How is while mating sing two tunes actually being and then everybody is gonna want to talk to, everybody is gonna let you practice your chinese with them.

There's a way to count in chinese from 1 to 10 only on one hand.

And I know it might sound sleep but it actually comes in handy.

And uh Why did I do that?

It actually comes in pretty useful and people really use it throughout all China.

So we have 12345.

Pretty self explanatory.

Then you have 6789 and 10.

Pretty easy.

Nothing hard.

Then with the chinese pronunciation of the numbers it would be E.

R.

Sense leo T shirt when you're in like a busy marketplace and you can't really hear the shopkeeper, they can't really hear you.

They don't know if you want one apple or seven apples.

Just show them on your hand while you're shouting at them.

Anyways I feel like I should end this video.

It's already long enough and by the way do you know what time it is?

It's 4 13 am.

Do I have a sleep schedule?

What?

Mhm.

Anyways, let me know, you know if you like this video, let me know if you would like more language themed videos if I should make more because I quite enjoy it.

I love languages and I like talking about languages.

So let me know in the comments, leave the like under this video, subscribe to the channel.

Check out more of my videos and I will see you guys next week because I definitely are doing weekly uploads.

Yeah.

Yeah.