Language Learning Recommendation: Children’s Videos and Playlists for Learning Chinese
Last updated September 5th, 2025
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Hello everyone, I wanted to share with you all some videos I have used to learn Mandarin Chinese that are geared towards children. I think it’s important to practice using children’s media, especially as an intermediate or beginner because it will create a great foundation to build off of. It also helps with listening and pronunciation because the narrators often speak very clearly and at a medium to slow pace.
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Vegetarian Wolf 不吃肉的大灰狼
by Little Chinese Learners
Very simple, beginner friendly language
Has Pinyin as CC subtitles
Very slow pronunciation
Has English subtitles
Only uses simplified characters
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Mandarin AniBooks by BookBox | Official Playlist
by BookBoxInc
12 videos
Slow and medium paced pronunciation
Has Pinyin and English as CC subtitles, but both cannot be displayed at the same time.
Only uses simplified characters
Book Box also offers many other languages. There are a few for smaller languages indigenous to India, conlangs, and few in other more popular languages that only got one or two videos.
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Little Fox Chinese
I recommend these selected playlists for intermediate learners and above, but this channel has plenty of beginner friendly videos and songs, as well as other playlists of stories I did not include. There is no Pinyin or English subtitles on any of the videos listed, but all of them have simplified Chinese subtitles except for “Journey to the West”.
grabbed all of the ebook versions of the folger shakespeare library's annotated versions of shakespeare's plays (+sonnets and poems) and put them all in one place in case anyone is interested
大家好, I finally get to share this spreadsheet I put together for Mandarin. \(ovo)/
A bunch of Mandarin Resources are linked within, I tried to base it off of a wonderful spreadsheet made by Dreaming Spanish users that linked a ton of Spanish resources.
However you are studying Mandarin, I hope there's something useful in here for you!
And if you have suggestions of specific Mandarin resources or media I should add, please let me know! (I already linked Heavenly Path's resources, Pleco, and Readibu by linking directly to them).
❥ pairing: sugar daddy/ceo!sylus qin x assistant!reader
❥ summary: “She has spent three years loving a man she cannot have. He has spent three years wanting a woman he won’t allow himself to reach for — until the day he decides, quietly and without hesitation, to reach anyway. What neither of them realises is that they’ve been finding each other all along. She just doesn’t know he’s the one on the other side of the screen yet.”
❥ genre: fluff + angst + smut (18+ mdni)
❥ word count: 50K+??? (I am insane and not normal about sylus <3)
❥ status: COMPLETED - 1st of April
❥ warnings/tags: sugar daddy!sylus, alternative universe, ceo!sylus, yearning/longing, sylus is 39 in this, assistant!reader, sugar baby!reader, power imbalance, eventual boss/employee relationship, idiots in love, mild hurt/comfort, emotional/sensitive!reader, very long fic, banter, sylus the rage baiter. mutual masturbation, sexting, size difference. reader is shorter than sylus. reader is always audhd coded in my writing but anyone can read it. sylus is soft for reader, flirting/teasing, inexperienced/virgin!reader. dry humping, grinding, loss of virginity, unprotected sex, piv sex, soft!dom sylus, just in overall soft!sylus. sub!reader, vaginal fingering, oral (f!receiving), multiple orgasms, creampie, overstimulation, size kink, full on daddy kink… I mean… it’s a sugar daddy au. so… <3, oral fixation, breeding kink, praise kink, pet names (kitten. sweetie. sweetheart etc.), multiple sex positions, pleasure dom!sylus, aftercare. mc loves the color pink a lot.
⟶ a/n: HIIIIII here I am with a new fic. as of the moment I am writing this it's still a wip. this fic is probably gonna be over 60k words. either way I still wanted to share the post on tumblr already. I always wanted to write a sugar daddy au BUT didn't find inspiration until RECENTLY. so in the lads server I'm in they are currently doing a 'kink bingo'. it's a little event that writers can participate and write a story around a certain trope. I went with sugar daddy 🤭💖 I said I wasn't gonna write for a while but what can I say… sylus brainrot. he's literally my muse. EITHER way. I hope you enjoy this story. 🥺💖 for anyone wondering… this is how I imagine sylus his build. either way I never know how to write fic in a short format so enjoy another lengthy fic from me again! also because I don’t wanna post it in parts you’ll have a sneakpeek on tumblr but to read the story in its full length you’ll have to head to ao3. thank you and I hope y'all love it as much as I loved writing it! 💘 title inspired by the song 'provider' by sleep token. (I don't normally listen to that type of music but my bestie leah recommended me this song for the fic) 💕💕💕
ps: for anyone wondering… this is how I imagine sylus his build. (without the blood and scratches) 🤭😋🤤🥵🥴🫠😵💫
this goes without saying, but if you don’t like it don’t read it <3
AO3 • masterlist
New York City does not care about your feelings.
This is something you’ve made your peace with over the years — the way it moves around you without slowing down, all noise and glass and cold wind off the Hudson in the early mornings when you’re walking the four blocks from the subway to Linkon Tower, coffee cup in hand, trying to remember if you forwarded that document last night or only dreamed that you did. The city asks nothing of you emotionally. It simply expects you to keep moving.
You are, in this way, well-suited to New York.
What you are less well-suited to — what you have been quietly, privately, catastrophically less well-suited to for approximately three years now — is being in love with your boss.
The elevator opens on the fifty-third floor.
You are fine.
“Good morning.”
His voice reaches you before you’ve fully stepped through the glass doors of the executive suite — low and unhurried, carrying the particular warmth he reserves for very few people, and you are, for reasons that keep you awake sometimes, one of them. Sylus is already at his desk, as he always is, as he has always been every single morning in the three years you’ve worked for him, because the man apparently does not sleep like a normal person. The Manhattan skyline stretches silver and pale behind him through the floor-to-ceiling windows. In the early light, he looks almost painterly — silver hair, dark suit, those red eyes lifting from the document in his hand to find you the moment you walk in, the way they always do, like he has a sense for you specifically.
Like he was waiting.
“Good morning,” you say, and you are very proud of how normal your voice sounds.
“How was the commute?” He asks it with genuine interest, setting his document down, which is one of the things that got you in trouble in the first place. The way he actually listens. The way Sylus, who runs a multi-billion dollar enterprise from this office and commands rooms full of people who are intimidated just by his posture, always has time to ask how your commute was.
“Cold,” you say, unwinding your scarf. “The L train decided this morning was a good time to have an existential crisis.”
“The L train always does that.” He tilts his head slightly. “You should have taken the car.”
“I’m not taking your car to work, Sylus.”
“You could.”
“I know I could. I’m choosing not to.” You drop your bag at your desk and pull out your tablet, already scrolling to his schedule. “It makes me feel like a kept woman.”
The silence that follows is approximately one beat too long.
You look up. Sylus is watching you with an expression you can’t fully decode — something that passed through his eyes too quickly, smoothed back over by the composed, unreadable surface he wears most of the time. The corner of his mouth curves.
“Heaven forbid,” he says mildly, and goes back to his document.
You turn back to your tablet and breathe.
Three years, you remind yourself. You have survived three years of this. You will survive today.
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Here is what three years has taught you about Sylus:
He takes his coffee black, no sugar, too hot for comfort, and he drinks it while standing at the window with Manhattan spread out below him like something he’s quietly fond of. He is pathologically early to everything and has zero patience for people who aren’t, with the single exception of you — for you, he simply comes to find you, appearing at your workspace door with that unhurried patience, as though waiting for you specifically is a different category than waiting in general.
He reads physical documents even though everything could be digital because he thinks better with paper in his hands. He keeps the office two degrees warmer than the building standard because he noticed, in your first winter working for him, that you were always cold. He has never once mentioned this to you directly. You figured it out yourself, six months in, when you checked the building’s climate control records out of sheer curiosity, and you had to sit with that knowledge quietly for a long time afterward.
He is privately, genuinely funny — not the performative wit he turns on in meetings, but something dryer and warmer that surfaces only in the quiet moments, usually aimed at you. He reads in at least four languages. He grew up far from here, far from any of this, and there are moments when something in his expression goes distant and careful and you sense the geography of everything he’s built between himself and whatever came before.
He has never raised his voice at you. Not once. In three years of high-pressure deadlines and impossible situations and the particular chaos that seems to follow a man of his ambition, he has never directed anything at you that wasn’t measured, and considered, and — underneath its careful composure — surprisingly kind.
He is also tall — unreasonably, almost absurdly tall, the kind of tall that means the rest of the world simply exists lower than him — broad-shouldered, white-haired, and red-eyed, and standing next to him, which requires you to tilt your head back at an angle you’ve gotten quietly used to, makes you feel both very small and, inexplicably, very safe.
This is the problem.
This is the entire problem.
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“You have the Meridian Capital call at nine,” you say, following him into his office with your tablet. This is another part of the choreography — the morning briefing, where you trail after him and he listens without looking at you directly, which you have learned means he’s paying the most attention. “Board review at eleven. You have a lunch block—”
“Clear it.”
You glance up. “You specifically asked for that block last week.”
“I know what I asked for last week.” He settles into his chair, leaning back in that easy way of his, long legs stretched under the desk. Even seated, the man is an unfair amount of presence. “Book somewhere for lunch instead. Somewhere quiet — not the Meridian district, I’ll have been on a call with those people for an hour and I’ll want a change of air.” His eyes come to you, and they’re soft in the way they sometimes are when it’s just the two of you and the morning is still early. “Somewhere you’d like. You choose.”
You pause. “You want me to choose.”
“Is that not what I said?”
“You’re very particular about restaurants, Sylus.”
“I’m particular in general,” he concedes. “But I trust your taste.” A brief pause. The softness in his expression doesn’t waver. “Lunch for two, somewhere you’d like. That’s all.”
You look at him for a moment too long — which you do sometimes, which you’ve been doing for three years, and he always holds the look, always lets you, like he has nothing to hide and all the time in the world, which is terrifying because it makes you feel seen — and then you nod and look back at your tablet.
“I’ll find somewhere,” you say.
“I know you will.” He picks up his pen. “You always do.”
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The Meridian call runs long, as you predicted, and you have reorganized two schedules and soothed one very anxious junior analyst by the time it wraps. Sylus emerges from his office at eleven-oh-three, jacket on, expression still and composed from the professional armor he wears in those spaces, and crosses directly to your desk.
He sets a cup of tea down at your elbow.
Your tea — your specific order, the one you’d mentioned offhandedly to him eight months ago and apparently never needed to mention again — brewed at the temperature you like, with the little paper sleeve because the cup gets hot.
“Your eleven o’clock moved to eleven-fifteen,” you tell him, not trusting yourself to acknowledge the tea directly, “which means you have twelve minutes, and also I found a restaurant — it’s on the Upper West Side, French-American, supposed to be very quiet on weekdays—”
“Perfect.” He’s reading something on his phone, already walking, and he pauses at the edge of your workspace and glances back.
“You barely ate this morning.”
You blink. “I ate some cereal. How could you possibly—”
“You have the look,” he says, simply, like this is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. “The one that means you ate something that technically qualified as food and decided it counted.” The faintest curve of his mouth. “It doesn’t count.”
“It absolutely—”
“Book a table for twelve-thirty.” He’s already moving again, unhurried, like the conversation is entirely settled. “I’m not signing a single thing until I know you’ve had a real meal.”
Then he’s gone, moving down the hallway toward the boardroom, and you’re left staring at the empty doorway with your mouth still open and the faint, traitorous warmth of being known so precisely by someone spreading all the way up to your ears.
You close your mouth.
You book the table and then pick up your tea.
It is perfect.
You are in so much trouble.
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The restaurant he lets you choose is a small place tucked between a bookshop and a dry cleaner on West 74th — French in its bones but soft around the edges, the kind of room that smells like butter and old wood and feels completely removed from the city outside. You’re not sure how it stays so quiet in Manhattan. Maybe it exists slightly outside of time.
Sylus ducks slightly to come through the door.
He does this — accommodates the world’s architectures with a patient, practiced ease, as though he accepted a long time ago that most spaces weren’t built for him and has made his peace with it. You notice this more than you should. You notice the way he instinctively adjusts when he’s close to you too — angles himself, shortens his step, never makes you feel like the difference in your heights is anything other than simply the way things are.
The host seats you at a corner table. The light is golden and low.
“This is nice,” Sylus says, and he means it. You’ve gotten good at knowing when he means things.
“I thought you’d like it.” You unfold your menu. “It feels like somewhere you’d eat if you didn’t have to perform anything.”
He goes still for just a moment. Then, quietly: “That’s a very accurate read.”
“Three years,” you say simply.
Something in his expression moves — warm and careful at once, like he’s handling something he doesn’t want to drop. He looks at you across the small table, and in the golden light of this room outside of time he looks different than he does in the office. Younger, almost. Softer. Like the thing he usually holds back with both hands is closer to the surface.
“You’re distracted this week,” he says eventually. Not an accusation — an observation, offered gently, the way he offers you most things. “You hide it well. But I know your face.”
Your heart catches.
I know your face. Said like it’s simply a fact, something true and uncontested, filed away somewhere in him.
“I found something,” you say, because you can never not tell him things, in the end. He does something to your defenses — doesn’t dismantle them, exactly, just makes you feel like they’re not necessary with him, which might be worse. “An apartment. A loft.” You look at your water glass. “I’ve been dreaming about my own place for years. You know how New York is — I’ve been in the same sublet since I moved here, and it’s fine, it’s always been fine, but it’s not mine. Nothing in it is mine.” You smile, self-deprecating. “I walked past a listing last weekend. A loft in the West Village — high ceilings, big windows, exposed brick. There’s a little terrace that looks out over the rooftops and I just — I stood on the sidewalk and looked at it for a long time.”
Sylus is watching you with his full attention — the specific quality of stillness he gets when you’re saying something he wants to remember. His hands are folded on the table. He’s not eating. He’s just listening.
“It needs renovation,” you continue, quieter now. “A lot of it, still. Which is part of why the price is—” You exhale. “The price is a lot. More than a lot. My savings are good, I’ve been careful, but between the listing and the renovation costs it’s just—” You shake your head. “It’s not realistic right now.”
A long pause.
“Tell me about it,” Sylus says.
You blink. “I just—”
“Not the numbers.” His voice is gentle. “The place. Tell me about the loft.”
Oh.
Oh.
You look at him. He looks back, patient and entirely serious, and something in your chest aches in a way you don’t have good language for.
And so you tell him — the arched windows and the way the afternoon light would fall across the floors, the exposed brick that runs the whole length of the far wall, the little wrought-iron terrace barely big enough for two chairs and a plant but somehow perfect, the ceiling height, the bones of it. The way you’d stood on that sidewalk and seen, with a clarity that surprised you, exactly what it could become. What it could be. You tell him all of it, more than you meant to, more than is probably professional over a two-person lunch that you’re already trying not to read too much into.
Sylus listens to every word.
When you finish, he’s quiet for a moment. There’s something in his expression that’s gone a little careful.
“What’s the address?” he says.
You study him. “Why?”
“Because you’ve just described the place you want most in the world,” he says, very simply, “and I’m interested in things that matter to you.”
The ache in your chest deepens. You look at him for a long moment — this man who runs a company from the fifty-third floor of a Midtown tower, who is a decade older than you and a foot taller than you and should by any reasonable accounting be the most intimidating person in your life, and who instead feels, in moments like this, like the safest one.
You give him the address.
You don’t know what he’ll do with it.
You just know, the way you know most things about Sylus, that he’ll do something.
｡ ₊°༺❤︎༻°₊ ｡
The afternoon passes the way good afternoons in the office do — with a steady rhythm of tasks and small exchanges, the comfortable back-and-forth that you’ve built between you over three years like a language that only the two of you speak fluently. He stops by your desk at three to ask if you want anything from the coffee cart downstairs, which he would never do for anyone else, and brings you back a hot chocolate without commenting on it. You catch him at five-forty-five standing in the doorway of his office watching you finish up for the day with an expression you aren’t supposed to have seen — unguarded, quiet, something in it that sits low and warm in your stomach for the whole subway ride home.
It doesn’t mean what you want it to mean, you tell yourself, earbuds in, Manhattan rushing past outside the windows.
He’s just kind. He’s kind to you because you work for him and you’ve earned it and that’s all it is.
Forty-three blocks uptown, Sylus stands at his office window with your address on a notepad in his hand and thinks, for a very long time.
Today I started off watching two videos of comprehensive imput to both get my ears used to the sounds and to be able to start distinguishing words a bit even if I don't understand them.
First I watched a video by ShuoShuoChinese because one of the people who is learning chinese with the same program as me recommended this channel because it helped them a lot.
Then I watched one by EasyChinese because if you know me I totally ate up the french variant of this channel and I can't let it go ever.
After this I did that I just practiced some character writing, especifically the words I, you and he.
I also took the time to watch a video of Via Li speaking only chinese for a whole video, but that was more for entertaining purposes.
I saw a post featuring this Chinese Handbook for International Visitors on Reddit, and it looks like an incredible resource for those traveling/moving to China! It includes useful vocabulary, sample sentences, and mini dialogues.
突然，虽然，忽然. and the other 然's can often get mixed up, so here's a quick explanation of some of the most common ones!
突然 (Túrán): This means suddenly or unexpectedly
居然 (Jūrán): This kind of means suddenly, but more in the sense of "surprisingly" or to suggest disbelief at something that happened.
忽然 (Hūrán): This also means suddenly or unexpectedly, but it has a more stronger connotation.
既然 (Jìrán): This is a conjunction meaning "since" or "now that"
既然the weather is great, let's go out!
既然 you aren't busy, let's go watch a movie.
不然 (Bùrán): This means "otherwise" or "or else";
You should study, 不然 you won't do well on the exam.
虽然 (Suīrán): This means although or even though.
虽然 I'm not good at singing, I still like to go to the karaoke.
当然 (Dāngrán): 当然 means certainly or definitely and can be used as a reply:
Can you help me with A? 当然!
自然 (Zìrán): This can mean nature or naturally.
China's 自然 is very beautiful.
She speaks Chinese 得很自然.
仍然 (Réngrán): This can mean "still" or "yet".
I仍然 haven't read that book.
依然 (Yīrán): Similar to 仍然, this also means still" or "yet" but it's usually used in more formal and literary works, whereas 仍然 is more often used in spoken language.
果然 (Guǒrán): 果然 can be used to mean "indeed" or "as expected"
This movie is 果然 interesting.
竟然 (Jìngrán): This is an adverb used to suggest surprise or something unexpected.
He竟然forgot her birthday.
显然 (Xiǎnrán): This means "clearly" or "obviously".
This soup 显然 hot.
偶然 (Ǒurán): This means "accidentally" or "by chance".
We 偶然 met at the same cafe.
How many other 然's do you know about? Drop a comment!
This post is the unofficial sequel to 10 iconic Mandopop songs from Chinese class. No one asked for it, but I watched to chronicle what I could remember before more fades from my memory! I saw these movies in Chinese class in high school and college, and I had to do some sleuthing to find some names.
The synopses are from IMDb, revised by me. I put links to watch for free on YouTube when I was able to find one, but they might not work in your country.
1. 《和你在一起》 Together (2002)
A violin prodigy and his father travel to Beijing, where the father seeks the means to his son's success while the son struggles to accept the path laid before him.
Watch on YouTube
2. 《谁的青春不迷茫》 Yesterday Once More (2016)
Lin Tianjiao, the top student in her class, is struggling to cope under intense academic pressure. After she is nearly caught cheating on a test, she befriends Gao Xiang, a free-spirited slacker.
Watch on YouTube
3. 《活着》 To Live (1994)
Based on the novel by Yu Hua, four generations of the once-wealthy Xu family experience the difficult changes of the Chinese Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution.
Watch on YouTube
4. 《喜宴》 The Wedding Banquet (1993)
To satisfy his parents, Gao Wai-Tung, a gay man in a fulfilling relationship with his partner Simon, marries his female tenant Wei-Wei. Things get out of hand when his parents come to visit.
5. 《饮食男女》 Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
A widowed chef lives with his three grown daughters, who each experience ups and downs in their lives and romantic relationships as they leave the family home.
Watch on YouTube
6. 《哑孩儿》 Dumb Child* (2016)
After graduating from college, Fang Yan takes a job as a teacher in a rural area of China. There she meets a young girl named Yaya who doesn't attend school due to her hearing impairment.
Watch on YouTube
*Dumb as in mute. It's not a great English name...
7. 《重返20岁》 20 Once Again/Miss Granny (2015)
A 70-year old woman living unhappily with her son's family is magically transformed into her 20-year-old self. She befriends her grandson and decides to fulfill the dreams of her youth.
Watch on YouTube
8. 《北京爱情故事》 Beijing Love Story (2014)
Different generations look at love, romance, and commitment, all from a uniquely Beijing perspective. All 5 couples and stories are intertwined a la Love Actually.
9. 《蓝风筝》 The Blue Kite (1993)
The lives of a Beijing family throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as they experience the impact of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution.
Watch on YouTube
10. 《青春派》 Young Style (2013)
Struggling with romantic woes after his plan to confess to his crush goes awry, Ju Ran fails the college entrance exam (gaokao) and is forced to repeat his last year of high school.
Best Mandarin Comprehensible Input channel on Youtube
Learn Chinese with slow clear comprehensible Chinese.
"WE ACQUIRE LANGUAGE WHEN WE UNDERSTAND THE INPUT"(as Stephen Krashen said) and as a l
This woman has some kind of magical power (aka she's an incredible teacher) ! Even when I don't look at the subtitles and don't know half the words she's using, I can still get a sense of what she's talking about and even understand words in context !! She's doing an incredible job so go check her channel out !
大家好, I finally get to share this spreadsheet I put together for Mandarin. \(ovo)/
A bunch of Mandarin Resources are linked within, I tried to base it off of a wonderful spreadsheet made by Dreaming Spanish users that linked a ton of Spanish resources.
However you are studying Mandarin, I hope there's something useful in here for you!
And if you have suggestions of specific Mandarin resources or media I should add, please let me know! (I already linked Heavenly Path's resources, Pleco, and Readibu by linking directly to them).
Let's suppose you want to learn Chinese mainly to read webnovels (or other reading material).
Now, personally, I recommend some study of pronunciation like pinyin, and watching some videos or reading some articles on tones and tone sandhi, grammar, hanzi and hanzi structure. Because at some point you'll probably want to listen too, speak too. So you know - use other resources to study the other skills! If you plan to do anything besides read eventually. Also, I think some pronunciation study actually helped me with remembering hanzi (the sound components in them) and reading skill.
But lets suppose you're studying mainly so you can read webnovels. Which is what I did in my first year. And you can set a goal to start reading webnovels within a year. For some people it takes as little as 3 months to start reading webnovels, for others like me it took around 6 months to start reading webnovels and 12 months to feel comfortable.
Download Pleco app and Readibu app. These apps will be your best friends. Pleco app is a dictionary tool so you can look up unknown chinese words, and it's Clipboard Reader area is where you can paste any chinese text into and then click-translate any words. I recommend the first time you look up any word, you press the dictate/speaker tool so you can hear how it's pronounced. You can save words in Pleco and study them using Pleco's built in SRS flashcards if you wish. Mainly though, the important part is using Pleco to look up words, read example sentences, and to use the Clipboard Reader area to read any Chinese text you find online. Pleco has an area to purchase graded readers, these will probably be some of the first things you read (if you choose to use paid resources). Readibu app is a click-translation Reader app for Chinese, you can browse the app for webnovels, or you can go to the Search area and paste in a url of a chinese webnovel, then Readibu will say it's not in the database so click 'search with Google' then you'll see the url as a result and click it, then bookmark the webnovel page in Readibu. From there you can click the open book icon on any webnovel, and it will make it just click-translate text and provide you the Readibu app features. Once you're reading a lot of webnovels, you may wish to use Readibu to read, for some people it will be more convenient than Pleco for going chapter by chapter.
Make a plan to start studying hanzi. I recommend you focus on the most common 1000-2000 chinese words, or the HSK 4 vocabulary, or both. The goal here is to get your vocabulary and hanzi recognition around HSK 4 level. I used this book (Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters: (HSK Levels 1 -3) A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters) because it just clicked with me, I just read through it over a few months. You can use SRS flashcards (like Anki or Pleco) collections that people have made (I recommend this Mnemonics Simplified Hanzi Deck, or Mnemonics Traditional Hanzi Deck). For common words, I recommend Spoonfed Chinese anki deck (note it has some mistakes but I like that it has audio and sentence examples), but there's a ton of anki decks and common word frequency lists (you can genuinely just study a list) just pick a resource you like with either 2000 common words or HSK 4 vocabulary. Literally just pick any study materials where you can learn roughly 1000 common hanzi and 1000 common words or more. Whatever materials work for you. Study however you want - some people find anki flashcards useful (I just cram studied 1000 words for a few weeks each then never looked at anki again), some find books useful, some find textbooks useful, some use vocabulary lists, some use videos, just pick something. Your goal is going to be to study these words/hanzi in 3-6 months. 8-10 months if you want to wait to read longer, or need more time to study. I studied 800 hanzi in the book I linked for the first 3 months, then 1000 words the next month, then 1000 words the next month, then about 500 more hanzi the next month. It is okay to cram study! It is okay to not memorize these hanzi and words! Just get a basic familiarity! You are going to fully learn these common hanzi and words when you READ later.
As you are studying common hanzi and words, start reading a grammar guide if you would like some knowledge of grammar. Or watch some grammar videos on youtube, whatever clicks best with you. Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar is a good grammar guide summary book, AllSetLearning Chinese Grammar Wiki is an excellent website you can read. I read another grammar guide summary, the website no longer exists. Again, do not try to memorize and drill this stuff, just go through it and get a basic familiarity. You can move on if a particular grammar point makes no sense right now. Learn about grammar the same time you're studying hanzi and common words, so the first 3-6 months.
Okay it's been 3 months! You know some hanzi (maybe 50-500), you know some words (maybe 50-1000 depending on how intensely you've been studying)! Start reading! You're going to start with Graded Readers, which are reading material made for learners. Heavenly Path's Comprehensive Reading Guide suggests some free graded reader resources in the Below 1000 characters section. I used Mandarin Companion Graded Readers and other graded readers I could purchase in Pleco. Mandarin Companion has some graded readers with 50 unique characters. I started with some Pleco graded readers that had 300 unique characters, then moved up to graded readers with 500-800 unique characters. Read graded readers! Reread them! Look up any words you don't know (using Pleco or something else). Listen to the pronunciation of any new words. If reading in Pleco, you can use the Dictation tool to hear the sentences read aloud. When using graded readers in general, use any audiobooks that accompany them. Mostly though just read, read, read, and look up anything you want. Look up grammar points in something like AllSetLearning Chinese Grammar Wiki if you are now starting to see some grammar that confuses you while reading. The reading practice is what is going to teach you the words you've been studying in other materials.
Now it's been 6 months. You've been working your way through graded readers of increasing unique character count (and are now reading graded readers of at least 800 unique characters or more). You've been working your way through studying common hanzi and words, and now have studied at least 1000 words or more. (If you cram like I did, you probably have studied over 2000 words but only the 800-1000 words in your graded reading material have been 'fully learned' and the other words you studied are only vaguely familiar, this is perfectly fine). Go to Heavenly Path and start reading the stuff they recommend for people who know 1000-2000 characters. I think @秃秃大王 by 张天翼 is perfect for people who know around 1000 characters to start with. You can keep reading some graded readers like those that go up to 1500-2000 unique characters if you'd like, but start trying to read novels for native speakers too. Again, I recommend anything in the easiest 'recommendations' from Heavenly Path's recommendation list of webnovels, a lot of novels for children will be perfect at this point. You'll gradually work on increasing the unique characters of your reading materials. Read in Pleco or Readibu so you can use the click-translate tool. To find webnovels online, paste or type the chinese name of the novel (and author if you know it), and then 'zaixian yuedu' like this '秃秃大王 张天翼 在线阅读'. It is very easy to find novels online in chinese.
From here you just continue reading more difficult novels! Go at the pace you choose! Once you're reading stuff with 2000 unique characters, then if you wish you can stop studying hanzi and common words outside of just looking them up in reading. You can of course continue to study hanzi and words outside of reading. But if you'd rather just learn words by looking them up as you read, you can start doing that as soon as you switch to novels for native speakers (1000-2000 characters). Congrats, you are reading webnovels!
Some people start reading webnovels within a few months, and you can start with a higher unique character count if you wish. Such as starting with MoDaoZuShi or Zhenhun or SaYe as soon as you go from graded readers to regular novels. The difficulty curve will be a lot steeper, and you'll be looking up a LOT of words for a while. But other people have done it. I started reading webnovels around 6 months, after doing graded readers for a while, and it took picking several easier and harder reading materials until I found a comfortable reading level to continue from.
So it boils down to: start studying very common words and hanzi (a list, a book, anki, whatever works for you, and you don't have to memorize just get some Exposure some Basic Familiarity), read about grammar if you wish (again just get some Basic Familiarity so later if you need to look up a grammar point in depth as you read, you know what to look up), and START READING ASAP. Use Pleco and Readibu to read with click-translations of words. Start with graded reader materials, then as soon as you can tolerate move on to novels for native speakers. Heavenly Path's website is a great resource for finding reading material at your level if you have no idea what to pick and don't want to trial and error different webnovels until something is doable. For anyone who finds sounds help with memory (like me) or who plan to eventually learn to listen to chinese, listen to the pronunciation of any new words when you look them up. If you watch cdramas, cdramas often have chinese subtitles on them, those can be good practice for reading as well.
You can start reading within a year. You can read graded readers within a few months, as soon as you feel it's tolerable. And then you can just learn new words BY reading, review words you've looked up before BY reading, review grammar BY reading, and work your way up to reading whatever webnovels you want. I find learning words BY reading much easier for myself, doing what I want to do in the language as I'm learning to read, much easier to stick to and enjoy than anki flashcards or word lists or textbooks. So from me, the suggestion to push yourself to read graded readers ASAP is so you can get to the part of learning BY reading quicker.
What are you even doing?
你在干嘛嘛～？
Nǐ zài gàn má ma~?
You doing what mm?
Whatchu doin’, hmm~?
What do you even know?
你知道啥呀～？
Nǐ zhīdào shá ya~?
You know what eh?
What do you even knooow~?
You don’t even care.
你才不在乎嘞～
Nǐ cái bú zàihu lei~
You totally don’t care eh.
You don’t even caaare~
This cat has a death wish.
这只猫咪不想活啦！
Zhè zhī māomī bù xiǎng huó la!
This kitty doesn’t wanna live anymore!
This kitty’s got a death wishhh~!
Trying to trip me, I see.
你是不是想绊倒我哇～？
Nǐ shì bú shì xiǎng bàndǎo wǒ wa~?
Are you trying to trip me eh~?
You tryin’ to trip me again, huhhh~?
Why are you trying to trip me?
为啥老是想绊妈妈啦？
Wèi shá lǎoshì xiǎng bàn māma la?
Why always trying to trip mama~?
Why you always trippin’ mamaaa?
She’s a good girl.
她是个乖乖喵～
Tā shì ge guāiguāi miāo~
She’s a good good kitty~
She’s a gooood girl~
She’s just a baby, your honor.
她她她只是个小宝贝嘛，法官大人～
Tā tā tā zhǐshì ge xiǎo bǎobèi ma, fǎguān dàren~
She she she is just a lil baby, Your Honor~
She’s just a widdle baaaby, your hooonor~
She’s just a baby girl.
她是小小女孩呀～
Tā shì xiǎoxiǎo nǚhái ya~
She’s lil-lil girl~
She’s just a baby girrrrl~
I love you so much, cat.
猫猫，我好爱你呦～
Māomāo, wǒ hǎo ài nǐ yōu~
Kitty, I love you so much yo~
I wuv you soooo much, kittyyy~
She’s purring.
她在呼噜噜噜啦～
Tā zài hūlū lūlū la~
She’s purring-purring~
She goin’ purr purr purr~!
Do you want some snacks?
要不要吃小零零呀？
Yào bú yào chī xiǎo línglíng ya?
Wanna eat some lil snackies~?
You want some snaccies, hmm?
True to form.
你就是你喽～
Nǐ jiùshì nǐ lou~
You just you, huh~
That’s my lil chaos queen~
Come on (the bed).
来嘛，上床床～
Lái ma, shàng chuángchuáng~
Come eh, get on bed-bed~
C’mere, get on the beddy-bed!
Come on, Paz.
Paz宝贝，快点儿嘛～
Paz bǎobèi, kuàidiǎnr ma~
Paz baby, hurry up eh~
Come on, Pazzy babyyy~
👶 Notes on Cutesy Mandarin
Reduplication is often used in baby-talk or pet-talk:
床 → 床床 (chuángchuáng – “bed-bed”)
抱 → 抱抱 (bàobào – “hug-hug”)
吃 → 吃吃 (chīchī – “eat-eat”)
Final particles like:
嘛 (ma), 啦 (la), 呀 (ya), 哇 (wa), 呦 (yo), and 喽 (lou)
add playfulness or whining/emotive tone
Small suffixes like 小 (xiǎo – little), 宝贝 (bǎobèi – baby/darling), or 喵 (miāo – meow/kitty) are affectionate and common when talking to pets
突然，虽然，忽然. and the other 然's can often get mixed up, so here's a quick explanation of some of the most common ones!
突然 (Túrán): This means suddenly or unexpectedly
居然 (Jūrán): This kind of means suddenly, but more in the sense of "surprisingly" or to suggest disbelief at something that happened.
忽然 (Hūrán): This also means suddenly or unexpectedly, but it has a more stronger connotation.
既然 (Jìrán): This is a conjunction meaning "since" or "now that"
既然the weather is great, let's go out!
既然 you aren't busy, let's go watch a movie.
不然 (Bùrán): This means "otherwise" or "or else";
You should study, 不然 you won't do well on the exam.
虽然 (Suīrán): This means although or even though.
虽然 I'm not good at singing, I still like to go to the karaoke.
当然 (Dāngrán): 当然 means certainly or definitely and can be used as a reply:
Can you help me with A? 当然!
自然 (Zìrán): This can mean nature or naturally.
China's 自然 is very beautiful.
She speaks Chinese 得很自然.
仍然 (Réngrán): This can mean "still" or "yet".
I仍然 haven't read that book.
依然 (Yīrán): Similar to 仍然, this also means still" or "yet" but it's usually used in more formal and literary works, whereas 仍然 is more often used in spoken language.
果然 (Guǒrán): 果然 can be used to mean "indeed" or "as expected"
This movie is 果然 interesting.
竟然 (Jìngrán): This is an adverb used to suggest surprise or something unexpected.
He竟然forgot her birthday.
显然 (Xiǎnrán): This means "clearly" or "obviously".
This soup 显然 hot.
偶然 (Ǒurán): This means "accidentally" or "by chance".
We 偶然 met at the same cafe.
How many other 然's do you know about? Drop a comment!
Mandarin has more than just "或者 (huòzhě)" and "还是 (háishì)" to express “or.” Those two are the most common and foundational, but other words and structures are used depending on tone, formality, logical structure, or emphasis.
🔹 1. 还是 (háishì)
Used in: questions
Means: "or" (choice)
你喜欢茶还是咖啡？
Do you like tea or coffee?
Important: This form requires a question. Never use it in statements.
🔹 2. 或者 (huòzhě)
Used in: statements
Means: "or" (options, not a choice prompt)
我们可以坐车或者走路。
We can take a car or walk.
🔹 3. 要么 (yàome)
Used in: more emphatic “either… or…”
Often used for strong alternatives, especially in speech.
要么你来，要么我去。
Either you come, or I go.
她要么迟到，要么缺席。
She’s either late or absent.
This one highlights a firm choice—often used when there are only two clear options.
🔹 4. 或是 (huòshì)
Formal/literary version of 或者
Used mostly in writing or speeches
成功来自于努力或是运气。
Success comes from hard work or luck.
Not commonly used in casual speech.
🔹 5. 还是说 (háishì shuō)
Means something like: “Or are you saying…?”
Appears in more rhetorical or speculative questions.
他是忘了，还是说他根本没看到？
Did he forget, or are you saying he never saw it at all?
🔹 6. 抑或 (yìhuò)
Extremely formal or literary
Translates as “or,” “or else,” “alternatively”
他是真心的，抑或只是在演戏？
Is he sincere, or is he just acting?
Mostly found in classical Chinese, legal writing, or high-formality prose.
还是 (háishì) and 或者 (huòzhě) will cover 90% of your “or” needs.
要么 (yàome) is your next most useful for real-life speech.
The others are valuable if you read formal texts, write creatively, or want to recognize elevated styles.
