How to Take Your Chinese to the Next Level

Once you have a good system for learning vocabulary, mastering Chinese grammar, and memorizing new characters, learners might overlook some more advanced aspects of Chinese that can help you reach new heights. Read on for our advice on how to take your Chinese to the next level!

When am I an intermediate learner?

While tests like the HSK can help you track your progress as you learn Chinese, it can be hard to know exactly where you sit in the grand scheme of things. While there’s no upper limit to how proficient you can get, this guide is primarily meant to help people who:

Are comfortable with pinyin, and feel confident pronouncing most syllables
Are familiar with tones
Can read material written in Chinese characters
Are comfortable with basic sentence structure and grammar
Feel comfortable with basic conversation

If you’ve reached this point with your Chinese studies, the following tips can help you get to the next stage of your adventure! If you’re just getting started, you can also check out our guide for picking up Chinese as a beginner.

Onwards and upwards!

Here are our suggestions for how to level up your Chinese if you’ve mastered the basics of Mandarin and established a routine for learning.

Master Difficult Sounds

Chinese pronunciation is difficult to pick up in the first place, but not all sounds in Chinese are created equal. Some sounds are much more challenging than others, and might need more practice to master. Here are some sounds that might require some extra attention to get perfect:

‘ü’ – this vowel, which appears in syllables like ‘yu,’ ‘xu,’ ‘yuan,’ etc. is especially tricky.
‘e’ – This vowel appears in syllables like ‘te,’ and ‘she.’
‘an’ and ‘ang’ – These two ‘a’ vowels are actually different, despite looking the same in pinyin
‘si’ vs ‘shi’ – Another two vowels that look the same but are actually different
‘ri’ – Another sound that can take a while to pronounce authentically
‘j’ ‘q’ ‘x’ vs. ‘zh’ ‘ch’ ‘shi’ – These consonants can sometimes sound similar, but they’re pronounced in completely different ways

Just because these sounds are mentioned here, doesn’t necessarily mean that all of them will be equally difficult to master, only that they tend to be more difficult than the rest. It’s also worth mentioning that pronouncing some sounds with an accent isn’t the end of the world.

If you find a certain sound to be extra difficult, the best way to get better at these problem vowels and consonants is to parrot native pronunciation. You can do this while listening to our native audio in the Du Chinese app, or with online dictionaries like Pleco.

Attack Tone Pairs

There are actually several unwritten rules surrounding tones that are usually overlooked in the beginning stages of learning Chinese. These rules are referred to as “變調biàn diào” (tone changes, or tone sandhi) and are not reflected at all in standard pinyin, despite appearing all the time in actual speech. Knowing some basic tone sandhi rules is essential for pronouncing tones in the most authentic way possible. Here’s a list of these tone changes that can help guide your studies!

3rd Tone Combos

When two characters with the 3rd tone are read consecutively, the first character is read with 2nd tone.

lǐ 理 + xiǎng 想 → líxiǎng 理想
yǔn 允 +xǔ 許 → yúnxǔ 允許

Changes for 一yī

When 一 occurs before a syllable with the fourth tone, its pronunciation changes to the second tone (yí). When it occurs before a syllable with the first, second, or third tone, its pronunciation changes to the fourth tone (yì):

yī 一 + zhāng 張 → yì zhāng 一張
yī 一 + tiáo 條 → yì tiáo 一條
yī 一 + wǎn 碗 → yì wǎn 一碗
yī 一 + gòng 共 → yí gòng 一共

Changes for 不bù

When 不 occurs before a syllable with the first, second, or third tone, its pronunciation (bù) does not change. However, when it occurs before a syllable with the fourth tone, its tone changes to the second tone bú.

bù 不 + hē 喝 → bù hē 不喝
bù 不 + lái 來 → bù lái 不來
bù 不 + mǎi 買 → bù mǎi 不買
bù 不 + qù 去 → bú qù 不去

But wait... there’s more

These are the tone change basics that you need to get started, but this topic actually goes a lot deeper. From what to do with a string of characters pronounced 3rd tone, to the elusive “half third tone,” there are many mysteries to be unraveled! For more tone pair secrets, check out this helpful tone guide.

Develop Your Handwriting

Handwriting Chinese characters might seem overwhelming at first, but it can often be the best way to commit them to memory. Plus, it can be a lot of fun and help you gain a deeper understanding of their structure and logic. Here are some tips for taking your handwriting to the next level!

Stroke Order Intuition

While stroke order can be tedious at first, practice and study across different characters will eventually make it second nature. If you spend some time familiarizing yourself with it, you’ll rarely have to think about it at all! Developing an intuition for stroke order will not only improve your handwriting, but also help you read other people’s handwriting, and even calligraphy.

Grid Paper Training

Getting the proportions down for Chinese characters is one of the challenges you might face as you try to make your handwriting look better. The proportions of hanzi are understood by how they relate to a square, so practicing your characters on grid paper can help you work on individual characters, and make strings of characters look consistent together. You can also play with writing characters at different sizes, which will further improve your feel for how they should be proportioned, and help you write smaller.

Find a Tracing Book (字帖zì tiè)

One way that Chinese people work on their handwriting is with special tracing books called 字帖zì tiè. These usually feature sample handwriting that you can trace over with tracing paper. 字帖zì tiè can be great for adding some structure and guidance to your practice, and help you understand how real Chinese handwriting looks, instead of trying to copy digital fonts. These can be hard to track down in stores, so you might want to try to find one online! Usually, searching for “字帖zì tiè” in Chinese yields the best results.

How to use Du Chinese to take your Chinese to the next level

Du Chinese is the perfect place to work on your reading and listening skills, regardless of where you are in your Chinese learning journey. Here are our tips for using Du Chinese as an intermediate learner:

Read higher level content: Depending on your vocabulary, try reading our Intermediate or Upper Intermediate content to pick up new vocab and consolidate what you already know through effortless reading.
Experiment with reading tools: Our tone marks only mode allows you to read articles, lessons, and stories with only tone marks visible. For an even greater challenge, you can also activate our difficult words only mode, which will only show pinyin or tone marks for difficult words.
Listen to native pronunciation: Du Chinese’s audio is recorded by qualified native speakers. You can use our audio to practice parroting their pronunciation, which can help with tone pairs. You can also try increasing the speed of the audio for a greater challenge when working on listening comprehension.

加油jiā yóu！(Add Oil!)

There is a Chinese saying: 學如逆水xué rú nì shuǐ，不進則退bú jìn zé tuì: “Learning is like going against the current. If you don’t advance, you’ll retreat.”

If you’ve found your stride with Chinese, you’ve already done most of the hard work. Now that you’ve entered this new world of language, take some time to arm yourself with the right tools and knowledge to take your Chinese to the next level!

How to Take Your Chinese to the Next Level

When am I an intermediate learner?