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Daily lessons · Day 30 of 90
A whole conversation
Putting the first month together
No new grammar today. This is one conversation from beginning to end, using only what you have already met, so you can see how far thirty short days actually gets you.
Meeting someone
Everything here comes from days 1, 3 and 14.
Why it works
Four sentences and you have covered who you are, where you are from and what you do, which is the whole of a first exchange. Notice that nothing in them needed a tense, an article or an agreement, which is the part of Chinese that repays the work you put into tones.
Finding common ground
Days 16, 21 and 29, used together.
Why it works
This is the shape of nearly every friendly conversation: a question about experience, an opinion, a softened reservation, then a suggestion. Each of those is one pattern you have already learned, and the fluency comes from having them ready rather than from knowing more words.
Making it happen
Days 9, 18, 23 and 28, in four lines.
Why it works
That is a complete arrangement made in Chinese: a time proposed, a method agreed, a comparison used to justify it, and a confirmation. If you can produce these twelve lines without looking, you can hold the first ten minutes of a real conversation, which is exactly what the first month was for.
What thirty days does and does not buy
You now have roughly the ground of HSK 1 and a good part of HSK 2, better pronunciation than a word list alone would have given you, and the sentence patterns that most beginner courses leave until much later. What you do not yet have is listening at full speed, which no amount of reading fixes. From here, the single highest-value thing you can do is listen to real Mandarin daily, even when you understand very little of it.
Carried over from earlier days
Say each one out loud before you look at the English.
Today’s words 12
Check yourself
8 questions. Get 6 right to finish the day.
Type hello, I'm David in pinyin.
Show the answer
nǐ hǎo, wǒ jiào Dàwèi 叫 for a given name, 姓 for a surname.
In 我在北京工作, why does 在北京 come before 工作?
- place goes before the verb
- 北京 is the subject
- 工作 is a noun
- it is an idiom
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place goes before the verb Subject, time, place, verb, from day 11.
Which pattern is 你吃过中国菜吗 using?
- 过 for experience, plus 吗 for a yes or no question
- 了 for completion
- 在 for right now
- 比 for comparison
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过 for experience, plus 吗 for a yes or no question Have you ever, rather than did you.
What does 吧 do in 我们一起去吃吧?
- turns it into a suggestion
- turns it into a question
- marks the past
- makes it formal
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turns it into a suggestion Without 吧 it is a statement that you are going.
Which means the metro is quicker?
- 坐地铁比较快 zuò dìtiě bǐjiào kuài
- 地铁坐比较快 dìtiě zuò bǐjiào kuài
- 比较快坐地铁 bǐjiào kuài zuò dìtiě
- 坐比较快地铁 zuò bǐjiào kuài dìtiě
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坐地铁比较快 zuò dìtiě bǐjiào kuài 比较 hedges the comparison without naming the alternative.
Which verb goes with the metro?
- 坐 zuò
- 骑 qí
- 开 kāi
- 打 dǎ
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坐 zuò 坐 for anything you sit inside, from day 23.
Type I'm not that keen on spicy food in pinyin.
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wǒ bú tài xǐhuan là de 不太 softens it, and 的 turns 辣 into a thing.
What is the single most useful thing to do from here?
- listen to real Mandarin daily, even when you understand very little
- memorise more word lists
- learn traditional characters
- take the HSK immediately
Show the answer
listen to real Mandarin daily, even when you understand very little Reading does not fix listening at full speed.
Question 1 of 8
Writing practice optional
Every character from today, in the order it came up. Watch it, trace it, then write it from memory.
Press Watch to see the stroke order.
Stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi via Hanzi Writer, Arphic Public License.
Character 1 of 56
This lesson is written by an English speaker who learned Mandarin as a second language, and it is waiting on a check by a native speaker. If you spot something off, please tell us and we will fix it.