Three months into learning Mandarin, I went to a Chinese restaurant with a few friends. All I wanted was a cup of hot water, but I nearly ended up in hot water instead. I noticed the staff members weren’t comfortable with English, so I thought they would prefer it if I spoke to them in Mandarin. I asked my waiter for a cup of hot water, and he was stunned. To my amazement, his response was in a thick, northern accent. My waiter understood me perfectly, but I had issues figuring out his response. My knee-jerk reaction was, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand!” in Mandarin. My friend was able to translate for me, and I realized I should have understood every single word. I felt a little embarrassed about not being able to catch any of it. My experience at that particular Chinese restaurant was over a year ago. I’ve learned much since then, and I’ve made a great deal of progress in the language. I now realize the problems I once had are similar to the obstacles faced by many students unexposed to Chinese. I want to share my personal experience to help beginners overcome this initial hurdle.

How to sound like a native

Mandarin, having four tones (not including the neutral tone), can appear intimidating, but it’s simpler than it seems. What a lot of native English speakers don’t understand is, it doesn’t require painstaking effort to start speaking Mandarin. I’m not talking about the character system — learning over 8,000 characters is a much more challenging endeavour. Begin with pinyin, Chinese’s phonetic Romanized spelling system. If pinyin looks watered-down and makes you feel like you’re not learning Mandarin the ‘right way’, don’t fret: Chinese people learn pinyin in school, too — it’s used in the public sphere across China. But if you want to sound fluent in the language, don’t just use pinyin for the correct pronunciation. Instead, treat pinyin as a supplementary tool. Make every single tone sound as natural as possible. Rookies tend to speak at a sluggish pace, making the tones sound overemphasized. This is a normal part of learning any tonal language. Eventually, every word — even words with three first tones like chūzūchē — should sound natural. Imitating natives is one of the best ways to speak Mandarin well. You need the pinyin to supplement native speakers; mimic natives’ natural tones, and use pinyin to ensure you’re not mishearing them.

Tips from a teacher

I asked my former Chinese teacher, Jing Guo, to offer some tips on learning Mandarin effectively. He mentioned the incredible complexity of the writing system, the main reason why beginners should initially avoid it. “I don’t think writing is a good way [to learn]; it’s too complex. Speaking is easier,” Jing was quick to say. “Right now, ask me to write, I cannot write.” Does that make him an unqualified teacher? Not at all — many Chinese people are forgetting how to write since the digital age has made typing the norm.

His best tip? “I don’t think one way is better than another way. You need to try different ways.”

Don’t have a teacher? Don’t sweat it.

Don’t have immediate access to a native speaker? Despite living in Toronto, a bustling metropolis with Canada’s largest Chinese population, I can empathize. Here’s what you can do: learn how to pronounce every (pinyin) letter. Chinese has letters like ‘x’ and ‘q’ that sound completely different from how they would normally sound in English. Next, listen to every morpheme (distinct meaningful sound) that exists in Mandarin from a native speaker in every tone — this is available online, or you could download a comprehensive Chinese-English dictionary like Pleco — and you could go a long way without a teacher. Mandarin only has 409 morphemes. Does that sound daunting? It shouldn’t. If you’re committed, you can sound close to a native Mandarin speaker within a few months. Once you know how Mandarin should sound, HelloChinese and ChineseSkill are two of the best free apps to learn how to form grammatically correct sentences. These apps will help you familiarize yourself with common phrases and expressions as well.

Mandarin suddenly sounds manageable, doesn’t it? Now go out there and conquer it!