In this episode of The Learner Journals, Tom speaks with Dan, a long-time Mandarin Monkey supporter, about one of the strangest and most committed Mandarin learning journeys so far.

Dan’s Mandarin story starts with a dream about riding a unicycle. After buying one and learning to ride it, he realised there were other things he had avoided simply because they seemed too difficult. One of those things was learning another language. Mandarin felt alien, fascinating, and completely different from anything he had tried before, so he jumped in.

Dan now studies Mandarin for around 20 hours a week. His routine includes active listening during commutes, daily handwritten Chinese journal entries, reading graded readers, reviewing lesson recordings, using tools like Pleco, Purple Culture, YellowBridge, a translation pen, and taking multiple lessons and hangouts every week.

The conversation covers motivation, repetition, retention, handwriting, listening struggles, learning how you learn, why finding the right teacher matters, and why Mandarin is less like memorising a textbook and more like learning to ride a unicycle on concrete. You fall off, work out why, and get back on.

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In this episode of The Learner Journals, Tom speaks with Stephen about how Mandarin became far more than a language hobby.

Stephen started learning Mandarin around 11 years ago after going through a divorce. A friend suggested he needed a distraction, then casually threw “Chinese” into the room like a normal person suggests jogging. Somehow, it stuck.

What began with Chinese characters, ChinesePod, Pleco, and a trip to Beijing eventually led Stephen to Taiwan, where he studied Mandarin for two years. He compares learning in group classes versus one-on-one lessons, explains why individual teaching worked better for him, and talks about the difference between studying from a textbook and using Mandarin in real life.

The conversation covers language confidence, making mistakes, ordering orange juice badly, getting trapped by follow-up questions, learning through Taiwan’s everyday culture, and why Mandarin is absolutely not something you “master in three months”.

A great episode for anyone who feels like they started late, learns slowly, hates grammar, or needs reminding that Mandarin is a long game. A brilliant, frustrating, ridiculous long game.

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In this episode of The Learner Journals, Tom speaks with Fiona from Ireland about learning Mandarin through real-world necessity rather than textbooks alone.

Fiona first started learning Mandarin while working as a mechanical engineer, travelling alone to factories in China and quickly realising that not speaking the language made everyday life harder, scarier, and occasionally led to ordering an enormous bowl of intestines by accident.

She talks about building confidence through tiny survival phrases, using Chinglish in factory meetings, learning from mistakes, finding local classes in Belfast, passing HSK 3, and later using language exchange, private lessons, passive listening, YouTube, podcasts, and Chinese media to keep her Mandarin alive.

The conversation also covers grammar frustration, plateaus, the value of real human conversation, finding a good language partner, and why Mandarin can be a marathon rather than a sprint.

A brilliant episode for anyone who feels like they are learning slowly, inconsistently, or messily. Which is to say, everyone.

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In this episode of The Learner Journals, Tom speaks with Charlie, a Mandarin learner from Essex who originally wanted to study Japanese after falling in love with anime, but ended up discovering a passion for Mandarin Chinese at university.

Charlie shares what it is like to study Mandarin from scratch as part of a university degree, including the reality of learning characters, grammar, tones, pronunciation and Chinese culture in a classroom setting. She talks about using physical flashcards, Quizlet, Pleco, Blogger, Netflix language tools and Chinese dramas to build vocabulary and improve reading.

The conversation also explores the difference between learning alone and learning in a group, why introverted learners may struggle with speaking practice, how confidence affects progress, and why making friends with native speakers can make such a big difference.

Charlie also talks about applying for a scholarship to study in Taipei, her hopes of travelling around Taiwan, Japan and Korea, and her long-term goal of using Mandarin in a future career, possibly through translation or teaching.

A great episode for anyone learning Mandarin, thinking about studying Chinese at university, struggling with tones, or wondering how to build a real study routine that actually sticks.

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In episode three of The Learner Journals, Tom speaks with Jemima, a British Mandarin learner, historian, PhD researcher and future Dr. History, about how a Taiwanese Netflix drama unexpectedly started her Mandarin journey.

Jemima began learning Mandarin during lockdown after watching the Taiwanese drama Bromance and falling in love with the sound of the language. Since then, Mandarin has become part of her daily life through classes, graded readers, Taiwanese music, language exchange apps, Mandarin dramas, self-study, and the Mandarin Monkey community.

This episode covers reading as a learning method, why graded readers can be so useful, how routines help language learning stick, the value of Chinesey for characters, why beginners should not skip pinyin and tones, and how using Chinglish can remove the fear of speaking.

A useful listen for Mandarin learners, Taiwanese Mandarin fans, self-study learners, introverted language learners, and anyone who has ever watched one drama on Netflix and accidentally changed the entire direction of their life. As one does.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first episode of The Learner Journals, Tom speaks with Ashley, a Mandarin learner from California, about why she started learning Mandarin and how her approach has changed over time.

Ashley began learning Mandarin in 2015 before visiting her husband’s family in Taiwan. What started as a way to communicate with relatives grew into a long-term language-learning journey built around daily practice, real conversations, online classes, community hangouts, flashcards, self-talk, and making a lot of mistakes along the way.

This episode covers the reality of learning Mandarin as an adult, why confidence matters, how speaking to yourself can actually help, the problem with chasing “fluency”, why tones matter early on, and how joining a learning community helped Ashley push through the intermediate plateau.

A useful listen for Mandarin learners, language learners, self-study learners, and anyone who has ever frozen in a shop despite absolutely promising themselves they were going to speak the language this time.

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