#sorry anon i hope this all connects i'm answering this late at night oop

[difeisheng]

hi ash, i think i may have asked this before, but from one asian diaspora to another, i was wondering how, if you're able to, you keep up with your chinese practice in a country that's dominated by english (and/or french canadian since ik you live in canada). bc i know a lot of suggestions are like turning your tech to the language you want to learn, put sticky notes on objects with the name in the language you want to learn, etc. but like. i feel like it doesn't matter how much i try and practice bc i'm not in a class, so i don't get it consistently enough, and the rest of my day is filled with english bc, well, that's my first language, and what is needed for my job and every day living. do you have any recs, strategies, or tips? i'm getting desperate; i used to be so much better than i am now. thanks!

hi! honestly, most of my chinese upkeep since i stopped taking mandarin classes (which tbh was relatively recent; this april, and then i'll be taking a cantonese class next term so i can learn to read it) has been a lot less I Need To Practice My Chinese through exercises or dedicated study time, and more just making sure i have frequent exposure to the language that i'm also engaged in. which is a long way to say that basically c-media is how i'm maintaining my proficiency.

i listen to music, i watch dramas and variety shows, look up other vids on bilibili that catch my interest, sometimes read articles, and (very slowly) read fanfic, with pleco open to note new words. just generally scrolling through chinese social media has helped too. having that environment i can immerse myself in helps me learn new vocabulary and practice using what i already know + listening skills, but it also doesn't feel like work or study, just dealing with things i like and am interested in. (this is important for me because i'm so exhausted when i get home every day lmao, if language upkeep outside of class felt like additional Student Time i might have tapped out on attempting it. this way turning on a c-drama at the end of the day just seems like relaxation first and then chinese exposure on top of it).

just by poking through c-drama or fandom things, i know my vocabulary has definitely expanded since i finished my last class, instead of shrunk. even though i watch c-dramas with english subtitles (or chinese and english depending on the platform), i've still picked up stuff from them, and when it comes to things like variety shows i don't rely on subtitles anymore/make myself not. you absorb a lot more of a language than you think just through exposure, imo. although as a caveat for reading specifically, picking up new characters, recognizing them, and reading has been one of the easier parts of learning chinese for me, when it's probably the inverse for a lot of people. i don't know how well just casually reading things will work as a method for others, ymmv.

the thing that i struggle with is getting opportunities to practice speaking, because it's english in my classes and usually with my friends, and either english or cantonese with my family (and i'm not living with them right now). however, i do have a lot of diaspora friends given that i'm in vancouver, and we occasionally dip into speaking mandarin or cantonese. this isn't perfect, but hopefully in future i'll be able to get more speaking experience somehow. what's also helped me with keeping up pronunciation despite these limits is learning to sing chinese songs. singing is one of my hobbies anyway, so i'll use pinyin or jyutping as a guide (getting better at sightreading characters for singing though!) and it's helped me work on certain sounds i had trouble with, and improved my accent. (watching c-dramas even if i don't speak as often has also aided on that front tbh; i listened to recordings of myself from last year and i sound less canto when i speak mandarin now compared to back then, or even earlier this year).

if you want a place to start that i personally think has helped me maintain chinese proficiency, i would choose a variety show you're interested in and try watching it without english subtitles, when you've got free time and want to do something fun. most will have chinese ones you can use to practice reading along with listening, and people usually speak at a conversational enough level that it shouldn't be too difficult to follow along (for ref, after a year and a half of heritage learner mandarin classes at uni i could watch 《我们的歌》/Our Song without english subtitles and understand most of it). variety shows are also really accessible lmao, so many have full seasons on youtube.

tl;dr it's been media exposure for me all the way down since i left classes, wherever i can get it.

not sure how actually helpful all this rambling might be, but this is what i do to keep up my chinese proficiency and keep learning in daily life nowadays! hopefully maybe you or someone else will be able to get something out of it :)

#sorry anon i hope this all connects i'm answering this late at night oop #you can ask me clarifying stuff if you want tho! #also for those of you who see this and are still building up a basic vocabulary and language foundation/grammar #please do not feel bad or kick yourself that you can't just throw yourself into the deep end on bilibili and learn chinese that way #all this was targeted to answer a specific question and assumes some kind of existing proficiency #i believe in y'all to get there one day tho!!! 努力学习 加油吧 #languages #mandarin #chinese #ashton answers #anon