Thanks for the article, it’s very insightful!

I’ve been self-studying Chinese for a while and I know from my own experience that staying motivated is really hard when you study solo. Having a goal is important for motivation, but for me, it’s not enough. I think real motivation comes from seeing results. That’s why I love using online learning tools that keep track of my progress and study consistency.

I love the tip about using flashcards for memorizing new vocabulary. I think there are no easy workarounds for learning Chinese characters and nobody has invented anything better than flashcards for that. By the way, I’ve noticed that flashcards work particularly well when coupled with spaced repetition. The idea of this technique is to make you continuously review previously learned words with increasing intervals between each repetition. This helps to better memorize what you’ve learned and many applications for learning Chinese vocabulary, such as Anki, Hack Chinese, Pandanese, have built-in spaced repetition systems. So we may use this technique without even knowing it ;)

Thanks again for the tips! I’ll make sure to incorporate some of them like watching Chinese TV shows and cartoons in my study.