I’ve been learning for a bit over a week now. Been using the app HelloChinese and some YouTube videos. Also made It a goal for myself by the end of the week to learn about 100 character. To which I was relatively successful at. Though I think I still need some work. The whole tonal thing is a bit confusing to me since I’m a tad deaf when It comes to accents but I think I’m getting the hang of It slowly.
What really motivated me was meeting nice native Chinese folk on Rednote and the current US-China trade war. Hell when I could read the name of the app I was ecstatic lol.
My goal for now is knowing enough to have basic to average conversations and read basic stuff like food menu’s and signs. But If I’m still really motivated I might have to learn 2000-3000 characters which is probably enough to read a book.
I’ll still see. Not sure what the point of this post was but I hope this motivates ya’ll to learn a bit too.
Some app suggestions:
Du Chinese - mentioned in the thread
Pleco
ReadMe HSK - gives you a sentence of your level but with a few words you don’t know, follows the HSK progression
ClozeMaster - reading+listening practice, you can get about 20 listening sentences per day using a trick
Drops - turn off the pinyin assist as soon as you’re comfortable, it’s not good for character practice but I use the app as a way of getting a foot in the door for words. After using it you’ll start to recognize words elsewhere quicker