The community's secret weapon for actually understanding spoken Mandarin — watching CI content daily builds listening comprehension faster than any app. Channels like Lazy Chinese and Mandarin Corner are free and endlessly scalable.
No app teaches you to understand real spoken Chinese like CI videos do. The community is unanimous: daily listening to content you can mostly understand is what separates people who plateau from people who break through.
“Whenever your not talking to your tutor or doing Anki cards, 100% of the rest of your time should be spent watching Mandarin CI (comprehensible input) videos on youtube. With CI, the point is you need to comprehend it or it's not CI.”
r/ChineseLanguage user (ankdain) · read thread →
“At the start of listening to CI it'll melt your brain after 10 minutes and you'll remember nothing, but it's one of those 'total average hours matter' situations. Do 1h a day for a month and then go back and watch some videos you started with and you'll be amazed.”
r/ChineseLanguage user (ankdain) · read thread →
“I learnt Chinese in university from 0 to hsk5. Nowadays since I dont work with Chinese and has been a while since i graduated, i consider myself comfy hsk4 in all skills. i keep it as a hobby by consuming native material that is for children and teens!”
r/ChineseLanguage user (huajiaoyou) · read thread →
“I listen on YouTube and practice with my chinese colleagues.”
r/ChineseLanguage user · read thread →
