2023-12-01 Practice Makes Perfect – by Francis Pan

I arrived in America in March of 1973 with very broken English. Luckily, one of my American friends generously spent his time to help me to improve my English. He told me: “Learning English, like any skill, requires practice and self-discipline. Practice makes perfect.” And ever since, “practice makes perfect” has been my motto for improving my English.

Over these years, repeating that mantra has kept me on the path of getting better at speaking English each and every day.

Even though the languages you and I are learning are different, “practice makes perfect” should also be your guiding principle for learning Mandarin.

Mandarin is  a very difficult language to learn. It’s not an alphabetical language, but rather a language with thousands of characters. Not only that, the language is also tonal, so how you pronounce a word can completely change its meaning.

Therefore, based on my experience, the more you can practice with native Mandarin speakers, the quicker you’ll be able to pick the language up. Encourage those you’re practicing with to correct your pronunciation , enunciation and articulation. Listen to them as they speak so you can mimic how they pronounce tones.

It can be easy to get frustrated when learning, so always remember your original inspiration for trying and keep on trucking. Practice makes perfect.