January 29, 2025 • 33 mins
TikTok is on thin ice in the United States, and millions of Americans are flocking to the Chinese app RedNOTE. The only problem: the whole app is in Chinese. In our Season 2 premiere, we take a look at the TikTok refugee crisis, why and how new RedNOTE users are learning Mandarin, and how we can leverage social media to learn a new language.
New episodes every month! Transcripts available at howtolanguagepod.com. To stay in the loop, follow us on Instagram @howtolang
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Episode Transcript
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Jeremiah (00:05):
Hello! Thank you for joining us for the long awaited
Season 2 of How to Language, apodcast about language learning
for language learners.
I'm Jeremiah.
Marina (00:13):
And I'm Marina.
This season, we'll be doingthings a little different,
posting once a month instead ofbi weekly.
This will hopefully be a moresustainable pace for us as we
try and balance both this andour day jobs.
Jeremiah (00:27):
For our first episode of Season 2, we'll be engaging
with some current events,specifically the recent law
passed by Congress banning thevery popular app TikTok in the
United States.
Even more recently, PresidentTrump has announced a hold
delaying the ban, and so for themoment TikTok remains up as of
this recording.
But we're not really interestedin TikTok per se.
Marina (00:48):
Actually, what's interesting to us is what
happened in the days leading upto when the TikTok ban was to
take effect, the so calledTikTok refugee crisis, and what
it means for language learners.
If you're not aware of theTikTok refugee crisis, don't
worry.
We'll give plenty of contextbefore diving into the language
side of things.
Jeremiah (01:08):
So yeah, with that, let's get started.
As many may be aware, the UnitedStates Congress has decided to
ban the very popular app TikTokin the United States.
They cited data security as themain reason for this.
TikTok is owned by a China basedcompany called ByteDance, and
the prevailing narrative is thatU.
S.
lawmakers are worried about thegovernment of China spying on
(01:28):
the U.
S.
through the app.
But they've also made no secretof their belief that TikTok
might also be used as a way to,like, brainwash, pardon the
scare quotes, young people inthe U.
S.
with pro CCP propaganda.
And the kernel of truth to thatis that many young people have
relied on TikTok as a newssource and I think that's
understandable since trust inmainstream media really is at an
(01:51):
all time low.
Granted this is a developingstory and the latest news at the
time of recording is thatPresident Trump has announced,
that he is issuing an executiveorder which is delaying the
enforcement of the law.
So TikTok went down for a littlebit, as of recording it is
currently back up, but there isno guarantee that it will stay
that way.
So around the news of the TikTokban, one of the biggest news
(02:14):
stories was about how inanticipation of the TikTok ban,
7 million TikTok users, most ofthem American, decided to
migrate to an actual Chineseapp, similar to TikTok, called
Xiaohongshu, which means LittleRed Book, and in English it is
better known as Red Note.
Marina (02:33):
This obviously came as a surprise to Chinese users who
have been on Red Note since itlaunched in 2013.
Imagine your preferred socialmedia app, whether it be
Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, orX, and what it would be like if
one day you woke up and everyother post and comment was in
Mandarin Chinese.
(02:54):
Maybe the most interesting thingabout this, though, is the
reactions of most Chinese users,who I can tell you from
experience have been almostexclusively welcoming and
curious.
Jeremiah (03:04):
Yeah, some of the biggest memes on red note, and
if it's not clear, we've been onred note.
Personally, I've been enjoyingit Some of the biggest memes
there when all of this was firsthappening was for one disbelief
of Chinese users as they seedozens, even hundreds of new
American users all postingvideos of themselves saying Ni
Hao.
And instantly getting morefollowers in a single day than
(03:27):
those Chinese users got afteryears of being active on the
app.
And so, you know, I didn't seelike actual anger over this, but
there was like, kind of jokeyresentment.
Like, are you kidding me?
Also, there were a lot ofChinese users in the comments of
American's posts demanding a cattax.
And there were like, you know,memes that were circulating
(03:48):
around about the cat tax, wherebasically, the American users
are expected to share photos oftheir cats or, you know, their
dogs, sort of as a way ofsaying, like, oh, you're on our
app, if you want to be here, youhave to pay the cat tax.
One particular language relatedone, Americans offering to help
Chinese students with theirEnglish homework, only to get
all of the answers wrong, andthen Chinese users saying, Hey,
(04:11):
you helped me with my, Englishhomework, and I got all the
answers wrong.
And people were pointing to thisas evidence that, Oh, you know,
Americans don't know properEnglish, which, if you've been
listening to our show, you knowthat we would probably chalk it
up to a combination of, one, theEnglish that's taught in schools
not being the same as theinformal spoken English that
most English speakers in the U.
S.
use most of the time.
(04:32):
Plus, you know, admittedly someglaring flaws in our own
education system.
Marina (04:36):
Amidst all those memes, some RedNote users have referred
to this as one of the mostimportant cultural exchanges in
human history.
This may be an exaggeration, butit is true that most Americans
know very little about life inChina, other than what our
politicians and major mediaoutlets tell them.
And many American Red Note usershave commented that China is
(04:59):
very different than what they'vebeen told, based on what they
see on the app.
The term that seems to havestuck for this event is the
TikTok refugee crisis.
So the TikTok refugees in thisinstance being the Americans who
have migrated from TikTok to RedNote.
Now obviously These aren'tactual refugees.
(05:22):
In actual refugee situations,those involve a lot of
psychological and physicaltrauma that's both in the past
and ongoing.
There's an economic component toit and a lack of resources in
actual refugee crises.
Obviously.
So this term is used a littlebit in a tongue in cheek, a
(05:45):
tongue in cheek way.
Um, but TikTok, TikTok refugeeswere kind of forced, forced,
quote unquote, to migrateelsewhere because of the TikTok
ban.
But instead of experiencingtrauma or stress responses, like
you would in an actual refugeecrisis, The atmosphere of the
(06:06):
whole thing was more of like,Ha! Look at us now, you know,
like, it was more of like, theirmigration wasn't so much
involuntary, and it was morejust to spite the U.
S.
government.
Jeremiah (06:20):
Yeah, because let's be honest, like, a big driver
behind the fact that this lawwas, enacted and passed is, the
owners of U.
S.
based social media platformslike Zuckerberg and, and Elon,
you know, not liking that TikTokis, is so popular and, and
wanting to get a better share ofthe market.
(06:42):
And so their kind of master planhere was.
Oh, if we, if we can get thislaw passed, and if we can, you
know, force American users tostop going on TikTok, maybe
finally they will look at Reels.
And Americans were like, youknow, you know what?
I would, I would rather go on anapp that I cannot understand, I
(07:02):
can't speak a single word, and Ican't read a single word.
I would rather go on therebecause that is somewhere I
would rather be than Instagram.
Marina (07:11):
And kind of similar to what you're talking about here,
another consequence of this kindof refugee crisis is that these
Tik Tok refugees are actuallystarting to learn the language
of their host country, in thiscase being the platform of
RedNote.
Jeremiah (07:29):
Yeah, and you know, that's my favorite part, and
that's why I wanted to do ourfirst episode about this,
because the timing coincidedreally well, where we were like,
okay, we need to get season twogoing, and then this happened,
and I was like, oh my god, thisis perfect, because all of a
sudden, you have all theseAmericans, and famously,
Americans generally tend to bemonolingual, like, one of the
(07:50):
most monolingual countries onearth, not in the sense that
there aren't a lot of languagesspoken here, because there are,
but, Most people here only speakthe one, English.
And so now you have all theseAmericans online who are, you
know, legitimately saying like,Oh, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna do
it.
I'm gonna learn it.
I'm gonna learn Chinese.
And so, you know, that wasprobably.
(08:12):
The biggest joke right now, onRedNote, which is that Americans
who have been using TikTok wouldrather use an app in a language
they don't speak than go onInstagram or X.
They would, they would literallyrather learn Chinese.
And maybe you are one of theseTikTok refugees who is trying to
learn, Mandarin.
Or maybe you're just curiousabout what language learning
lessons can be drawn from thisevent, because I think there are
(08:34):
some pretty interesting ones.
Either way, we will spend therest of this episode talking
about the language component.
Marina (08:41):
So, if we're looking at Red Note specifically, there are
a few features, and events thathave taken place that make it a
great environment for learningChinese.
Some of the ones that we'venoticed, you have the benefit of
having Chinese language learningresources directly in the app.
Ever since this sort of refugeecrisis thing started to happen,
(09:03):
if you're an American and youjust open the app and you start
scrolling, you'll probablystumble upon some videos of
Chinese users who.
Their whole account is aboutteaching other people Mandarin.
Pretty quickly.
I'm sure they existed beforethis crisis, but I'm sure
they're really booming now.
Just like how, you know, on anysocial media app you'll find
(09:24):
similar accounts, for a lot ofdifferent languages.
So, that's nice that it's kindof, it's going to be right there
and it's going to be reallyeasily accessible.
Another thing that's nice aboutit being a social media app, is
that you will develop, sort of,the TikTok equivalent of the For
You page.
You'll develop an algorithmthat's very tailored to you and
(09:44):
your interests.
And so, that means that youralgorithm is going to guarantee,
pretty much, that the input thatyou're getting will be relevant
to you and of interest to you.
Which, as we've talked about inSeason 1, is a huge factor in
success when you're learninganother language.
Cause otherwise you'd have toseek that stuff out on your own.
(10:06):
For this it just appears foryou.
Jeremiah (10:09):
It knows you.
Marina (10:10):
It knows me a little too much.
The fact that it's a socialmedia app also means that it's
relatively low stress.
Aside from maybe all of the selfesteem disadvantages that come
with social media.
It's low stress because it's acasual environment.
It's usually when you're relaxedand taking a breather, in
(10:32):
between classes, just, you know,waiting for your train, things
like that.
And also it's low stress becauseeverything is asynchronous,
unless you yourself are doing alive stream.
you're either listening toeverything or you're reading
everything.
Or maybe eventually you'll startwriting things in the comments,
(10:52):
but it's not like a conversationor a speaking situation where
you have to think of things onthe fly or actively listen.
Jeremiah (11:00):
Yeah, and you can, make the equivalent of a TikTok,
like you can make a video andpost it.
Of you speaking Chinese, and ifyou ask for it, there will be
literally millions of people whoare ready to give you feedback
very nicely, very politely, orvery bluntly, whatever you
prefer.
So you have lots ofopportunities in that regard.
Marina (11:22):
Another nice thing about it being an asynchronous
platform is that, like TikTok,videos on the platform often
include subtitles, either inChinese, like if the person is
speaking Chinese, they'll havesubtitles in Chinese as well, or
sometimes they'll even be inEnglish.
And so that makes it really easyto read along and not entirely
(11:45):
depend on listening.
Because I think, there's also abenefit to having the subtitles
and the speech be in the samelanguage.
How many people watch, their TVshows and movies with subtitles
on, even if they don't need themfor comprehension?
It's pretty common.
I think it's nice, and it'sespecially nice in your second
(12:07):
language, to be able to readlisten at the same time.
Now, Chinese, it's a littledifferent if you're not used to
a logographic language.
And if you don't know thecharacters, that's going to be a
challenge.
But once you start learning thecharacters, that's going to be
really beneficial.
Jeremiah (12:25):
Oh, yeah.
If you don't know thecharacters, you're cooked.
But then again, even if you knowsome of the characters, maybe
you won't know what something issaying just by reading it.
But once you start recognizingcharacters that you know, just
from my own personal experience,it starts to take off.
You start to see like theexponential growth, curve.
Marina (12:44):
Because again, you know, if your algorithm is showing you
similar things consistentlyabout similar topics, you'll
probably start recognizingsimilar words.
You know, so I do a lot of likeembroidery and crochet and stuff
like that.
So if I started seeing a lot ofembroidery and crochet videos,
I'd probably start recognizing alot of very similar words, you
(13:05):
know, like embroidery, needle,thread, you know, you start
seeing those over and overagain.
So that's really helpful too.
One disadvantage is that youdon't get as much, speaking
practice, but you can get a lotof written practice, if that's
something that you activelyengage in.
There's the comment section,most famously.
(13:26):
You go into any comment sectionon a video and there's gonna be
opportunities to talk to otherfolks.
There's also direct messaging,if you end up making some
friends on the app.
That's a great opportunity forsome written practice too.
And again, it's asynchronous, sothere's not so much pressure as
there would be in a liveconversation.
(13:46):
And then I think most obviously,one of the greatest advantages
of the app, is that you get aton of authentic exposure to the
language.
And depending on your goals,it's great that it's a lot of
informal use of the language,and so I think that is probably
going to be its greatestadvantage.
Jeremiah (14:08):
Definitely.
And you know what we always sayabout apps and doing anything
that doesn't involve other humanbeings, which is that you're
always going to be missingsomething, But that's also just
true of anything, like, it'simportant to have an all around
approach to learning anylanguage, and so if you're just
on RedNote, or you're on RedNotemaybe using something else, but,
(14:29):
you know, if we're just talkingabout RedNote, you will be
missing a lot of speakingpractice, and like I said, you
can make a video of youspeaking, but it's not just
about production, like, what isimportant about speaking the
language is speaking it tosomeone, ideally, synchronously,
where they are listening to youand your words as you're saying
(14:51):
them and then reacting andresponding and asking questions
and vice versa, like, thatnegotiation for meaning is where
a ton of communication happens,like, the words are just a
starting point and then the, thenegotiation that you have with
the person you're talking to is,is really where the
communication and the learninghappens.
So you're missing out on that.
(15:12):
You're not getting necessarily,like that exact thing of
immediate feedback on theoutput, whether it's written or
spoken.
So asynchronicity is helpful,but it can also be, a little
limiting in that regard.
This is probably the biggestone.
There's no scaffolding orcurriculum.
It's total immersion, and likewe've talked about before, total
(15:32):
immersion, sometimes people saythat's the best way to learn.
It's really not.
You know, immersion has seriousbenefits, but you need to have
scaffolding to kind of,contextualize it.
Like if somebody just shows youa Chinese character, And even if
they tell you, what it says,like, what it sounds like, but
not what it means, you havenothing to go off of.
(15:52):
You have no starting point, noframe of reference.
You know, you could look at thatChinese character every day for,
for 20 years and never know whatit means if somebody doesn't
tell you.
And so, you know, if you're juston RedNote, you're not gonna get
the scaffolding of thecurriculum.
Even if you are watching videosfrom content creators who are,
like, you know, teaching youChinese, it's usually, like,
tips.
(16:13):
Or pronunciation, or how tounderstand tones, stuff like
that.
But these are, you know, short,digestible videos.
They're covering, like, usefulphrases, slang, like I
mentioned, tones, pronunciation.
And if their content is helpfulfor you, then there's nothing
wrong with using it as alearning aid.
That's how I learned, um, a lotof the Korean that I learned
when I was learning a little bitof Korean.
(16:34):
But Since you don't need to becredentialed to be a red note
Chinese language learninginfluencer, your mileage as a
learner, engaging with thatcontent could vary.
Marina (16:43):
So Jeremiah, you've spent a lot more time on Red
Note than I have Have you foundthese things to be true in your
experience?
And I guess just like, how hasit been overall?
Jeremiah (16:55):
Yeah, definitely.
I have found, as far as languagelearning goes, the main thing
that I've gotten out of Red Noteis, people to talk to.
I've made some friends on there,and motivation to learn,
primarily.
I haven't used it as a learningaid that much, because one, I'm
a little shy.
And also I'm like starting outas an absolute beginner.
(17:15):
And so I have very little frameof reference, as far as just my
general experience, one, I wasnever on Tik TOK.
And so I'm not really a Tik TOKrefugee, even though I was kind
of there for it because.
I've always had a bit of afascination with China and so
when I learned about the massmigration to Xiaohongshu, I, I
couldn't resist joining in andso far I really love it.
Like I said, I've made severalfriends, several Chinese friends
(17:38):
on RedNote and it's been reallyinteresting talking to them
about their experiences, whatthey've heard about the U.
S., stuff like that.
And most of my conversationswith them are through, like,
Google Translate because I couldtalk to them about, the language
that I've learned in the veryfew, levels of Chinese that I've
gotten from an app that I'musing.
(17:58):
But it's not much to build aconversation off of.
My conversations with them, it'sbeen a little bit of language
learning, but it's also been alot of just talking to people
from a very different, cultureand, and,
uh, yeah.
Marina (18:10):
I think it's interesting that you mentioned motivation,
and the app being a bigmotivator for learning Chinese.
I know that, the driver of a lotof English language learning
around the world is to engagewith a predominantly English
speaking internet.
And so, it's kind of cool thatit's going in the other
direction now.
(18:31):
And the English speakers aregetting a taste of that.
Of what it's like to be in anonline space where the majority
of the speakers don't speak yourlanguage.
And also the fact that, youknow, it being a pretty, pretty
powerful motivator is neat.
Because as we know, motivationis a huge It's not the only
component, but it is a hugecomponent in success when it
(18:52):
comes to language learning.
Jeremiah (18:54):
Yeah, definitely, and I think, that, that is exactly
why I found it so motivating isbecause, like, okay, take the
opposite example, for example,opposite example, for example,
take the opposite example, forexample, Latin, which I love,
and I love studying Latin, andsometimes I go back to it, and I
really enjoyed it, but It's hardto stay motivated because it's
(19:17):
hard not to ask yourself, like,why am I doing this?
And so, that's what makes, like,Spanish a little bit easier, I
think, or a lot easier.
Or, that's part of what makes ita lot easier.
And, I've always wanted to learnChinese, but I never really felt
like it was worth it.
And, now I have a much biggerreason to feel like it's worth
(19:38):
it.
So, that's definitely a hugepart of it.
So, you know, I think based onmy experience and also just our
knowledge as language educators,for anyone who is learning, who
is also learning Chinese,whether on RedNote or is on
RedNote and wants to learnChinese, or is just learning
Chinese, I think we could, uh,share a couple of tips.
Marina (19:59):
So first things first, we've hinted to it a little bit,
already, but you can't reallyrely on a social media app for
all of your language learningneeds.
It does have those advantagesthat we mentioned earlier, but
it's not going to be enough ifyou're really looking to learn
Chinese.
You're going to need some kindof main tool, whether that is, a
(20:22):
class that you're taking, astudy group, a conversation
circle, maybe you're living inChina, reading a textbook,
anything like that, or, youknow, in Jeremiah's case, an
app.
Yeah, I use That's specificallyfor learning.
Jeremiah (20:38):
Yeah, I use Hello Chinese, which,
um,
It's, it's a, it's a little like Duolingo, but way
better, I think.
Sorry, Duolingo.
And it's very tailored forChinese, because it's just for
Chinese.
So, if you want to learnChinese, I'm not getting paid by
HelloChinese, but I have foundit very nice.
Marina (20:55):
Mm hmm.
Yeah, you just need somethingthat gives you at least the
foundational stuff.
The more linguistic concepts,like how the grammar works in
Chinese.
The tones, pinyin, which is theromanization of Chinese
character writing, reading,stroke order, and so on.
You can supplement then withRedNote and similar things for
(21:18):
reading and writing practice, oras a way to find language
partners like was the case forJeremiah.
If you make Chinese friends onthe app, you can download a
separate Chinese messaging applike WeChat.
Which is kind of like ChineseWhatsApp.
And carry on your conversationsthere if you don't want to stay
in Red Note.
And then you and your friend canmessage, send voice messages, or
(21:40):
even eventually do like a callor a video chat to have live,
synchronous conversations withinstant feedback.
Jeremiah (21:48):
And you can also, like we said, follow accounts that
teach Chinese on the app.
You might even find accountscreated by Americans who are
documenting their own learningprocess.
Often a fellow learner can be ashelpful for your own language
learning as a first languageuser of the language you're
using.
Some other tools that Ipersonally would recommend for
learning Chinese, these are allthings that I've been using so
(22:09):
far, with or without being onRedNote.
The main one, I think, it'salways important to have some
kind of a dictionary.
You know, with Spanish, I useSpanish dict.
Um, Spanish dictionary, and it'sgreat.
The closest equivalent I'vefound for that for Chinese is
called Pleco, I think there's awebsite.
I have it.
It's an app.
And it's really an everythingapp for learning Chinese.
(22:31):
The key features are that it hasa comprehensive English to
Chinese and Chinese to Englishdictionary, support for creating
and reviewing flashcards.
It has stroke order charts forcommon Chinese characters, which
I am still trying to figure outstroke order.
It doesn't come super easily tome it has traditional and
simplified characters It alsohas handwriting input for
(22:53):
drawing unfamiliar characters,so if you see one, you can just
draw it and then search thatway, or you can type in the
pinyin, or you can even like, gobased on the strokes, it also
has pinyin pronunciation for allcharacters, including tones,
which is so, so important, andit just has a lot more, so
anyone learning Chinese shouldreally have this app, it's free,
(23:13):
it's fantastic.
Another, app that I'm usingbesides HelloChinese, I'm using
a lot of apps this time aroundbecause it seemed appropriate
with RedNote being an app, um,is Memrise.
This isn't just for Chinese,this is for any language, and I
think even things that aren'tlanguage.
Memrise is, it has a lot.
It's a personal favorite ofours, especially for learning
(23:35):
chunks, set phrases and commonvocabulary, which I think don't
get enough attention howimportant it is to learn chunks
and phrases and not justindividual words.
And it also includes a lot ofinformal expressions that you
would not necessarily get from atextbook or even a class.
It has like videos of speakers,you know, saying the expressions
you're learning.
(23:55):
It's really great for learningtravel vocabulary.
In fact, I'm also simultaneouslylearning a little bit of Italian
for a trip we have coming up.
It does not teach grammar orcharacters though.
It has characters included, kindof, but it's kind pinyin.
So make sure to supplement witha home base.
Kind of learning tool, like aclass, or a textbook, or an app,
(24:18):
like HelloChinese.
HelloChinese, like I said, kindof like Duolingo, but tailored
to the specific characteristicsof Chinese, like tones and
characters.
Also, especially if you're onRedNote, Google Translate, it's
kind of like Wikipedia, where itgets a bit of a bad rap.
I think nowadays it's kind ofundeserved.
If I remember correctly, it usedto be pretty bad, like, Google
Translate.
Marina (24:39):
It probably still isn't great.
Jeremiah (24:41):
It's still not great, I'm sure, because sometimes, you
know, I'll, I mean, if I'mtalking to, you know, one of my
Chinese friends, and I put,like, what they say in Chinese
into the translator and then itspits out English, it might
sound weird, you know,
Marina (24:53):
but the purpose is just to get your point across and to
communicate.
It's not like a super formalsetting, and so, for the
purposes of this, I think thatsomething, using a translator is
fine, at least in the beginning.
Jeremiah (25:07):
Yeah, and, but I will say, as you learn more Chinese,
and this goes for any language,try not to use the translator
except as a last resort.
Like, don't rely on it.
And if you're worried you'regoing to make a mistake, good,
make it, make that mistakebecause that's how you're going
to learn.
I cannot stress that enough.
Another tool that I've learnedabout, I haven't used quite as
much, but it seems pretty cool,is called the Chairman's Bao.
(25:31):
It's an app and a website thatteaches Chinese, particularly
intermediate and higher levelsof Chinese, I think.
And it uses Chinese languagenews articles as input.
And so, from what I understand,it may not be suitable for
beginners, but definitely aninvaluable resource as you learn
more.
It's always to have input, and Ithink the input is pretty
(25:51):
structured.
It's not just like, oh, here yougo, read this.
Marina (25:55):
That sounds like it would be a nice supplemental
material if you're moreintermediate or advanced that
you could use with RedNote.
Because they're going to be twovery different kinds of input.
Jeremiah (26:04):
Like we also mentioned, WeChat.
Super helpful for keeping intouch with Chinese friends that
you meet on Red Note.
Especially if Red Note getsbanned.
Can you imagine?
Yeah.
I think, yeah, I don't thinkthey can ban WeChat though
because, all of our Chinesefriends in the U.
S.
also use it.
And then the last one I'llrecommend is called Skritter.
It's an app and a website thatis focused on teaching Chinese
(26:26):
characters and it also works forJapanese for learning kanji.
Marina (26:30):
One tool that I've started using recently that I
really enjoy is calledClozemaster, with a Z.
If you like Memrise and the kindof chunking and set phrases that
it encourages, Clozemaster isgreat.
It isn't explicit instruction,it's not going to explain the
grammar to you or anything likethat, but it'll, give you, a
(26:51):
sentence in the target language,and then you have to translate
it, or the other way around,it'll give you an English, or
whatever your first language is,sentence, and then you have to
translate it into the targetlanguage.
It's, and the sentences aregoing to be pretty useful, and
not super weird, like they arein Duolingo.
(27:12):
I don't know, it's great forseeing language in context,
which I think is superimportant, and something that
Memrise does really well.
But Clozemaster just kind oftakes it to another level.
So instead of seeing individualvocabulary words, you learn
those vocabulary words in thecontext of a sentence.
Which I love.
Jeremiah (27:32):
I'll have to try that out.
Marina (27:34):
They have more than just Chinese, too.
They have Spanish and lots ofothers.
Highly recommend it.
And it's free.
Awesome.
Jeremiah (27:41):
Yeah, Chinese is a little like Spanish in that
there are a lot of very, veryuseful resources for learning
the language.
Much, much more than for lesspopular, second or foreign
languages, like from English tothat language.
Like, sorry, Icelandic.
Sorry, Iceland.
Apparently, nobody wants tolearn Icelandic, even though
it's a cool language.
So if you're from Iceland, cool,cool language you got there.
Marina (28:03):
The resources for Chinese are probably just going
to continue to increase, notjust because of this whole
TikTok Red Note debacle, butalso just because of the
position that China has in theworld, on the world stage.
Kind of a cringe statement, butyou know what I mean.
Jeremiah (28:22):
Do I ever.
Marina (28:24):
You know, the desire for English speakers to learn
Chinese is probably only goingto increase.
Now is probably the best time inhistory to learn Chinese, if
that's ever something that youwanted to do.
Jeremiah (28:38):
You might as well start now.
Marina (28:40):
Takes a while.
Jeremiah (28:42):
Though, and I'll use the last couple minutes to just,
talk about why I like Chinese sofar.
If you are learning or havelearned Spanish or Latin or, you
know, I don't know, Norwegian.
These are just languages thatwe've studied, but they all have
one thing in common, which isthat you have to like conjugate
verbs and you have to change thenouns depending on what they're
(29:05):
doing in the sentence.
Like if a noun is plural, youhave to stick an S on the end in
English and in Latin you have toremember like 60 different
endings for a single word justfor like what time you did it.
Is it in the past or is it inthe future?
Is it in the future looking backto the past or the past looking
back to the further past?
In Chinese, once you learn aword, you've got that word.
(29:28):
You don't have to do anythingelse to it.
You just gotta learn, what itsounds like.
You know, how to spell it inpinyin, which is what it sounds
like.
Pinyin isn't weird like English.
And then you have to learn thecharacter so you can read it,
and then you have to learn whatit means.
So that's like three things, andthey don't really change.
And so, you just have to put itin the right spot in the
(29:48):
language.
Because that's one thing Englishand Chinese have in common, is
that word order is a lot moreimportant than in, say, Latin,
where you can do any old thing.
Because all the words tell you,like, what they're supposed to
be doing.
Whereas in Chinese and alsoEnglish, word order is a lot
more important to tell you whatthe word is doing.
Um, so Yeah.
It's really fun.
Marina (30:07):
In that sense, it's nice coming from an English speaking
background, uh, butpronunciation and specifically
tones are rough.
Jeremiah (30:18):
Tones is one of the hardest things that people
experience, I think, especiallyEnglish speakers learning
Chinese.
And if you're not sure whattones are, in Chinese and
several other languages thepitch of how you say a word or a
syllable can change its meaning.
Do you remember what that'scalled in linguistics?
Marina (30:36):
A tone?
Jeremiah (30:36):
Oh, like where, it's phonemic.
Yeah, if something is phonemic,that means that, the difference
between it and something similarcan be the difference in
meaning.
In English, tone is notphonemic.
Like if you say, what?
Or if you say, what?
Or if you say, what, the meaningdoesn't change, it carries a
slightly different sense, butit's not the same thing as tones
(30:58):
because in Chinese, thedifference between the words ma
and ma and ma and ma, fourdifferent words, completely
different.
And um, you know, that can bedangerous.
You don't want to say the wrongword going in the wrong
direction because you might meanto say, like, Oh, this is my
(31:18):
friend, and then you end up,calling them a slur or
something.
Marina (31:22):
If there are any Chinese speakers listening, I welcome
you to critique Jeremiah'stones.
Jeremiah (31:30):
I'm working on it, you know, I'm just an English
speaker just like the rest ofthe English speakers and, you
know, I get it in theory, but itis hard to remember, especially
when you are in the middle of asentence,
Marina (31:41):
I think that's probably one reason, I don't know, I
don't, I'm not a Chineselinguist so I don't know, but
that's one reason why I imaginethat chunking is going to be so
valuable if you're learningChinese.
Instead of thinking about, like,the individual components of a
word, whether written or spoken,I think it'd be helpful to learn
(32:01):
units, because then you can sortof just overlay the tones onto
those units and memorize that,as opposed to just, like, going
syllable by syllable, and tryingto remember the tone, that's not
going to be sustainable.
Jeremiah (32:14):
Exactly, instead of saying oh, I mean, you have to
learn words individually, butinstead of being like, okay, wǒ,
that's me, I, and then dè,that's my, with those two
together, and then gǒu, that'sdog, you kind of learn wǒ de
gǒu, that's my dog, and yeah,chunks are super helpful for
that because All of the, pitchinformation is encoded in the
(32:40):
piece that you learn, as a unit.
Marina (32:42):
Yeah.
So, that's our completelyunfounded theory.
Well, I mean, chunking, Well,chunking as a method is not
unfounded.
Jeremiah (32:50):
I think it applies to any language, honestly, is how
important chunking is, which isthe reason I like Memrise and,
if whatever language tool you'reusing, isn't teaching you like
chunks of words at the same timeas it's teaching you individual
words, maybe seek out a tool forlearning chunks of words Or
just, make an effort to think ofwords in terms of chunks.
(33:11):
Or you know what?
Better yet, if you're usingflashcards, instead of saying,
like, flashcard, Mao means cat.
Make a flashcard for, like, anentire short sentence that has
that word in it.
Because it's a lot easier.
That's what Clozemaster does.
Okay, there you go.
Shout out.
Shout out to Cloze.
I'll have to check it out.
(33:34):
Thanks for listening to episodeone of season two of How to
Language.
If you like what we do, go aheadand rate or review us on
whatever platform you'relistening on, and follow us on
Instagram for more languagecontent and updates on the show.
See you next time.
Yep, more to come.
Bye!
Hello! Thank you for joining us for the long awaited
Season 2 of How to Language, apodcast about language learning
for language learners.
I'm Jeremiah.
Marina (00:13):
And I'm Marina.
This season, we'll be doingthings a little different,
posting once a month instead ofbi weekly.
This will hopefully be a moresustainable pace for us as we
try and balance both this andour day jobs.
Jeremiah (00:27):
For our first episode of Season 2, we'll be engaging
with some current events,specifically the recent law
passed by Congress banning thevery popular app TikTok in the
United States.
Even more recently, PresidentTrump has announced a hold
delaying the ban, and so for themoment TikTok remains up as of
this recording.
But we're not really interestedin TikTok per se.
Marina (00:48):
Actually, what's interesting to us is what
happened in the days leading upto when the TikTok ban was to
take effect, the so calledTikTok refugee crisis, and what
it means for language learners.
If you're not aware of theTikTok refugee crisis, don't
worry.
We'll give plenty of contextbefore diving into the language
side of things.
Jeremiah (01:08):
So yeah, with that, let's get started.
As many may be aware, the UnitedStates Congress has decided to
ban the very popular app TikTokin the United States.
They cited data security as themain reason for this.
TikTok is owned by a China basedcompany called ByteDance, and
the prevailing narrative is thatU.
S.
lawmakers are worried about thegovernment of China spying on
(01:28):
the U.
S.
through the app.
But they've also made no secretof their belief that TikTok
might also be used as a way to,like, brainwash, pardon the
scare quotes, young people inthe U.
S.
with pro CCP propaganda.
And the kernel of truth to thatis that many young people have
relied on TikTok as a newssource and I think that's
understandable since trust inmainstream media really is at an
(01:51):
all time low.
Granted this is a developingstory and the latest news at the
time of recording is thatPresident Trump has announced,
that he is issuing an executiveorder which is delaying the
enforcement of the law.
So TikTok went down for a littlebit, as of recording it is
currently back up, but there isno guarantee that it will stay
that way.
So around the news of the TikTokban, one of the biggest news
(02:14):
stories was about how inanticipation of the TikTok ban,
7 million TikTok users, most ofthem American, decided to
migrate to an actual Chineseapp, similar to TikTok, called
Xiaohongshu, which means LittleRed Book, and in English it is
better known as Red Note.
Marina (02:33):
This obviously came as a surprise to Chinese users who
have been on Red Note since itlaunched in 2013.
Imagine your preferred socialmedia app, whether it be
Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, orX, and what it would be like if
one day you woke up and everyother post and comment was in
Mandarin Chinese.
(02:54):
Maybe the most interesting thingabout this, though, is the
reactions of most Chinese users,who I can tell you from
experience have been almostexclusively welcoming and
curious.
Jeremiah (03:04):
Yeah, some of the biggest memes on red note, and
if it's not clear, we've been onred note.
Personally, I've been enjoyingit Some of the biggest memes
there when all of this was firsthappening was for one disbelief
of Chinese users as they seedozens, even hundreds of new
American users all postingvideos of themselves saying Ni
Hao.
And instantly getting morefollowers in a single day than
(03:27):
those Chinese users got afteryears of being active on the
app.
And so, you know, I didn't seelike actual anger over this, but
there was like, kind of jokeyresentment.
Like, are you kidding me?
Also, there were a lot ofChinese users in the comments of
American's posts demanding a cattax.
And there were like, you know,memes that were circulating
(03:48):
around about the cat tax, wherebasically, the American users
are expected to share photos oftheir cats or, you know, their
dogs, sort of as a way ofsaying, like, oh, you're on our
app, if you want to be here, youhave to pay the cat tax.
One particular language relatedone, Americans offering to help
Chinese students with theirEnglish homework, only to get
all of the answers wrong, andthen Chinese users saying, Hey,
(04:11):
you helped me with my, Englishhomework, and I got all the
answers wrong.
And people were pointing to thisas evidence that, Oh, you know,
Americans don't know properEnglish, which, if you've been
listening to our show, you knowthat we would probably chalk it
up to a combination of, one, theEnglish that's taught in schools
not being the same as theinformal spoken English that
most English speakers in the U.
S.
use most of the time.
(04:32):
Plus, you know, admittedly someglaring flaws in our own
education system.
Marina (04:36):
Amidst all those memes, some RedNote users have referred
to this as one of the mostimportant cultural exchanges in
human history.
This may be an exaggeration, butit is true that most Americans
know very little about life inChina, other than what our
politicians and major mediaoutlets tell them.
And many American Red Note usershave commented that China is
(04:59):
very different than what they'vebeen told, based on what they
see on the app.
The term that seems to havestuck for this event is the
TikTok refugee crisis.
So the TikTok refugees in thisinstance being the Americans who
have migrated from TikTok to RedNote.
Now obviously These aren'tactual refugees.
(05:22):
In actual refugee situations,those involve a lot of
psychological and physicaltrauma that's both in the past
and ongoing.
There's an economic component toit and a lack of resources in
actual refugee crises.
Obviously.
So this term is used a littlebit in a tongue in cheek, a
(05:45):
tongue in cheek way.
Um, but TikTok, TikTok refugeeswere kind of forced, forced,
quote unquote, to migrateelsewhere because of the TikTok
ban.
But instead of experiencingtrauma or stress responses, like
you would in an actual refugeecrisis, The atmosphere of the
(06:06):
whole thing was more of like,Ha! Look at us now, you know,
like, it was more of like, theirmigration wasn't so much
involuntary, and it was morejust to spite the U.
S.
government.
Jeremiah (06:20):
Yeah, because let's be honest, like, a big driver
behind the fact that this lawwas, enacted and passed is, the
owners of U.
S.
based social media platformslike Zuckerberg and, and Elon,
you know, not liking that TikTokis, is so popular and, and
wanting to get a better share ofthe market.
(06:42):
And so their kind of master planhere was.
Oh, if we, if we can get thislaw passed, and if we can, you
know, force American users tostop going on TikTok, maybe
finally they will look at Reels.
And Americans were like, youknow, you know what?
I would, I would rather go on anapp that I cannot understand, I
(07:02):
can't speak a single word, and Ican't read a single word.
I would rather go on therebecause that is somewhere I
would rather be than Instagram.
Marina (07:11):
And kind of similar to what you're talking about here,
another consequence of this kindof refugee crisis is that these
Tik Tok refugees are actuallystarting to learn the language
of their host country, in thiscase being the platform of
RedNote.
Jeremiah (07:29):
Yeah, and you know, that's my favorite part, and
that's why I wanted to do ourfirst episode about this,
because the timing coincidedreally well, where we were like,
okay, we need to get season twogoing, and then this happened,
and I was like, oh my god, thisis perfect, because all of a
sudden, you have all theseAmericans, and famously,
Americans generally tend to bemonolingual, like, one of the
(07:50):
most monolingual countries onearth, not in the sense that
there aren't a lot of languagesspoken here, because there are,
but, Most people here only speakthe one, English.
And so now you have all theseAmericans online who are, you
know, legitimately saying like,Oh, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna do
it.
I'm gonna learn it.
I'm gonna learn Chinese.
And so, you know, that wasprobably.
(08:12):
The biggest joke right now, onRedNote, which is that Americans
who have been using TikTok wouldrather use an app in a language
they don't speak than go onInstagram or X.
They would, they would literallyrather learn Chinese.
And maybe you are one of theseTikTok refugees who is trying to
learn, Mandarin.
Or maybe you're just curiousabout what language learning
lessons can be drawn from thisevent, because I think there are
(08:34):
some pretty interesting ones.
Either way, we will spend therest of this episode talking
about the language component.
Marina (08:41):
So, if we're looking at Red Note specifically, there are
a few features, and events thathave taken place that make it a
great environment for learningChinese.
Some of the ones that we'venoticed, you have the benefit of
having Chinese language learningresources directly in the app.
Ever since this sort of refugeecrisis thing started to happen,
(09:03):
if you're an American and youjust open the app and you start
scrolling, you'll probablystumble upon some videos of
Chinese users who.
Their whole account is aboutteaching other people Mandarin.
Pretty quickly.
I'm sure they existed beforethis crisis, but I'm sure
they're really booming now.
Just like how, you know, on anysocial media app you'll find
(09:24):
similar accounts, for a lot ofdifferent languages.
So, that's nice that it's kindof, it's going to be right there
and it's going to be reallyeasily accessible.
Another thing that's nice aboutit being a social media app, is
that you will develop, sort of,the TikTok equivalent of the For
You page.
You'll develop an algorithmthat's very tailored to you and
(09:44):
your interests.
And so, that means that youralgorithm is going to guarantee,
pretty much, that the input thatyou're getting will be relevant
to you and of interest to you.
Which, as we've talked about inSeason 1, is a huge factor in
success when you're learninganother language.
Cause otherwise you'd have toseek that stuff out on your own.
(10:06):
For this it just appears foryou.
Jeremiah (10:09):
It knows you.
Marina (10:10):
It knows me a little too much.
The fact that it's a socialmedia app also means that it's
relatively low stress.
Aside from maybe all of the selfesteem disadvantages that come
with social media.
It's low stress because it's acasual environment.
It's usually when you're relaxedand taking a breather, in
(10:32):
between classes, just, you know,waiting for your train, things
like that.
And also it's low stress becauseeverything is asynchronous,
unless you yourself are doing alive stream.
you're either listening toeverything or you're reading
everything.
Or maybe eventually you'll startwriting things in the comments,
(10:52):
but it's not like a conversationor a speaking situation where
you have to think of things onthe fly or actively listen.
Jeremiah (11:00):
Yeah, and you can, make the equivalent of a TikTok,
like you can make a video andpost it.
Of you speaking Chinese, and ifyou ask for it, there will be
literally millions of people whoare ready to give you feedback
very nicely, very politely, orvery bluntly, whatever you
prefer.
So you have lots ofopportunities in that regard.
Marina (11:22):
Another nice thing about it being an asynchronous
platform is that, like TikTok,videos on the platform often
include subtitles, either inChinese, like if the person is
speaking Chinese, they'll havesubtitles in Chinese as well, or
sometimes they'll even be inEnglish.
And so that makes it really easyto read along and not entirely
(11:45):
depend on listening.
Because I think, there's also abenefit to having the subtitles
and the speech be in the samelanguage.
How many people watch, their TVshows and movies with subtitles
on, even if they don't need themfor comprehension?
It's pretty common.
I think it's nice, and it'sespecially nice in your second
(12:07):
language, to be able to readlisten at the same time.
Now, Chinese, it's a littledifferent if you're not used to
a logographic language.
And if you don't know thecharacters, that's going to be a
challenge.
But once you start learning thecharacters, that's going to be
really beneficial.
Jeremiah (12:25):
Oh, yeah.
If you don't know thecharacters, you're cooked.
But then again, even if you knowsome of the characters, maybe
you won't know what something issaying just by reading it.
But once you start recognizingcharacters that you know, just
from my own personal experience,it starts to take off.
You start to see like theexponential growth, curve.
Marina (12:44):
Because again, you know, if your algorithm is showing you
similar things consistentlyabout similar topics, you'll
probably start recognizingsimilar words.
You know, so I do a lot of likeembroidery and crochet and stuff
like that.
So if I started seeing a lot ofembroidery and crochet videos,
I'd probably start recognizing alot of very similar words, you
(13:05):
know, like embroidery, needle,thread, you know, you start
seeing those over and overagain.
So that's really helpful too.
One disadvantage is that youdon't get as much, speaking
practice, but you can get a lotof written practice, if that's
something that you activelyengage in.
There's the comment section,most famously.
(13:26):
You go into any comment sectionon a video and there's gonna be
opportunities to talk to otherfolks.
There's also direct messaging,if you end up making some
friends on the app.
That's a great opportunity forsome written practice too.
And again, it's asynchronous, sothere's not so much pressure as
there would be in a liveconversation.
(13:46):
And then I think most obviously,one of the greatest advantages
of the app, is that you get aton of authentic exposure to the
language.
And depending on your goals,it's great that it's a lot of
informal use of the language,and so I think that is probably
going to be its greatestadvantage.
Jeremiah (14:08):
Definitely.
And you know what we always sayabout apps and doing anything
that doesn't involve other humanbeings, which is that you're
always going to be missingsomething, But that's also just
true of anything, like, it'simportant to have an all around
approach to learning anylanguage, and so if you're just
on RedNote, or you're on RedNotemaybe using something else, but,
(14:29):
you know, if we're just talkingabout RedNote, you will be
missing a lot of speakingpractice, and like I said, you
can make a video of youspeaking, but it's not just
about production, like, what isimportant about speaking the
language is speaking it tosomeone, ideally, synchronously,
where they are listening to youand your words as you're saying
(14:51):
them and then reacting andresponding and asking questions
and vice versa, like, thatnegotiation for meaning is where
a ton of communication happens,like, the words are just a
starting point and then the, thenegotiation that you have with
the person you're talking to is,is really where the
communication and the learninghappens.
So you're missing out on that.
(15:12):
You're not getting necessarily,like that exact thing of
immediate feedback on theoutput, whether it's written or
spoken.
So asynchronicity is helpful,but it can also be, a little
limiting in that regard.
This is probably the biggestone.
There's no scaffolding orcurriculum.
It's total immersion, and likewe've talked about before, total
(15:32):
immersion, sometimes people saythat's the best way to learn.
It's really not.
You know, immersion has seriousbenefits, but you need to have
scaffolding to kind of,contextualize it.
Like if somebody just shows youa Chinese character, And even if
they tell you, what it says,like, what it sounds like, but
not what it means, you havenothing to go off of.
(15:52):
You have no starting point, noframe of reference.
You know, you could look at thatChinese character every day for,
for 20 years and never know whatit means if somebody doesn't
tell you.
And so, you know, if you're juston RedNote, you're not gonna get
the scaffolding of thecurriculum.
Even if you are watching videosfrom content creators who are,
like, you know, teaching youChinese, it's usually, like,
tips.
(16:13):
Or pronunciation, or how tounderstand tones, stuff like
that.
But these are, you know, short,digestible videos.
They're covering, like, usefulphrases, slang, like I
mentioned, tones, pronunciation.
And if their content is helpfulfor you, then there's nothing
wrong with using it as alearning aid.
That's how I learned, um, a lotof the Korean that I learned
when I was learning a little bitof Korean.
(16:34):
But Since you don't need to becredentialed to be a red note
Chinese language learninginfluencer, your mileage as a
learner, engaging with thatcontent could vary.
Marina (16:43):
So Jeremiah, you've spent a lot more time on Red
Note than I have Have you foundthese things to be true in your
experience?
And I guess just like, how hasit been overall?
Jeremiah (16:55):
Yeah, definitely.
I have found, as far as languagelearning goes, the main thing
that I've gotten out of Red Noteis, people to talk to.
I've made some friends on there,and motivation to learn,
primarily.
I haven't used it as a learningaid that much, because one, I'm
a little shy.
And also I'm like starting outas an absolute beginner.
(17:15):
And so I have very little frameof reference, as far as just my
general experience, one, I wasnever on Tik TOK.
And so I'm not really a Tik TOKrefugee, even though I was kind
of there for it because.
I've always had a bit of afascination with China and so
when I learned about the massmigration to Xiaohongshu, I, I
couldn't resist joining in andso far I really love it.
Like I said, I've made severalfriends, several Chinese friends
(17:38):
on RedNote and it's been reallyinteresting talking to them
about their experiences, whatthey've heard about the U.
S., stuff like that.
And most of my conversationswith them are through, like,
Google Translate because I couldtalk to them about, the language
that I've learned in the veryfew, levels of Chinese that I've
gotten from an app that I'musing.
(17:58):
But it's not much to build aconversation off of.
My conversations with them, it'sbeen a little bit of language
learning, but it's also been alot of just talking to people
from a very different, cultureand, and,
uh, yeah.
Marina (18:10):
I think it's interesting that you mentioned motivation,
and the app being a bigmotivator for learning Chinese.
I know that, the driver of a lotof English language learning
around the world is to engagewith a predominantly English
speaking internet.
And so, it's kind of cool thatit's going in the other
direction now.
(18:31):
And the English speakers aregetting a taste of that.
Of what it's like to be in anonline space where the majority
of the speakers don't speak yourlanguage.
And also the fact that, youknow, it being a pretty, pretty
powerful motivator is neat.
Because as we know, motivationis a huge It's not the only
component, but it is a hugecomponent in success when it
(18:52):
comes to language learning.
Jeremiah (18:54):
Yeah, definitely, and I think, that, that is exactly
why I found it so motivating isbecause, like, okay, take the
opposite example, for example,opposite example, for example,
take the opposite example, forexample, Latin, which I love,
and I love studying Latin, andsometimes I go back to it, and I
really enjoyed it, but It's hardto stay motivated because it's
(19:17):
hard not to ask yourself, like,why am I doing this?
And so, that's what makes, like,Spanish a little bit easier, I
think, or a lot easier.
Or, that's part of what makes ita lot easier.
And, I've always wanted to learnChinese, but I never really felt
like it was worth it.
And, now I have a much biggerreason to feel like it's worth
(19:38):
it.
So, that's definitely a hugepart of it.
So, you know, I think based onmy experience and also just our
knowledge as language educators,for anyone who is learning, who
is also learning Chinese,whether on RedNote or is on
RedNote and wants to learnChinese, or is just learning
Chinese, I think we could, uh,share a couple of tips.
Marina (19:59):
So first things first, we've hinted to it a little bit,
already, but you can't reallyrely on a social media app for
all of your language learningneeds.
It does have those advantagesthat we mentioned earlier, but
it's not going to be enough ifyou're really looking to learn
Chinese.
You're going to need some kindof main tool, whether that is, a
(20:22):
class that you're taking, astudy group, a conversation
circle, maybe you're living inChina, reading a textbook,
anything like that, or, youknow, in Jeremiah's case, an
app.
Yeah, I use That's specificallyfor learning.
Jeremiah (20:38):
Yeah, I use Hello Chinese, which,
um,
It's, it's a, it's a little like Duolingo, but way
better, I think.
Sorry, Duolingo.
And it's very tailored forChinese, because it's just for
Chinese.
So, if you want to learnChinese, I'm not getting paid by
HelloChinese, but I have foundit very nice.
Marina (20:55):
Mm hmm.
Yeah, you just need somethingthat gives you at least the
foundational stuff.
The more linguistic concepts,like how the grammar works in
Chinese.
The tones, pinyin, which is theromanization of Chinese
character writing, reading,stroke order, and so on.
You can supplement then withRedNote and similar things for
(21:18):
reading and writing practice, oras a way to find language
partners like was the case forJeremiah.
If you make Chinese friends onthe app, you can download a
separate Chinese messaging applike WeChat.
Which is kind of like ChineseWhatsApp.
And carry on your conversationsthere if you don't want to stay
in Red Note.
And then you and your friend canmessage, send voice messages, or
(21:40):
even eventually do like a callor a video chat to have live,
synchronous conversations withinstant feedback.
Jeremiah (21:48):
And you can also, like we said, follow accounts that
teach Chinese on the app.
You might even find accountscreated by Americans who are
documenting their own learningprocess.
Often a fellow learner can be ashelpful for your own language
learning as a first languageuser of the language you're
using.
Some other tools that Ipersonally would recommend for
learning Chinese, these are allthings that I've been using so
(22:09):
far, with or without being onRedNote.
The main one, I think, it'salways important to have some
kind of a dictionary.
You know, with Spanish, I useSpanish dict.
Um, Spanish dictionary, and it'sgreat.
The closest equivalent I'vefound for that for Chinese is
called Pleco, I think there's awebsite.
I have it.
It's an app.
And it's really an everythingapp for learning Chinese.
(22:31):
The key features are that it hasa comprehensive English to
Chinese and Chinese to Englishdictionary, support for creating
and reviewing flashcards.
It has stroke order charts forcommon Chinese characters, which
I am still trying to figure outstroke order.
It doesn't come super easily tome it has traditional and
simplified characters It alsohas handwriting input for
(22:53):
drawing unfamiliar characters,so if you see one, you can just
draw it and then search thatway, or you can type in the
pinyin, or you can even like, gobased on the strokes, it also
has pinyin pronunciation for allcharacters, including tones,
which is so, so important, andit just has a lot more, so
anyone learning Chinese shouldreally have this app, it's free,
(23:13):
it's fantastic.
Another, app that I'm usingbesides HelloChinese, I'm using
a lot of apps this time aroundbecause it seemed appropriate
with RedNote being an app, um,is Memrise.
This isn't just for Chinese,this is for any language, and I
think even things that aren'tlanguage.
Memrise is, it has a lot.
It's a personal favorite ofours, especially for learning
(23:35):
chunks, set phrases and commonvocabulary, which I think don't
get enough attention howimportant it is to learn chunks
and phrases and not justindividual words.
And it also includes a lot ofinformal expressions that you
would not necessarily get from atextbook or even a class.
It has like videos of speakers,you know, saying the expressions
you're learning.
(23:55):
It's really great for learningtravel vocabulary.
In fact, I'm also simultaneouslylearning a little bit of Italian
for a trip we have coming up.
It does not teach grammar orcharacters though.
It has characters included, kindof, but it's kind pinyin.
So make sure to supplement witha home base.
Kind of learning tool, like aclass, or a textbook, or an app,
(24:18):
like HelloChinese.
HelloChinese, like I said, kindof like Duolingo, but tailored
to the specific characteristicsof Chinese, like tones and
characters.
Also, especially if you're onRedNote, Google Translate, it's
kind of like Wikipedia, where itgets a bit of a bad rap.
I think nowadays it's kind ofundeserved.
If I remember correctly, it usedto be pretty bad, like, Google
Translate.
Marina (24:39):
It probably still isn't great.
Jeremiah (24:41):
It's still not great, I'm sure, because sometimes, you
know, I'll, I mean, if I'mtalking to, you know, one of my
Chinese friends, and I put,like, what they say in Chinese
into the translator and then itspits out English, it might
sound weird, you know,
Marina (24:53):
but the purpose is just to get your point across and to
communicate.
It's not like a super formalsetting, and so, for the
purposes of this, I think thatsomething, using a translator is
fine, at least in the beginning.
Jeremiah (25:07):
Yeah, and, but I will say, as you learn more Chinese,
and this goes for any language,try not to use the translator
except as a last resort.
Like, don't rely on it.
And if you're worried you'regoing to make a mistake, good,
make it, make that mistakebecause that's how you're going
to learn.
I cannot stress that enough.
Another tool that I've learnedabout, I haven't used quite as
much, but it seems pretty cool,is called the Chairman's Bao.
(25:31):
It's an app and a website thatteaches Chinese, particularly
intermediate and higher levelsof Chinese, I think.
And it uses Chinese languagenews articles as input.
And so, from what I understand,it may not be suitable for
beginners, but definitely aninvaluable resource as you learn
more.
It's always to have input, and Ithink the input is pretty
(25:51):
structured.
It's not just like, oh, here yougo, read this.
Marina (25:55):
That sounds like it would be a nice supplemental
material if you're moreintermediate or advanced that
you could use with RedNote.
Because they're going to be twovery different kinds of input.
Jeremiah (26:04):
Like we also mentioned, WeChat.
Super helpful for keeping intouch with Chinese friends that
you meet on Red Note.
Especially if Red Note getsbanned.
Can you imagine?
Yeah.
I think, yeah, I don't thinkthey can ban WeChat though
because, all of our Chinesefriends in the U.
S.
also use it.
And then the last one I'llrecommend is called Skritter.
It's an app and a website thatis focused on teaching Chinese
(26:26):
characters and it also works forJapanese for learning kanji.
Marina (26:30):
One tool that I've started using recently that I
really enjoy is calledClozemaster, with a Z.
If you like Memrise and the kindof chunking and set phrases that
it encourages, Clozemaster isgreat.
It isn't explicit instruction,it's not going to explain the
grammar to you or anything likethat, but it'll, give you, a
(26:51):
sentence in the target language,and then you have to translate
it, or the other way around,it'll give you an English, or
whatever your first language is,sentence, and then you have to
translate it into the targetlanguage.
It's, and the sentences aregoing to be pretty useful, and
not super weird, like they arein Duolingo.
(27:12):
I don't know, it's great forseeing language in context,
which I think is superimportant, and something that
Memrise does really well.
But Clozemaster just kind oftakes it to another level.
So instead of seeing individualvocabulary words, you learn
those vocabulary words in thecontext of a sentence.
Which I love.
Jeremiah (27:32):
I'll have to try that out.
Marina (27:34):
They have more than just Chinese, too.
They have Spanish and lots ofothers.
Highly recommend it.
And it's free.
Awesome.
Jeremiah (27:41):
Yeah, Chinese is a little like Spanish in that
there are a lot of very, veryuseful resources for learning
the language.
Much, much more than for lesspopular, second or foreign
languages, like from English tothat language.
Like, sorry, Icelandic.
Sorry, Iceland.
Apparently, nobody wants tolearn Icelandic, even though
it's a cool language.
So if you're from Iceland, cool,cool language you got there.
Marina (28:03):
The resources for Chinese are probably just going
to continue to increase, notjust because of this whole
TikTok Red Note debacle, butalso just because of the
position that China has in theworld, on the world stage.
Kind of a cringe statement, butyou know what I mean.
Jeremiah (28:22):
Do I ever.
Marina (28:24):
You know, the desire for English speakers to learn
Chinese is probably only goingto increase.
Now is probably the best time inhistory to learn Chinese, if
that's ever something that youwanted to do.
Jeremiah (28:38):
You might as well start now.
Marina (28:40):
Takes a while.
Jeremiah (28:42):
Though, and I'll use the last couple minutes to just,
talk about why I like Chinese sofar.
If you are learning or havelearned Spanish or Latin or, you
know, I don't know, Norwegian.
These are just languages thatwe've studied, but they all have
one thing in common, which isthat you have to like conjugate
verbs and you have to change thenouns depending on what they're
(29:05):
doing in the sentence.
Like if a noun is plural, youhave to stick an S on the end in
English and in Latin you have toremember like 60 different
endings for a single word justfor like what time you did it.
Is it in the past or is it inthe future?
Is it in the future looking backto the past or the past looking
back to the further past?
In Chinese, once you learn aword, you've got that word.
(29:28):
You don't have to do anythingelse to it.
You just gotta learn, what itsounds like.
You know, how to spell it inpinyin, which is what it sounds
like.
Pinyin isn't weird like English.
And then you have to learn thecharacter so you can read it,
and then you have to learn whatit means.
So that's like three things, andthey don't really change.
And so, you just have to put itin the right spot in the
(29:48):
language.
Because that's one thing Englishand Chinese have in common, is
that word order is a lot moreimportant than in, say, Latin,
where you can do any old thing.
Because all the words tell you,like, what they're supposed to
be doing.
Whereas in Chinese and alsoEnglish, word order is a lot
more important to tell you whatthe word is doing.
Um, so Yeah.
It's really fun.
Marina (30:07):
In that sense, it's nice coming from an English speaking
background, uh, butpronunciation and specifically
tones are rough.
Jeremiah (30:18):
Tones is one of the hardest things that people
experience, I think, especiallyEnglish speakers learning
Chinese.
And if you're not sure whattones are, in Chinese and
several other languages thepitch of how you say a word or a
syllable can change its meaning.
Do you remember what that'scalled in linguistics?
Marina (30:36):
A tone?
Jeremiah (30:36):
Oh, like where, it's phonemic.
Yeah, if something is phonemic,that means that, the difference
between it and something similarcan be the difference in
meaning.
In English, tone is notphonemic.
Like if you say, what?
Or if you say, what?
Or if you say, what, the meaningdoesn't change, it carries a
slightly different sense, butit's not the same thing as tones
(30:58):
because in Chinese, thedifference between the words ma
and ma and ma and ma, fourdifferent words, completely
different.
And um, you know, that can bedangerous.
You don't want to say the wrongword going in the wrong
direction because you might meanto say, like, Oh, this is my
(31:18):
friend, and then you end up,calling them a slur or
something.
Marina (31:22):
If there are any Chinese speakers listening, I welcome
you to critique Jeremiah'stones.
Jeremiah (31:30):
I'm working on it, you know, I'm just an English
speaker just like the rest ofthe English speakers and, you
know, I get it in theory, but itis hard to remember, especially
when you are in the middle of asentence,
Marina (31:41):
I think that's probably one reason, I don't know, I
don't, I'm not a Chineselinguist so I don't know, but
that's one reason why I imaginethat chunking is going to be so
valuable if you're learningChinese.
Instead of thinking about, like,the individual components of a
word, whether written or spoken,I think it'd be helpful to learn
(32:01):
units, because then you can sortof just overlay the tones onto
those units and memorize that,as opposed to just, like, going
syllable by syllable, and tryingto remember the tone, that's not
going to be sustainable.
Jeremiah (32:14):
Exactly, instead of saying oh, I mean, you have to
learn words individually, butinstead of being like, okay, wǒ,
that's me, I, and then dè,that's my, with those two
together, and then gǒu, that'sdog, you kind of learn wǒ de
gǒu, that's my dog, and yeah,chunks are super helpful for
that because All of the, pitchinformation is encoded in the
(32:40):
piece that you learn, as a unit.
Marina (32:42):
Yeah.
So, that's our completelyunfounded theory.
Well, I mean, chunking, Well,chunking as a method is not
unfounded.
Jeremiah (32:50):
I think it applies to any language, honestly, is how
important chunking is, which isthe reason I like Memrise and,
if whatever language tool you'reusing, isn't teaching you like
chunks of words at the same timeas it's teaching you individual
words, maybe seek out a tool forlearning chunks of words Or
just, make an effort to think ofwords in terms of chunks.
(33:11):
Or you know what?
Better yet, if you're usingflashcards, instead of saying,
like, flashcard, Mao means cat.
Make a flashcard for, like, anentire short sentence that has
that word in it.
Because it's a lot easier.
That's what Clozemaster does.
Okay, there you go.
Shout out.
Shout out to Cloze.
I'll have to check it out.
(33:34):
Thanks for listening to episodeone of season two of How to
Language.
If you like what we do, go aheadand rate or review us on
whatever platform you'relistening on, and follow us on
Instagram for more languagecontent and updates on the show.
See you next time.
Yep, more to come.
Bye!
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