So good, what do I do now?

Aaaaah I've done the Complete Course (15 hours)
Soon I'll be finished with the Next Steps (12,5 hours)
there aren't anymore are there?

WHAT WILL I DO WITHOUT Paul Noble and his two native speakers speaking Chinese to me while I cook, or lie in the bath...

This is really good. Although it could be used on its own, I use it as a complement to group classes because the repetition gives a very solid hold on tones. I don't think after 27 hours I could ever pronounce 我想要 the wrong way, ever... (with the rule of third tones in succession of course, as hammered down my ears by the two native speakers).

Chinese having a strange grammar, so different from ours, it makes sense to learn it as patterns rather than a set of rules. HSK courses do the same. They call them grammar patterns, don't they...
For someone like me (French native speaker) who knows a lot about grammar, it feels mad at times, but for someone who doesn't understand anything about grammar, it's an ideal way to learn. And for me too. Because there aren't any better ways really.

I just wish Paul Noble would carry on making Chinese learning books, aiming for higher and higher levels every time. Cross my fingers he will do that. These teachings are really excellent. I can see how much better I'm doing compared to other students in my class. Highly recommended.

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1 person found this helpful

Another excellent course that really works!

I highly recommend this course because it is very effective and continues to develop your language skills, seamlessly, from the end of the first course. Please can we have a "Beyond Next Steps"!

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10 people found this helpful

It works!

Brilliant audio book once again! Please do an advanced/further book for Mandarin Chinese! Superb way to learn and practise.

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5 people found this helpful

great foundation for learning chinese

I really enjoyed Paul's approach to language learning. I love how he teaches you literal translations, they are so much easier to remember and reinforces it through repetition. I only hope he comes back and does another part.

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Fantastic highly recommended!

Paul's method is fantastic i really emjoyed the course and wish he had an intermediate/advance course. where to go now is the question. 5🌟

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1 person found this helpful

A very good continuation of the first course

Now we need a vocab builder. I do hope you and Noble Tai Tai (aka the Noble House) do more in Mandarin.

I always recommend your courses to learners as the very first part of their learning journey. I think you carry on where Michel left off. Plus you don't have his distracting accent!

Learners, take it from me, a Polyglot and the inventor of the GoldList Method. Start with audio only. Paul Noble's course if there is one in that language, then maybe MT or Pimsleur, and then a written course book like a Colloquial or TY one, and after that the Routledge Frequency Dictionary for those languages that have them, although not all are good, check the Amazon reviews.

Whoever does this and the preceding course know they have been in very good hands, but the journey now has to continue. Will we be a yóukè or a joker, all depends on where we go from here.

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4 people found this helpful

Really high quality stuff

I’ve now completed both audio courses from Paul Noble on Mandarin Chinese and I’m very impressed. The format is very simple but the language does really sink in. I’ve lived in China for 8 years and really struggled with pronunciation but hearing native speakers pronounce the words continuously makes things much easier. Highly recommended!

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3 people found this helpful

Absolute magic!!

Every Mandarin beginner ought to start with this Audible series by Paul Noble. He will have you speaking after the 1st chapter!! I'm amazed I defn wouldn't have got this far cramming vocab on my own and certainly the intricacies of how words and meanings are linked would have certainly passed me by!

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I never thought I would learn any Chinese

I've always been terrible with foreign languages. I did five years French at secondary school and managed to learn one sentence and how to count to five. Years after that, I tried to learn Italian for a holiday, but only learnt how to say 'thank you' and gave up on it.

I then met, fell in love with, and married a Chinese woman. Her English is great, but her whole family live in China and only speak Chinese. The majority of her friends only speak Chinese. Clearly, I needed to learn Chinese!

I tried EVERYTHING. I tried books, I tried audio guides, I tried apps... even apps designed for children. Where did I get? Nowhere! I tried several times over the years and decided it was impossible and I would never learn Chinese.

Getting this audio book was my last attempt and - I still can't believe this - it worked. I found myself learning Chinese. Being able to remember the words, pronounce the words, and even string together sentences. My wife is so impressed with me. We're not conversational yet, but I'm only two months in (about an hour from the end of this book) and I'm feeling extremely confident. I WILL be able to speak Chinese. Not straight away, not even soon, but I feel that at some point I will be able to speak Chinese.

I only have two issues:

1. There are two native speakers (a woman and a man) and I found the woman great, but the man too fast and his pronunciations unclear. For a tonal language, it's important to say each word correctly, but often I couldn't hear it in his voice.

2. The end of the book is for practising the words you have been taught. There's no guidance, just phrases for you to translate, a pause for you to speak, and then one of the native speaker says the phrase in Chinese. The pause here is shorter than before, to encourage quicker use of the language, but I find the pauses too short. Even if I start talking immediately and get through the phrase quickly, I will often still be cut off by speaker. I find that a bit off-putting as it distracts me from completing the phrase.

Aside from those two, no complaints. After all, it has achieved the impossible and taught me Chinese.

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6 people found this helpful

Amazing as usual, now SE Asia?

Please could you do some South East Asian languages like Khmer, Thai or Vietnamese? There’s barely any good resources for these languages in any format.
Also, I understand shortening the space for replies as the book goes on, but it gets a bit too short towards the end. Flawless other than that, I can’t stop recommending this to people.

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