My goal for MandarinMania.com is to combine my original content with the free content of other creators. Then, you can immediately start a study session rather than spending precious time looking for learning materials.
There are many high-quality videos out there, but some are buried in a pile of flawed ones. I plan to find and organize them in a useable way.
Take, for example, Mandarin Corner. Even if you have found her channel, over 55,000 people have, you may not have come across her video entitled, “42 Essential Sentence Patterns.” If you have, did you amplify your learning by watching it in context with similar videos?
We’ll talk more about Mandarin Corner’s video later.
MULTIPLE CREATORS = NO VIDEO TITLE PATTERN TO FOLLOW
Chinese Pod discusses a similar topic in its video, “Play This Game to Learn Chinese Word Order.” Yoyo Chinese calls her video, “The Golden Rule of Chinese Word Order,” while Mandarin Corner’s title omits “Word Order” altogether.
On the other hand, Everyday Chinese covers both bases with their video called “The Guide to Chinese Sentence Structure (Chinese Word Order).”
Another popular YouTuber, SMART Mandarin, calls her video “How to Build Chinese Sentences.” There is no mention of “Word Order” or “Sentence Structure.”
In the end, we often have to guess what to search for, and valuable study time is lost.
Video tags can help, but again every creator has a different idea as to what those should be.
VIDEOS THAT CONTAIN MORE THAN ONE SUBJECT
While looking for adjective videos, I came across high-quality videos that contained only adjectives and were titled appropriately. Other videos combined two or more parts of speech, and still, others included adjectives, but the title did not clue you in.
I am sure I am not telling you things you have not realized before, but what I want you to take away from this is my ambition to fix these problems one topic at a time.
In the case of multi-subject videos, my Lesson pages will tell you where in the video to jump to for the topic at hand. Existing Lesson pages already do (see image below). No more getting derailed from your study plan for the day.
A SET OF LESSON TOPICS VERSUS 1000s OF YOUTUBE CHANNELS & WEBSITES
I admit that I am a little Type A with my organizational methods. I think that comes from my 15+ year background in the legal community. You miss a date, and people can lose their ability to file a claim. Then your firm gets sued, instead of the original party, and you are out of a job.
I plan to take my organizational experience and apply it to the “Lessons” pages on MandarinMania.com. I want you to be able to visit the Lessons menu page, choose a topic for study, and begin learning immediately. No search party necessary to find materials.
This undertaking is very ambitious and will take time, but I will share my work with you as it happens. If in time, my efforts are supported on Patreon, I will hire help to make it happen quicker.
A bit off topic, but my Resources & Tools page also follows this pattern. It now boasts 298 sources, all categorized so you can easily find what you are looking for! Plus, it is growing every week! Check it out!
A MUST SEE VIDEO, AS IN SEE IT TODAY
Whether you are a complete beginner or more advanced, I encourage you to view Mandarin Corner’s video mentioned above. It is posted below.
The question she poses in her description is something I think all Chinese learners have experienced, “Have you ever been unable to express more complicated thoughts in Chinese even though your vocabulary is adequate?”
She continues, “Many times, these more advanced thoughts can be expressed by knowing the appropriate Chinese sentence pattern.” I cannot agree with her more. When you familiarize yourself with sentence patterns, you gain grammatical insight. This in turn helps you engage in more advanced conversations.
If you are struggling with expressing yourself effectively, this video is an excellent place to start working on it.
And yes, a “Sentence Structure” lesson page is in the works, but I did not want to wait for it to see this video.
In case you are curious about them, the other videos mentioned above are below as well.
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Enjoy! As always, take care, and please stay home to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.
Mandarin Maniac Ashley
