My eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook

Links: 

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/imlearningmandarin 

Lei Lei's Blog: https://mixitwithmandarin.wordpress.com/

Blog on mastering tones: http://imlearningmandarin.com/2022/02/12/its-never-too-late-to-learn-chinese-tones-heres-how/

Blog on Netflix Chinese: http://imlearningmandarin.com/2022/03/04/how-to-learn-mandarin-with-chinese-netflix-shows/

Blog on best Chinese learning apps: http://imlearningmandarin.com/2022/02/20/thanks-to-these-apps-self-studying-chinese-is-much-easier-than-ten-years-ago/

My guest today is called Lei Lei. Lei Lei is a blogger and Mandarin Chinese learner who writes about the process of learning Chinese to a high level. After stumbling across Lei Lei’s blog a couple of months ago there were a couple of things I which I thought would make for a great discussion. The first point something we have in common which is that we are both bilingual learners. Lei Lei was brought up in Canada and was educated in French whilst English was always used in the family home. I was interested in exploring how being bilingual has affected our approach and attitude to language learning. The second point was that Lei Lei has written a very insightful blog about reaching high levels in listening proficiency. With so much focus on tones and characters, listening is perhaps the most underestimated aspect of Mandarin learning in terms of difficulty. The number of homophones as well as high variety of accents spoken across China and Chinese speaking countries means becoming good at listening doesn’t happen overnight. Luckily Lei Lei has some great tips on how to reach impressive levels of listening comprehension which we can all learn from.