Get Speaking Mandarin Course – Outlier Linguistics

The Get Speaking™ Mandarin Course

From Zero to Spoken Mandarin: A course designed to get you speaking basic Mandarin.

  • Learn to speak Mandarin by listening and repeating, building your muscle memory and intuition. By the end of the course, you will have mastered the basic grammar of Mandarin and be able to say what you've learned with confidence!
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  • We'll provide you with a daily training program that will help you bury the basic grammar into your mind—if you put in the work. Plus you get live Q&A sessions with Ash Henson, who has a PhD in Chinese!
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  • The course starts on 31 July, 2023, so don't miss it!

18-week online course with 24 audio lessons, 24 audio drills, 24 grammar videos, and 6 live Q&A sessions! Just $597 $397 if you buy before the course begins, using the discount code 'getspeaking' at checkout!

Or get the Premium Course, which includes the Basic Course plus nine 1-on-1 coaching sessions for just $1897 $1697 (if you buy before the course begins) using the discount code 'getspeaking' at checkout. Only 3 spots remaining!

  • In this course, you’ll learn to speak Mandarin by listening and repeating, thereby building your intuition. The sentences in the course embody the grammar needed for the HSK 1 test, and the most common 300 words. After completing this course, you should be able to speak basic Mandarin correctly because it feels correct. You’ll have an intuitive grasp for the grammar. Grammar explanations will also be provided, but only after you’ve completed the audio lessons and repetition drills for those grammar points, making the explanations much easier to understand. You can also choose to not do the grammar lessons, and rely solely on your intuition (which comes from having listened to and repeated native speaker speech). Having said that, knowing the grammar explanations will help with test taking.

Course Highlights

  • Learn basic grammar and the most common 300 words experientially by doing the actual talking for:
      • • Greetings & Introductions
        • Talking about basic motion (left, right, up, down, front, behind, toward, away from)
        • Expressing location (on, off, on top of, under, to the side of)
        • Discussing completed actions, actions experienced in the past, change of state, duration
        • Describing states of being (happy, sad, cold, hot, etc.)
        • How to ask and answer basic questions (who, what, when, where, how)
        • Giving commands
        • Adding emotion to your sentences
        • Comparison
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  • Plus, live Q&A sessions, and a choice of study maps depending on how aggressive you want to be with your study.

Student Testimonials (from our other courses)

Jim
USA

Margreet
Netherlands (living in NZ)

Susan
Taiwan (living in Australia)

Randy
USA (living in China)

Chris
USA (living in Finland)

Anand
India

For the Tongue-tied

If you struggle getting the words out, this course if for you! If you’re a beginner, start off on the right foot! If you have experience with Mandarin, but still have a hard time with speaking, then build up your inner database of correct sentences and get an intuitive grasp of how to build sentences, and lower the amount of thinking required to speak!

For Chinese Learners

Most language courses teach you head knowledge. It’s like learning to play golf or do yoga by reading and memorizing books. This course is experiential. It’s like learning to play golf by actually practicing your golf swing, or learning yoga by actually doing the poses. The difference is huge!

Lifetime Access

Lessons will take place over an 18-week period, but like all of our courses, you'll be able to access all of the materials after it's finished. No need to stress about keeping up—you'll be able to go at a slower pace if you want!

    • Learn basic grammar and the most common 300 words experientially by doing the actual talking for:
        • • Greetings & Introductions
          • Talking about basic motion (left, right, up, down, front, behind, toward, away from)
          • Expressing location (on, off, on top of, under, to the side of)
          • Discussing completed actions, actions experienced in the past, change of state, duration
          • Describing states of being (happy, sad, cold, hot, etc.)
          • How to ask and answer basic questions (who, what, when, where, how)
          • Giving commands
          • Adding emotion to your sentences
          • Comparison
    •  
    • Plus, live Q&A sessions, and a choice of study maps depending on how aggressive you want to be with your study.

This course will consist of audio only lessons, audio repetition drills, and video + pdf explanations for grammar points, as well as live Q&A sessions (though if you can't make it to the live sessions, you can email us your questions, and watch the recordings later). A mid-term and final exam will be given, and a passing score at the end earns you a Certificate of Completion, which may serve as fulfillment of prerequisites for future courses!

The sentences covered in the course were chosen to both teach you the most common 300 words in Mandarin, but to also to give you experience with basic Mandarin grammar, roughly speaking, the grammar covered in the first HSK exam.

Before you start the course, you'll get several videos explaining the theory behind the course, how to do the course, and how to get the most out of it. There will be several review schedules available and you can choose one that is a comfortable speed for you.

In each lesson, you’ll have a 10 to 15 minute audio recording that you will need to listen to several times, and later review. They start off with simple sentences, and build upon them in small increments. Listening to and repeating to the sentences in these lessons will teach you words, grammar, syntax, word order, etc. experientially, like doing yoga poses or swinging a golf club. The lesson will also have a repetition drill audio file. These are designed to give you more exposure to the words, so that you can both hone your pronunciation and further build up your internal database of correct sentences. We call this intuition building, because the more you go over your repetition drills, the better your intuition for Mandarin sentences will be. Next, are the grammar explanation videos. These will focus on one or two grammar points, and will explain them simply, how they relate to the meaning you want to express, and using examples. They will add head knowledge to the experiential knowledge you will have already acquired from the audio lessons and repetition drills.

Will the course teach the PRC standard or the Taiwanese standard? Will the native speaker on the recording be male or female?

We'll be offering both PRC Mandarin and Taiwanese Mandarin options, so you can choose which standard you want to learn! Also, we'll be providing both male and female speakers for both standards. You can choose which one fits your needs best!

Can I go at my own pace? Will I be able to access the course once it's finished?

Yes! We’ll be on a three week cycle (2 active weeks and 1 review week) where you get two lessons, two sets of repetition drills, and two grammar explanation videos per week on the active weeks, and a live Q&A session on the review weeks (where you’ll also want to keep reviewing the material you’ve already learned). Once the course is finished, we'll keep everything available online so that you can go through it at your own pace.

How much Chinese do I need to know to take this course?

None! If you are a total beginner, you’ll be learning new words, sentences, and phrases in addition to the grammar. If you have some experience with Mandarin, then you can focus more on the sentences themselves and on honing your pronunciation.

How long does the course take to complete?

There are 18 lessons, and we'll be doing one lesson per week. The course begins on 31 July and ends on 1 December 2023.

How much time will it require per lesson?

It really depends on how much review you do. We highly recommend spending at least 20 min per day reviewing with the repetition drills and audio lessons. A little bit every day is much better than a lot once a week. During active weeks, you’ll get two 10 to 15 minute audio only lessons, 1 to 2 videos explaining grammar points (5 to 10 min each), and 10 to 15 minutes of repetition drills, which is a minimum of 50 min (and a max of 1 hour 40 min) of new material per week. So, at a minimum, 20 min per day on old material, and 20 min per day on new material. Review weeks are a good time to get caught up on reviewing. Including the Q&A sessions mentioned below, you should spend a minimum of 5 hours per week. Of course, a more aggressive review schedule could bring that up close to 10 hours per week. It depends on your goals!

We'll also do a live 45 minute Q&A session during review weeks on Zoom, so you can pop in and ask questions if you'd like. There will also be a discussion forum, so if you can't make it to the office hours, you can still get your questions answered. You can also watch the replays of the Q&A sessions.

Will I need anything (apps, etc.) in order to take the course?

No! Everything you need will be provided to you. You just need a device with internet access.

Here is a list of references I used for creating the course. However, I recommend NOT buying them until AFTER you’ve completed the course. And of course, you’re under no obligation to buy any of them.

Li and Thompson, Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar
Claudia Ross, Ph.D., Schaum’s Outlines Chinese Grammar
A.G. Hawk, The Quick and Dirty Guide to Learning Languages Fast
Vivian Ling and Wang Peng, Essential Mandarin Chinese Grammar
Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington, Chinese an Essential Grammar
Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington, Intermediate Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook
Muhammad Wolfgang G. A. Schmidt, All the Grammar and Language Points for Each of the Six Levels of the Chinese Language Proficiency Test (HSK)
Richard Xiao, Paul Rayson, and Tony McEnery, A Frequency Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese

What time will the live Q&A sessions be?

Once the course starts, a time will be chosen that maximizes convenience for the largest number of students in the course, and we may offer more than one session if necessary.

Can I study at my own pace or do I have to take the course live?

Either way. However, you should try to make the Q&A sessions. If you can’t make it, then you can email your questions to us, and watch the replay whenever it’s convenient. Since you have lifetime access to the course materials, then you can watch it whenever you want.

What does "lifetime access" mean?

In practical terms, it means the course materials will be available online for as long as Outlier is in business. If we do ever go out of business or otherwise need to remove the course for any reason, we'll make the material available for you to download for a period of at least 6 months.

Can I get a refund if I decide the course isn't for me?


Yes! Our usual refund policy is "30 days from purchase," but since the course doesn't start until 31 July, I'm extending the refund date to 31 August. If you decide you don't like the course for whatever reason, just reach out by then and I'll be happy to give you a full refund.

Will there be assignments or homework?

Assignments will be listening to the audio lessons, doing the repetition drills, and watching the grammar explanation videos. This is where the learning happens.

There will be two exams: a midterm and a final.

Can we collaborate with other students or form study groups?

Definitely! Our live courses usually have a few hundred students enrolled, so there should be plenty of students of all backgrounds and interests in this course too. Working together and coming up with better ways to study with other people is definitely a good thing. However, for your own learning, you have to do the legwork on your own!

We'll also have a private online community where you can work together, ask questions, share notes, etc.

Your Instructor

Ash Henson, PhD
Co-founder, Outlier Linguistics

To say that Ash is a language enthusiast is an understatement. He speaks Dutch, Mandarin, Cantonese and German, all in varying states of decay. In addition to these, he has learned to some level or another another 7 languages and is currently working on Japanese and European Portuguese. He sees language learning as a chance to experiment. The goal is to find a better way (either getting the same result in a way that takes less time, or getting a better result). And he’s been at it for 30 years! He got his Ph.D. in Chinese at National Taiwan Normal University in paleography and historical linguistics. He was also in the P.hD. program for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language for six years. For his qualifying exams in that department, he had to learn functional grammar, cognitive grammar, case grammar, transformational grammar. So, we've definitely got you covered on the grammar front!

Sign up now!

18-week online course with 24 audio lessons, 24 audio drills, 24 grammar videos, and 6 live Q&A sessions! Just $597 $397 if you buy before the course begins, using the discount code 'getspeaking' at checkout!

Or get the Premium Course, which includes the Basic Course plus nine 1-on-1 coaching sessions for just $1897 $1697 (if you buy before the course begins) using the discount code 'getspeaking' at checkout!