Students often come to me saying that they’ve been learning Chinese by themselves for some time but lack speaking confidence, and feel like they have little to nothing to show for their efforts. There are many reasons for this lack of progress. Common ones include difficulties with pronunciation, not knowing how to construct a full sentence, and inability to express themselves adequately with the vocabulary that they have.

All of these challenges are very understandable considering the ways that these students have studied Chinese so far. Fortunately, a professional Chinese teacher can help you overcome all of these difficulties as well, in the ways we’ll discuss below.

Pronunciation/tones

Since English also lacks tones, it is also difficult to accurately evaluate this aspect of your pronunciation. In the beginning phase of language learning with a teacher, you will spend a lot of time working on pronunciation. This will include practicing the various vowel and consonant sounds as well as tones in isolation and in tone pair combinations. While pronunciation is difficult for all learners, those who do not have a teacher to help them are at an even greater disadvantage.

Curriculum/structure

Having a language teacher gives structure to your learning in ways that are impossible to achieve as a self-learner. You and your teacher will discuss your language learning goals, and your teacher will then design a curriculum that caters specifically to how you want to be able to use Chinese. As you work through this curriculum, you will see progression and improvement as you learn vocabulary for different topics and develop a deep understanding of how to use that vocabulary. You will have conversations with your teacher, and these conversations will get more and more complex as time goes on.

This kind of progress is difficult, if not impossible, to see when self-studying.

As you make progress, your teacher will also note areas where you are struggling, and will make sure to focus on them to strengthen these weaknesses. Your teacher will also provide accountability. Having weekly lessons gives you extra motivation to study regularly, prepare before lessons and review content after the lesson. A Chinese teacher is like a cheat code to unlock a level of discipline that almost no students are able to reach through self-study alone. It’s a lot easier to develop good habits and maintain good language learning practices with a teacher.

After considering the many benefits that study with a professional Chinese teacher offers compared to self-study through apps or consuming media, it’s not at all surprising that many students feel like they have made little to no progress after months of study. Working with a teacher offers huge advantages in all areas of language learning. Pronunciation, vocabulary usage and sentence structure, learning progression, and targeted help and feedback are just some, among the many examples.

If you’re feeling like you’re not making the progress you know you can with your own Chinese learning, moving from self-study to private or group classes with a teacher is absolutely the best change you can make.