Student Q&A: March, 2025: Chinese slang, leaving expat bubbles, and competing with other learners

Is learning Chinese slang worth your time? What do you do when someone with less study time speaks better than you? And how can you escape the expat bubble and start learning Mandarin?

This week’s podcast episode is a reader and listener Q&A, where I answer three questions about speaking Chinese.

This time, I’m answering questions about:

Comparing yourself with people who learn faster than you do
Breaking out of the expat bubble to start learning Mandarin
Whether or not you should learn slang in Chinese (and how)

Tune in to the Hacking Chinese Podcast to listen to the related episode (#239):
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and many other platforms!

Links to things mentioned in the introduction

Links for question 1 about other people learning faster

Why your Chinese isn’t as good as you think it ought to be

Links for question 2 about learning Chinese as an expat

You won’t learn Chinese simply by living abroad

Links for question 3 about slang

Learning (or not learning) Chinese slang

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Hacking Chinese

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