Jeremiah: 0:05

Hello! Thank you for joining us for the long awaited Season 2 of How to Language, a podcast about language learning for language learners. I'm Jeremiah.

Marina: 0:13

And I'm Marina. This season, we'll be doing things a little different, posting once a month instead of bi weekly. This will hopefully be a more sustainable pace for us as we try and balance both this and our day jobs.

Jeremiah: 0:27

For our first episode of Season 2, we'll be engaging with some current events, specifically the recent law passed by Congress banning the very popular app TikTok in the United States. Even more recently, President Trump has announced a hold delaying the ban, and so for the moment TikTok remains up as of this recording. But we're not really interested in TikTok per se.

Marina: 0:48

Actually, what's interesting to us is what happened in the days leading up to when the TikTok ban was to take effect, the so called TikTok refugee crisis, and what it means for language learners. If you're not aware of the TikTok refugee crisis, don't worry. We'll give plenty of context before diving into the language side of things.

Jeremiah: 1:08

So yeah, with that, let's get started. As many may be aware, the United States Congress has decided to ban the very popular app TikTok in the United States. They cited data security as the main reason for this. TikTok is owned by a China based company called ByteDance, and the prevailing narrative is that U. S. lawmakers are worried about the government of China spying on the U. S. through the app. But they've also made no secret of their belief that TikTok might also be used as a way to, like, brainwash, pardon the scare quotes, young people in the U. S. with pro CCP propaganda. And the kernel of truth to that is that many young people have relied on TikTok as a news source and I think that's understandable since trust in mainstream media really is at an all time low. Granted this is a developing story and the latest news at the time of recording is that President Trump has announced, that he is issuing an executive order which is delaying the enforcement of the law. So TikTok went down for a little bit, as of recording it is currently back up, but there is no guarantee that it will stay that way. So around the news of the TikTok ban, one of the biggest news stories was about how in anticipation of the TikTok ban, 7 million TikTok users, most of them American, decided to migrate to an actual Chinese app, similar to TikTok, called Xiaohongshu, which means Little Red Book, and in English it is better known as Red Note.

Marina: 2:33

This obviously came as a surprise to Chinese users who have been on Red Note since it launched in 2013. Imagine your preferred social media app, whether it be Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or X, and what it would be like if one day you woke up and every other post and comment was in Mandarin Chinese. Maybe the most interesting thing about this, though, is the reactions of most Chinese users, who I can tell you from experience have been almost exclusively welcoming and curious.

Jeremiah: 3:04

Yeah, some of the biggest memes on red note, and if it's not clear, we've been on red note. Personally, I've been enjoying it Some of the biggest memes there when all of this was first happening was for one disbelief of Chinese users as they see dozens, even hundreds of new American users all posting videos of themselves saying Ni Hao. And instantly getting more followers in a single day than those Chinese users got after years of being active on the app. And so, you know, I didn't see like actual anger over this, but there was like, kind of jokey resentment. Like, are you kidding me? Also, there were a lot of Chinese users in the comments of American's posts demanding a cat tax. And there were like, you know, memes that were circulating around about the cat tax, where basically, the American users are expected to share photos of their cats or, you know, their dogs, sort of as a way of saying, like, oh, you're on our app, if you want to be here, you have to pay the cat tax. One particular language related one, Americans offering to help Chinese students with their English homework, only to get all of the answers wrong, and then Chinese users saying, Hey, you helped me with my, English homework, and I got all the answers wrong. And people were pointing to this as evidence that, Oh, you know, Americans don't know proper English, which, if you've been listening to our show, you know that we would probably chalk it up to a combination of, one, the English that's taught in schools not being the same as the informal spoken English that most English speakers in the U. S. use most of the time. Plus, you know, admittedly some glaring flaws in our own education system.

Marina: 4:36

Amidst all those memes, some RedNote users have referred to this as one of the most important cultural exchanges in human history. This may be an exaggeration, but it is true that most Americans know very little about life in China, other than what our politicians and major media outlets tell them. And many American Red Note users have commented that China is very different than what they've been told, based on what they see on the app. The term that seems to have stuck for this event is the TikTok refugee crisis. So the TikTok refugees in this instance being the Americans who have migrated from TikTok to Red Note. Now obviously These aren't actual refugees. In actual refugee situations, those involve a lot of psychological and physical trauma that's both in the past and ongoing. There's an economic component to it and a lack of resources in actual refugee crises. Obviously. So this term is used a little bit in a tongue in cheek, a tongue in cheek way. Um, but TikTok, TikTok refugees were kind of forced, forced, quote unquote, to migrate elsewhere because of the TikTok ban. But instead of experiencing trauma or stress responses, like you would in an actual refugee crisis, The atmosphere of the whole thing was more of like, Ha! Look at us now, you know, like, it was more of like, their migration wasn't so much involuntary, and it was more just to spite the U. S. government.

Jeremiah: 6:20

Yeah, because let's be honest, like, a big driver behind the fact that this law was, enacted and passed is, the owners of U. S. based social media platforms like Zuckerberg and, and Elon, you know, not liking that TikTok is, is so popular and, and wanting to get a better share of the market. And so their kind of master plan here was. Oh, if we, if we can get this law passed, and if we can, you know, force American users to stop going on TikTok, maybe finally they will look at Reels. And Americans were like, you know, you know what? I would, I would rather go on an app that I cannot understand, I can't speak a single word, and I can't read a single word. I would rather go on there because that is somewhere I would rather be than Instagram.

Marina: 7:11

And kind of similar to what you're talking about here, another consequence of this kind of refugee crisis is that these Tik Tok refugees are actually starting to learn the language of their host country, in this case being the platform of RedNote.

Jeremiah: 7:29

Yeah, and you know, that's my favorite part, and that's why I wanted to do our first episode about this, because the timing coincided really well, where we were like, okay, we need to get season two going, and then this happened, and I was like, oh my god, this is perfect, because all of a sudden, you have all these Americans, and famously, Americans generally tend to be monolingual, like, one of the most monolingual countries on earth, not in the sense that there aren't a lot of languages spoken here, because there are, but, Most people here only speak the one, English. And so now you have all these Americans online who are, you know, legitimately saying like, Oh, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna learn it. I'm gonna learn Chinese. And so, you know, that was probably. The biggest joke right now, on RedNote, which is that Americans who have been using TikTok would rather use an app in a language they don't speak than go on Instagram or X. They would, they would literally rather learn Chinese. And maybe you are one of these TikTok refugees who is trying to learn, Mandarin. Or maybe you're just curious about what language learning lessons can be drawn from this event, because I think there are some pretty interesting ones. Either way, we will spend the rest of this episode talking about the language component.

Marina: 8:41

So, if we're looking at Red Note specifically, there are a few features, and events that have taken place that make it a great environment for learning Chinese. Some of the ones that we've noticed, you have the benefit of having Chinese language learning resources directly in the app. Ever since this sort of refugee crisis thing started to happen, if you're an American and you just open the app and you start scrolling, you'll probably stumble upon some videos of Chinese users who. Their whole account is about teaching other people Mandarin. Pretty quickly. I'm sure they existed before this crisis, but I'm sure they're really booming now. Just like how, you know, on any social media app you'll find similar accounts, for a lot of different languages. So, that's nice that it's kind of, it's going to be right there and it's going to be really easily accessible. Another thing that's nice about it being a social media app, is that you will develop, sort of, the TikTok equivalent of the For You page. You'll develop an algorithm that's very tailored to you and your interests. And so, that means that your algorithm is going to guarantee, pretty much, that the input that you're getting will be relevant to you and of interest to you. Which, as we've talked about in Season 1, is a huge factor in success when you're learning another language. Cause otherwise you'd have to seek that stuff out on your own. For this it just appears for you.

Jeremiah: 10:09

It knows you.

Marina: 10:10

It knows me a little too much. The fact that it's a social media app also means that it's relatively low stress. Aside from maybe all of the self esteem disadvantages that come with social media. It's low stress because it's a casual environment. It's usually when you're relaxed and taking a breather, in between classes, just, you know, waiting for your train, things like that. And also it's low stress because everything is asynchronous, unless you yourself are doing a live stream. you're either listening to everything or you're reading everything. Or maybe eventually you'll start writing things in the comments, but it's not like a conversation or a speaking situation where you have to think of things on the fly or actively listen.

Jeremiah: 11:00

Yeah, and you can, make the equivalent of a TikTok, like you can make a video and post it. Of you speaking Chinese, and if you ask for it, there will be literally millions of people who are ready to give you feedback very nicely, very politely, or very bluntly, whatever you prefer. So you have lots of opportunities in that regard.

Marina: 11:22

Another nice thing about it being an asynchronous platform is that, like TikTok, videos on the platform often include subtitles, either in Chinese, like if the person is speaking Chinese, they'll have subtitles in Chinese as well, or sometimes they'll even be in English. And so that makes it really easy to read along and not entirely depend on listening. Because I think, there's also a benefit to having the subtitles and the speech be in the same language. How many people watch, their TV shows and movies with subtitles on, even if they don't need them for comprehension? It's pretty common. I think it's nice, and it's especially nice in your second language, to be able to read listen at the same time. Now, Chinese, it's a little different if you're not used to a logographic language. And if you don't know the characters, that's going to be a challenge. But once you start learning the characters, that's going to be really beneficial.

Jeremiah: 12:25

Oh, yeah. If you don't know the characters, you're cooked. But then again, even if you know some of the characters, maybe you won't know what something is saying just by reading it. But once you start recognizing characters that you know, just from my own personal experience, it starts to take off. You start to see like the exponential growth, curve.

Marina: 12:44

Because again, you know, if your algorithm is showing you similar things consistently about similar topics, you'll probably start recognizing similar words. You know, so I do a lot of like embroidery and crochet and stuff like that. So if I started seeing a lot of embroidery and crochet videos, I'd probably start recognizing a lot of very similar words, you know, like embroidery, needle, thread, you know, you start seeing those over and over again. So that's really helpful too. One disadvantage is that you don't get as much, speaking practice, but you can get a lot of written practice, if that's something that you actively engage in. There's the comment section, most famously. You go into any comment section on a video and there's gonna be opportunities to talk to other folks. There's also direct messaging, if you end up making some friends on the app. That's a great opportunity for some written practice too. And again, it's asynchronous, so there's not so much pressure as there would be in a live conversation. And then I think most obviously, one of the greatest advantages of the app, is that you get a ton of authentic exposure to the language. And depending on your goals, it's great that it's a lot of informal use of the language, and so I think that is probably going to be its greatest advantage.

Jeremiah: 14:08

Definitely. And you know what we always say about apps and doing anything that doesn't involve other human beings, which is that you're always going to be missing something, But that's also just true of anything, like, it's important to have an all around approach to learning any language, and so if you're just on RedNote, or you're on RedNote maybe using something else, but, you know, if we're just talking about RedNote, you will be missing a lot of speaking practice, and like I said, you can make a video of you speaking, but it's not just about production, like, what is important about speaking the language is speaking it to someone, ideally, synchronously, where they are listening to you and your words as you're saying them and then reacting and responding and asking questions and vice versa, like, that negotiation for meaning is where a ton of communication happens, like, the words are just a starting point and then the, the negotiation that you have with the person you're talking to is, is really where the communication and the learning happens. So you're missing out on that. You're not getting necessarily, like that exact thing of immediate feedback on the output, whether it's written or spoken. So asynchronicity is helpful, but it can also be, a little limiting in that regard. This is probably the biggest one. There's no scaffolding or curriculum. It's total immersion, and like we've talked about before, total immersion, sometimes people say that's the best way to learn. It's really not. You know, immersion has serious benefits, but you need to have scaffolding to kind of, contextualize it. Like if somebody just shows you a Chinese character, And even if they tell you, what it says, like, what it sounds like, but not what it means, you have nothing to go off of. You have no starting point, no frame of reference. You know, you could look at that Chinese character every day for, for 20 years and never know what it means if somebody doesn't tell you. And so, you know, if you're just on RedNote, you're not gonna get the scaffolding of the curriculum. Even if you are watching videos from content creators who are, like, you know, teaching you Chinese, it's usually, like, tips. Or pronunciation, or how to understand tones, stuff like that. But these are, you know, short, digestible videos. They're covering, like, useful phrases, slang, like I mentioned, tones, pronunciation. And if their content is helpful for you, then there's nothing wrong with using it as a learning aid. That's how I learned, um, a lot of the Korean that I learned when I was learning a little bit of Korean. But Since you don't need to be credentialed to be a red note Chinese language learning influencer, your mileage as a learner, engaging with that content could vary.

Marina: 16:43

So Jeremiah, you've spent a lot more time on Red Note than I have Have you found these things to be true in your experience? And I guess just like, how has it been overall?

Jeremiah: 16:55

Yeah, definitely. I have found, as far as language learning goes, the main thing that I've gotten out of Red Note is, people to talk to. I've made some friends on there, and motivation to learn, primarily. I haven't used it as a learning aid that much, because one, I'm a little shy. And also I'm like starting out as an absolute beginner. And so I have very little frame of reference, as far as just my general experience, one, I was never on Tik TOK. And so I'm not really a Tik TOK refugee, even though I was kind of there for it because. I've always had a bit of a fascination with China and so when I learned about the mass migration to Xiaohongshu, I, I couldn't resist joining in and so far I really love it. Like I said, I've made several friends, several Chinese friends on RedNote and it's been really interesting talking to them about their experiences, what they've heard about the U. S., stuff like that. And most of my conversations with them are through, like, Google Translate because I could talk to them about, the language that I've learned in the very few, levels of Chinese that I've gotten from an app that I'm using. But it's not much to build a conversation off of. My conversations with them, it's been a little bit of language learning, but it's also been a lot of just talking to people from a very different, culture and, and,

18:08

uh, yeah.

Marina: 18:10

I think it's interesting that you mentioned motivation, and the app being a big motivator for learning Chinese. I know that, the driver of a lot of English language learning around the world is to engage with a predominantly English speaking internet. And so, it's kind of cool that it's going in the other direction now. And the English speakers are getting a taste of that. Of what it's like to be in an online space where the majority of the speakers don't speak your language. And also the fact that, you know, it being a pretty, pretty powerful motivator is neat. Because as we know, motivation is a huge It's not the only component, but it is a huge component in success when it comes to language learning.

Jeremiah: 18:54

Yeah, definitely, and I think, that, that is exactly why I found it so motivating is because, like, okay, take the opposite example, for example, opposite example, for example, take the opposite example, for example, Latin, which I love, and I love studying Latin, and sometimes I go back to it, and I really enjoyed it, but It's hard to stay motivated because it's hard not to ask yourself, like, why am I doing this? And so, that's what makes, like, Spanish a little bit easier, I think, or a lot easier. Or, that's part of what makes it a lot easier. And, I've always wanted to learn Chinese, but I never really felt like it was worth it. And, now I have a much bigger reason to feel like it's worth it. So, that's definitely a huge part of it. So, you know, I think based on my experience and also just our knowledge as language educators, for anyone who is learning, who is also learning Chinese, whether on RedNote or is on RedNote and wants to learn Chinese, or is just learning Chinese, I think we could, uh, share a couple of tips.

Marina: 19:59

So first things first, we've hinted to it a little bit, already, but you can't really rely on a social media app for all of your language learning needs. It does have those advantages that we mentioned earlier, but it's not going to be enough if you're really looking to learn Chinese. You're going to need some kind of main tool, whether that is, a class that you're taking, a study group, a conversation circle, maybe you're living in China, reading a textbook, anything like that, or, you know, in Jeremiah's case, an app. Yeah, I use That's specifically for learning.

Jeremiah: 20:38

Yeah, I use Hello Chinese, which,

20:40

um,

Jeremiah: 20:40

It's, it's a, it's a little like Duolingo, but way better, I think. Sorry, Duolingo. And it's very tailored for Chinese, because it's just for Chinese. So, if you want to learn Chinese, I'm not getting paid by HelloChinese, but I have found it very nice.

Marina: 20:55

Mm hmm. Yeah, you just need something that gives you at least the foundational stuff. The more linguistic concepts, like how the grammar works in Chinese. The tones, pinyin, which is the romanization of Chinese character writing, reading, stroke order, and so on. You can supplement then with RedNote and similar things for reading and writing practice, or as a way to find language partners like was the case for Jeremiah. If you make Chinese friends on the app, you can download a separate Chinese messaging app like WeChat. Which is kind of like Chinese WhatsApp. And carry on your conversations there if you don't want to stay in Red Note. And then you and your friend can message, send voice messages, or even eventually do like a call or a video chat to have live, synchronous conversations with instant feedback.

Jeremiah: 21:48

And you can also, like we said, follow accounts that teach Chinese on the app. You might even find accounts created by Americans who are documenting their own learning process. Often a fellow learner can be as helpful for your own language learning as a first language user of the language you're using. Some other tools that I personally would recommend for learning Chinese, these are all things that I've been using so far, with or without being on RedNote. The main one, I think, it's always important to have some kind of a dictionary. You know, with Spanish, I use Spanish dict. Um, Spanish dictionary, and it's great. The closest equivalent I've found for that for Chinese is called Pleco, I think there's a website. I have it. It's an app. And it's really an everything app for learning Chinese. The key features are that it has a comprehensive English to Chinese and Chinese to English dictionary, support for creating and reviewing flashcards. It has stroke order charts for common Chinese characters, which I am still trying to figure out stroke order. It doesn't come super easily to me it has traditional and simplified characters It also has handwriting input for drawing unfamiliar characters, so if you see one, you can just draw it and then search that way, or you can type in the pinyin, or you can even like, go based on the strokes, it also has pinyin pronunciation for all characters, including tones, which is so, so important, and it just has a lot more, so anyone learning Chinese should really have this app, it's free, it's fantastic. Another, app that I'm using besides HelloChinese, I'm using a lot of apps this time around because it seemed appropriate with RedNote being an app, um, is Memrise. This isn't just for Chinese, this is for any language, and I think even things that aren't language. Memrise is, it has a lot. It's a personal favorite of ours, especially for learning chunks, set phrases and common vocabulary, which I think don't get enough attention how important it is to learn chunks and phrases and not just individual words. And it also includes a lot of informal expressions that you would not necessarily get from a textbook or even a class. It has like videos of speakers, you know, saying the expressions you're learning. It's really great for learning travel vocabulary. In fact, I'm also simultaneously learning a little bit of Italian for a trip we have coming up. It does not teach grammar or characters though. It has characters included, kind of, but it's kind pinyin. So make sure to supplement with a home base. Kind of learning tool, like a class, or a textbook, or an app, like HelloChinese. HelloChinese, like I said, kind of like Duolingo, but tailored to the specific characteristics of Chinese, like tones and characters. Also, especially if you're on RedNote, Google Translate, it's kind of like Wikipedia, where it gets a bit of a bad rap. I think nowadays it's kind of undeserved. If I remember correctly, it used to be pretty bad, like, Google Translate.

Marina: 24:39

It probably still isn't great.

Jeremiah: 24:41

It's still not great, I'm sure, because sometimes, you know, I'll, I mean, if I'm talking to, you know, one of my Chinese friends, and I put, like, what they say in Chinese into the translator and then it spits out English, it might sound weird, you know,

Marina: 24:53

but the purpose is just to get your point across and to communicate. It's not like a super formal setting, and so, for the purposes of this, I think that something, using a translator is fine, at least in the beginning.

Jeremiah: 25:07

Yeah, and, but I will say, as you learn more Chinese, and this goes for any language, try not to use the translator except as a last resort. Like, don't rely on it. And if you're worried you're going to make a mistake, good, make it, make that mistake because that's how you're going to learn. I cannot stress that enough. Another tool that I've learned about, I haven't used quite as much, but it seems pretty cool, is called the Chairman's Bao. It's an app and a website that teaches Chinese, particularly intermediate and higher levels of Chinese, I think. And it uses Chinese language news articles as input. And so, from what I understand, it may not be suitable for beginners, but definitely an invaluable resource as you learn more. It's always to have input, and I think the input is pretty structured. It's not just like, oh, here you go, read this.

Marina: 25:55

That sounds like it would be a nice supplemental material if you're more intermediate or advanced that you could use with RedNote. Because they're going to be two very different kinds of input.

Jeremiah: 26:04

Like we also mentioned, WeChat. Super helpful for keeping in touch with Chinese friends that you meet on Red Note. Especially if Red Note gets banned. Can you imagine? Yeah. I think, yeah, I don't think they can ban WeChat though because, all of our Chinese friends in the U. S. also use it. And then the last one I'll recommend is called Skritter. It's an app and a website that is focused on teaching Chinese characters and it also works for Japanese for learning kanji.

Marina: 26:30

One tool that I've started using recently that I really enjoy is called Clozemaster, with a Z. If you like Memrise and the kind of chunking and set phrases that it encourages, Clozemaster is great. It isn't explicit instruction, it's not going to explain the grammar to you or anything like that, but it'll, give you, a sentence in the target language, and then you have to translate it, or the other way around, it'll give you an English, or whatever your first language is, sentence, and then you have to translate it into the target language. It's, and the sentences are going to be pretty useful, and not super weird, like they are in Duolingo. I don't know, it's great for seeing language in context, which I think is super important, and something that Memrise does really well. But Clozemaster just kind of takes it to another level. So instead of seeing individual vocabulary words, you learn those vocabulary words in the context of a sentence. Which I love.

Jeremiah: 27:32

I'll have to try that out.

Marina: 27:34

They have more than just Chinese, too. They have Spanish and lots of others. Highly recommend it. And it's free. Awesome.

Jeremiah: 27:41

Yeah, Chinese is a little like Spanish in that there are a lot of very, very useful resources for learning the language. Much, much more than for less popular, second or foreign languages, like from English to that language. Like, sorry, Icelandic. Sorry, Iceland. Apparently, nobody wants to learn Icelandic, even though it's a cool language. So if you're from Iceland, cool, cool language you got there.

Marina: 28:03

The resources for Chinese are probably just going to continue to increase, not just because of this whole TikTok Red Note debacle, but also just because of the position that China has in the world, on the world stage. Kind of a cringe statement, but you know what I mean.

Jeremiah: 28:22

Do I ever.

Marina: 28:24

You know, the desire for English speakers to learn Chinese is probably only going to increase. Now is probably the best time in history to learn Chinese, if that's ever something that you wanted to do.

Jeremiah: 28:38

You might as well start now.

Marina: 28:40

Takes a while.

Jeremiah: 28:42

Though, and I'll use the last couple minutes to just, talk about why I like Chinese so far. If you are learning or have learned Spanish or Latin or, you know, I don't know, Norwegian. These are just languages that we've studied, but they all have one thing in common, which is that you have to like conjugate verbs and you have to change the nouns depending on what they're doing in the sentence. Like if a noun is plural, you have to stick an S on the end in English and in Latin you have to remember like 60 different endings for a single word just for like what time you did it. Is it in the past or is it in the future? Is it in the future looking back to the past or the past looking back to the further past? In Chinese, once you learn a word, you've got that word. You don't have to do anything else to it. You just gotta learn, what it sounds like. You know, how to spell it in pinyin, which is what it sounds like. Pinyin isn't weird like English. And then you have to learn the character so you can read it, and then you have to learn what it means. So that's like three things, and they don't really change. And so, you just have to put it in the right spot in the language. Because that's one thing English and Chinese have in common, is that word order is a lot more important than in, say, Latin, where you can do any old thing. Because all the words tell you, like, what they're supposed to be doing. Whereas in Chinese and also English, word order is a lot more important to tell you what the word is doing. Um, so Yeah. It's really fun.

Marina: 30:07

In that sense, it's nice coming from an English speaking background, uh, but pronunciation and specifically tones are rough.

Jeremiah: 30:18

Tones is one of the hardest things that people experience, I think, especially English speakers learning Chinese. And if you're not sure what tones are, in Chinese and several other languages the pitch of how you say a word or a syllable can change its meaning. Do you remember what that's called in linguistics?

Marina: 30:36

A tone?

Jeremiah: 30:36

Oh, like where, it's phonemic. Yeah, if something is phonemic, that means that, the difference between it and something similar can be the difference in meaning. In English, tone is not phonemic. Like if you say, what? Or if you say, what? Or if you say, what, the meaning doesn't change, it carries a slightly different sense, but it's not the same thing as tones because in Chinese, the difference between the words ma and ma and ma and ma, four different words, completely different. And um, you know, that can be dangerous. You don't want to say the wrong word going in the wrong direction because you might mean to say, like, Oh, this is my friend, and then you end up, calling them a slur or something.

Marina: 31:22

If there are any Chinese speakers listening, I welcome you to critique Jeremiah's tones.

Jeremiah: 31:30

I'm working on it, you know, I'm just an English speaker just like the rest of the English speakers and, you know, I get it in theory, but it is hard to remember, especially when you are in the middle of a sentence,

Marina: 31:41

I think that's probably one reason, I don't know, I don't, I'm not a Chinese linguist so I don't know, but that's one reason why I imagine that chunking is going to be so valuable if you're learning Chinese. Instead of thinking about, like, the individual components of a word, whether written or spoken, I think it'd be helpful to learn units, because then you can sort of just overlay the tones onto those units and memorize that, as opposed to just, like, going syllable by syllable, and trying to remember the tone, that's not going to be sustainable.

Jeremiah: 32:14

Exactly, instead of saying oh, I mean, you have to learn words individually, but instead of being like, okay, wǒ, that's me, I, and then dè, that's my, with those two together, and then gǒu, that's dog, you kind of learn wǒ de gǒu, that's my dog, and yeah, chunks are super helpful for that because All of the, pitch information is encoded in the piece that you learn, as a unit.

Marina: 32:42

Yeah. So, that's our completely unfounded theory. Well, I mean, chunking, Well, chunking as a method is not unfounded.

Jeremiah: 32:50

I think it applies to any language, honestly, is how important chunking is, which is the reason I like Memrise and, if whatever language tool you're using, isn't teaching you like chunks of words at the same time as it's teaching you individual words, maybe seek out a tool for learning chunks of words Or just, make an effort to think of words in terms of chunks. Or you know what? Better yet, if you're using flashcards, instead of saying, like, flashcard, Mao means cat. Make a flashcard for, like, an entire short sentence that has that word in it. Because it's a lot easier. That's what Clozemaster does. Okay, there you go. Shout out. Shout out to Cloze. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for listening to episode one of season two of How to Language. If you like what we do, go ahead and rate or review us on whatever platform you're listening on, and follow us on Instagram for more language content and updates on the show. See you next time. Yep, more to come. Bye!