Utilitarian outlook

At Daily Mandarin Thread, we view language as a tool. We learn the language so that we can understand books, movies, comics, videos, and other media in Mandarin. For this reason, we do not aim to be perfect. Our goal is simply to be able to comprehend and communicate messages in Mandarin Chinese. As long as we are understanding enough to enjoy ourselves, we are happy.

Making mistakes is natural. You will make a lot. We do not worry about them, nor do we try to correct them most of the time. Worrying about making mistakes is an output-focused way of thinking. Our input-focused method says that, with enough input from native speakers and writers, most of your mistakes will be smoothed out eventually. The biggest risk a learner faces isn’t saying something wrong, but rather, not hearing something right enough to know that it’s wrong.