If you are not aware, ABC (American Born Chinese) are people who are born and largely raised in the United States. The term does not include all Chinese immigrants that have American citizenship, but more with people of Chinese ethnicity that identify with western culture more deeply than Chinese culture.
As a person who (loosely) falls into this category, I feel I have the ability to help any ABC individuals who seek to learn Chinese.
Note: This guide covers Mainland Standard Chinese as that is the one I learned.
learn the basics.
Assuming you are heritage speaker, you already have a massive advantage: You already have an intuitive sense of the phonetics and grammar works. Congratulations, you have already done much of the work of learning the language! You may sound barely six years old when speaking to native speakers, but you are still miles ahead any unfortunate foreigner who wants to learn Chinese.
But to learn any language, you must still learn the basics! This means understanding how to write Chinese characters, pinyin, how they work, and how to write them (Don’t be one of those people who can only type). Chinese characters are far easier and more simple than fearmongering foreigners make them out to be.
use your environment!
If you have parents or relatives that know the language, practice speaking with them! I guarantee that most Chinese parents want their children to know Chinese, and would be glad to help you. Having real world practice provided to you for free is an advantage that many do not get.
Alternatively, if you live in a big city, you can consider visiting the Chinese enclave of your specific area. You can always find someone to chat in Chinese, is the point.
how far can i go?
I moved abroad when I was relatively young. For a long time, my Chinese ability stayed frozen in time where my ability did not exceed that of a kindergarderner. I started relearning it when I was around 16, basically from scratch (from chracters, pinyin, all that), because I wanted to communicate with my relatives more effectively.
About two years later after I started, I can comfortably browse Chinese social media, watch videos, read intermediate-advanced novels, along with becoming far more able to hold a conversation in chinese on specific, more complex topics.
Textbooks
There are the series of textbooks I recommend.
John DeFrancis’s Green Book series
This series of books has an extensive collection of exercises. Make sure to do them all to really internalize everything.
John DeFrancis’s Chinese Reader series, to learn the characters
Each unit contains about ten characters which are combined to show how words are constructed in Chinese. This will exponentially increase the number of words you know.
HSK Series
- HSK 1-6 Warning: Ads!
If you want to eventually do the HSK exam, these books provide a great start for studying for them. The HSK exam is very important if you want to prove to a company that you have a sufficient ability to use Chinese for any reason, such as employment.
a message of encouragement
Learning Chinese is a monumental task! Even if you do have the ability and the passion, the process is daunting even for the most capable learner. I recommend not seeing it as a goal to achieve but rather more of a lifestyle. With every language, there is still more to learn! (And I am still learning more Chinese every single day)!