Seriously excellent.
You may find this review of the Mandarin Blueprint course rather long-winded, but given my potentially rather unique circumstances, hopefully worthwhile. I am currently 73 years young and being retired, I did extensive online research into the best methods to learn Chinese. Basically, most reputable sites pointed to the Mandarin Blueprint method so … I jumped in. Given the massive amounts of simply world-class learning materials that are both hugely valuable now and, indeed, superb value in the long term, I was happy to purchase their Lifetime Membership. Here’s where it gets interesting. I started and … not for me! I could not get my head around why I needed to learn characters rather than purely the Chinese words. After all, I only wanted to speak the language, not read it (spoiler alert - BIG MISTAKE). So I gave up after a few days. I thought that spending all that money on a lifetime membership would “force” me to stick with the course, but no! What did I do and what could I do? I spent about a year in that “wilderness” known as YouTube and/or the many language learning apps available. Yes, I learned a few words, yes I forgot most of them and yes, I wasted about a year. Recently, however, I came across a YouTube video done by Luke from Mandarin Blueprint entitled “Why You Keep Quitting Chinese (And How To Fix It)” and after watching the whole 55 minutes twice, decided there and then to actually buckle down and “properly” learn Chinese via their tried and extensively tested method. I simply can’t believe the results! After a few short months, I am not only enjoying my studies, I am not only learning massively, not only remembering all I have learnt but I am now actually reading Chinese sentences! Keep in mind that at my age, I am sometimes forgetting my native English words and here I am, reading Chinese sentences! What is fascinating is that this learning process is getting easier and faster the more I progress! The more characters I learn, the more and easier it is to learn words which means I can read more sentences which, in turn, means I can learn and understand more words etc, etc, etc. Did I say AMAZING? Next year, i.e. 2026, my plans are to get married to my long-suffering fiancé and move to China later that year. My fiancé, in turn, promises to help with my language once I am past the beginner’s level! I couldn’t be more excited about this new chapter in my life and, of course, intend to be able to hold in-depth Chinese conversations with my forthcoming new family and friends in the near future. Thank you Mandarin Blueprint.