Learning Chinese Whilst Working In China: Some Tips

I am a British fire engineer living in China and I have been learning Chinese part-time inbetween holding down a fairly busy full-time job. Whilst I have passed a few Chinese language proficiency exams (Soon HSK 4 and HSKK Intermediate speaking), I don’t have a natural aptitude for learning languages. In fact, I don’t enjoy learning languages at all and couldn’t wait to finish learning German during high school. This said, I do like communicating/connecting with people and learning new things. Even though I live in China, learning Chinese has taken a fair bit of time/effort, making of many mistakes, and at times has been quite frustrating. With more and more people coming to China to work, with no/limited Chinese proficiency, I thought I'd share some Chinese learning tips based on my own experiences so that others might benefit:

1. Decide if you want to learn to read/write Chinese characters or only focus on speaking/listening: Learning Chinese characters will likely take significantly more time/effort compared to only learning speaking/listening. However, as you advance many Chinese textbook are only written in Chinese characters which may restrict what learning material you can use. Whilst for my social and professional life, speaking/listening are far more useful than reading/writing, I decided to learn both. Its also commonly advocated that to truly understand Chinese culture you need to read/write Chinese characters though I am not so sure this totally true. Indeed I have found reading/writing at my current level not so useful in my current life (though but may be it will change): speaking and listening represents by far the most common means by which I use Chinese whilst living in China. If you are only planning on living in China a short/limited period of time I would recommend focusing on only learning speaking/listening as you will likely be able to develop more quickly and derive more benefit in the time you are in China.
2. Develop motivation, ignorance, and curiosity: Because learning Chinese will likely take some time and it can be an unforgiving language if you make even minor mistakes in tones when speaking with people, there will be days when you get frustrated, just want to quite, skip a class, or not revise your current class material. This is normal. You will likely initially need something to motivate you before you start learning (unless you are one of the strange folk who actually find learning languages enjoyable for the sake of it!!). Finding a reason to start learning Chinese is an important part of the process which can affect the learning itself. The reason for learning needs to be 'real' and not some contrived intangible concept which doesn’t mean something or have an impact on your life. This said, motivation is hard to maintain even for the most just of causes over long periods of time. This is where, after you have got into good learning habits/routines initially, you will need to develop learning resilience through a dichotomous combination of 'ignorance' and 'curiosity'. For me, I have found the key to sustained learning over a long period of time is not thinking about the 'why' as a form of incentive, rather its a combination of not caring why at times coupled with, at other times, being super curious trying to understand the apparent illogical nature of certain aspects of the Chinese language. 
3. Choose the right time to study in your routine: Learning Chinese is quite a memory intensive task as there are so many characters to learn each of which the meaning of can change with minor changes in tone. Its probably going to take a fair amount of time and effort remembering everything. If you have a super busy professional and social life with little time which can be dedicated, then learning Chinese is going to be a slow process. Choosing the most effective time to have a class/study in your weekly routine, over the long term, is going to significantly impact how efficiently and quickly you learn . For someone who is working full time (and studying 'very' part-time) like myself, I'd suggest having Chinese classes earlier in the week on Monday-Wednesday if possible as you will hopefully be less tired and more focused compared to later in the week when you might be more tired from work. Studying at the weekend is also an option though this is prime time for organizing other things socially/with family which means your Chinese class/study might often get bumped off the list of things to do.
4. Develop good learning habits: Get into small low-cost daily habits of reviewing material/characters e.g. whilst having breakfast, on the metro into work, etc. In addition, try to break up your daily routines in terms of Chinese language exposure and put yourself in new situations which force you to use different sentence structures. It is very easy to get caught in routines of using the same sentence structures so consciously think about breaking up your sentence patterns. If you are in a restaurant and the staff insist on speaking English with you, stick to your guns and keep speaking Chinese as much as possible...its all practice!! Devilishly, if you want to push staff to speak Chinese, say something atypical or complicated in English which will likely stump them and encourage them to speak Chinese. For example, I've often found staff don’t know the word for 'straw' in English, so after I ask them for one and when they look confused, its enough to nudge them into speaking Chinese when I repeat the phrase in Chinese. 
5. Don't ask 'why' about characters (too much): Don’t get hung up on not knowing why a character is written in the certain way. Most everyday characters do not have some pictorial meaning or much semblance of logic. Indeed, many characters have multiple very different meanings which change according to context. Just learn the characters and move on to the next without being too curious about the 'why': there is often 'no why'. What’s worse is that some Chinese teachers will totally make up some lovely story about why certain characters are written the way that they are but then applying the same reasoning to another character totally breaks down. 
6. Remember the sound and not the number: Each pronunciation of a character in Chinese can be said in one of 4 tones (plus 'no tone') numbered from 1, 2, 3,4 which almost always totally changes the meaning of the word to something very different. For example, the word for 'mum' (妈 mā) and 'horse' (马 mǎ) are the same pronunciation but in different tones. In addition, the same character pronounced in the same tone but paired with a different character can also change the meaning. At times it can feel like trying to solve a Rubik's cube where the colours are constantly changing. It can be a real challenge to remember the right tone for each word in a given context. One suggestion for remembering tones is to remember the sound of the word as you hear it then say it out loud for practice, a bit like the way you learn a song and much like a baby learns to speak by copying the sound of an adult. I've found this much more effective than just remembering the number of the tone for each word.
7. Don't question learning material (too much): Don’t get hung up on questioning the logic of learning useless words which you might struggle to use in daily life from the standard textbooks (especially HSK series!). I learnt the word 'mermaid' (美人鱼 měi rén yú) in a recent class which I will struggle to use in my daily life. In addition to the words you learn as part of a standard course, start learning your own vocabulary which is useful for your own social and professional life. Try to use them as much as possible each day: if you don’t use it you will loose it.
8. Don't worry if you forget things: Don’t beat yourself up if you regularly forget words, characters, how to say somethings, or people struggle to understand you sometimes. There is so much to learn and on top of which people adopt different styles of Chinese language depending where you are in China. Learning Chinese is also very different to most other languages which makes it more difficult to learn. You will forget things and make mistakes very frequently. The key is to keep curious, keep asking people when you don’t understand something, and be positive. A curious and optimistic attitude to making mistakes in learning is essential. Through repetition things will eventually stick and you will learn not to care about making mistakes (developing second language anxiety can hugely hinder progress!). In addition, I would highly recommend using a phone app and making your own flash cards as you study (I use the Anki app which is great). Having a phone app really helps as you can pick it up and study pretty much anywhere along with it remembering what you forgot before so it will repeat those words more.
9. Don't worry if you sometimes struggle to speak/listen: China is massive and there are, not only many different dialects, but also many different styles of speaking even within the same location. Also some people might see a foreign face and totally switch off listening to you even if you speak perfect Chinese (older people are more prone to this) or if you make one tiny mistake then someone might claim they cannot understand a single word you said (the common inability of some people to guess what I have said after making tiny mistakes in tone can be frustrating). The key is to not take things too seriously and remember they do want to understand you. If you can, sometimes rephrasing what you are saying can help. Also ensure you leave extra time to communicate when travelling (there is nothing like being in a hurry at a train station, airport, or bus station you have communication issues). Lastly, if i'm in a new situation which I am not familiar with the key Chinese phrases, I almost always start a conversation with a big smile, apologize for not speaking Chinese very well, before asking a question or engaging in a conversation. This helps manage expectations and also build a bit of a rapport which might help considering you need them to be patient.
10. Pay for a good teacher: Get a good teacher and pay money to learn. The financial incentive acts as a motivation (especially on days when you are tired) and having a good teacher will save you time in the long run. I've had the same Chinese teacher for 3+ years now but initially tried a few different ones. Our classes used to be in person but have been online for the last year due to COVID which makes it more convenient for us both (it also makes it easier to cancel sometimes last minute if an emergency comes up without too many implications). I've come across countless people who thought they could learn Chinese through osmosis of just being in China or studying on their own: with the odd exception the vast majority of these people can speak hardly any Chinese (even after many years in China) and their pronunciation is often awful.
11. Set measurable goals which are time bound: Set targets to measure progress which are time bound to create an incentive and mitigate against just coasting when learning Chinese. I decided to do the HSK exams to do this but if you aren’t planning to live in China long time and not likely to use characters, maybe focusing on developing speaking/listening skills (this will be likely be far more useful). I have found HSK vocabulary mainly geared towards university student life and not always appropriate for professionals (certainly up to/including HSK 3). You may consider studying for the HSKK exams which focus on China speaking only which are currently broken up into Lower, Intermediate, and Advance. 
12. Don't compare with others: Everyone is on their own language learning journey with different opportunities, time available to study, abilities, anxieties about making language mistakes, and desire to show off on social media (never?). There are some absolutely gifted foreigner Chinese speakers who can sound better than even native Chinese. But most people I know find learning Chinese tough and need to spend a fair bit of time/effort learning. The fact that you have decided to study Chinese means you are already making progress, just keep going, and don’t worry how it compares to others. I have only ever studied Chinese part time usually during my lunch breaks whilst at work. I've never had the luxury to study the Chinese full-time on a university course but I think it would have helped considerably if given the opportunity (many of the best foreign Chinese speakers I know have all initially done some university course when they first came to China for X months or 1 year before they started working). . 
13. Mix up the learning medium: Try learning in different ways using different medium in order to keep things interesting. Some potentially interesting learning medium include:

• Listening to Chinese language podcast (the Mandarin Slang Guide Podcast is highly recommended : https://www.himalaya.com/language-courses-podcasts/mandarin-slang-guide-1461088)
• Watching Chinese movies with English subtitles
• Talking to the old people in gated communities and parks who often hang around outside (most are super curious once you start speaking to you them). But be prepared to answer questions about all manner of things including: are you married? what's your monthly salary? Do you own a property? etc

This list solely based on my own very limited experience and I am clearly not a professional educator of Chinese. Different people will learn in different ways and you need to tailor your Chinese learning according to what you want and what time/resources you have to invest in it. I would suggest trying out different things to see what works for you in your life and review this at different stages throughout the year. Hopefully there is something of use here if you are learning or thinking about learning Chinese.