I’ve been learning Chinese at TLI for a long time but their 8,000 for 10 measly hours is just too expensive for someone with my salary rn.
How do people study cheaply? Are there cheaper teachers who can be zoomed with in SEAsia or (erk) the mainland?
Are any online courses such as Mandarin Blueprint (random one I just mention as an example since I saw it the other day) worth the money?
Thanks
Start dating someone who doesn’t speak English
Often times not cheaper though…
I mean, you learn Mandarin at no extra cost, but you pay the cost of maintaining a relationship I guess. If you want to have a relationship regardless of the cost, then I guess it is cheaper than also taking a Chinese class at the same time.
Do you know how expensive alcohol and food are at restaurants in Taipei?
If you have true skill, you need neither alcohol or restaurant food
The cheapest way is to go to a supermarket and pick up a bag full of those cheap children’s books they have in the books section. It won’t get you to an advanced level but you’ll pick up the basics using common vocabulary that people actually use everyday in real life (which is always a problem with textbooks - no one talks like that in real life). Many of them use bopomofo so that makes it a lot easier to look up the characters (the bopomofo marks are above the characters). Might set you back a few hundred NT.
Yes there are online and it’s cheaper, study and talk with mainland Chinese. Which platforms dunno but I had a friend that learned they way partially. Always need to get the basics down first and for that classes are best IMHO. Not TLI but something like Shida or other unis for a couple of semesters to one year at least. ..
Something I’ve been curious to try is with a ChatGPT subscription trying to have a voice conversation in Mandarin, and have it generate stories at your level.
I had it generate a sci fi story at an HSK 3 level and was impressed that I could read it and found it interesting.
Language learning apps don’t make money, but I do think that combined with a LingQ-esque system with TTS would provide unlimited interesting language learning content
Hey,
My 50 cent here:
It shouldn’t only be cost effective, but also get you to reach your goal. Define that first. What is your goal in learning Chinese?
These are very very different goals. So define what you want to achieve first.
Then I would double down on spending 10 or 20 hours per week on the most cost effective methods: 1/3 listening to simple podcasts or DuChinese 1/3 Anki 1/3 graded readers and 1-2 hour per week with a high quality tutor in Taiwan (might cost you 500-1000 per hour). One thing that I would leave out is test prep and writing anything.
In 2-3 months you will see very tangible results. But 10-20 hours a week is some serious commitment. So think about that first.
7/11, family mart, etc good cheap options 
Wait, do we know what sex the person is? Seems contingent 
Otherwise. What are university programs now? I went for a brief stint, 20-30k/semester. 2 hours/day 5 days a week. Wenzao in kaohsiung. Most universities have programs, last time I checked NPUST was 33k I think for. Both are setup for visas. If you are abroad and coming here, the government will actually pay you to come study in university.
Otherwise the big thing that got me kicked into second gear was volunteer work, for me it was animal related. No phone.
Can you elaborate how does that work exactly? I didn’t know you could use ChatGPT to have an actual conversation in mandarin.
