A system to help you unlock Chinese language news

Transform your Mandarin reading skills from struggling with news articles to devouring them daily.

This system will help you dramatically accelerate your reading speed, and enhance your comprehension of Chinese language media, even if you are not quite an "advanced learner" yet.

The Problem

Three years ago, I couldn't read a full Chinese language news article, despite nearly two decades of learning. 

Reading in Mandarin was tedious, overwhelming, and depressing. 

Every day, I'd start reading news articles in Chinese, lose interest, and give up.

My struggles included:

• Lacking knowledge of vocab, idioms, and characters
• Getting stuck in complex grammar, and resorting to Google Translate
• Battling to find motivation, make time, and build a reading habit
• Wasting time on Chinese language news sites looking for content
• Missing cultural and historical references

This is because no one actually teaches you how to read the news in Chinese! 

• There's a significant gap between "upper intermediate" or "advanced" learners, and reading "real news articles" in Mandarin.
• News Reader textbooks and Graded Readers teach "newsy" language but don't guide non-native readers on how to read Chinese news effectively. 
• Skim reading in Chinese differs from skimming in your native language, but it's essential for faster reading and better comprehension.

The Solution

I've been writing the Slow Chinese newsletter since 8 February 2021, publishing every Saturday for the last 139 weeks.

As part of that creative process, I read at least one long-form Chinese language news article every single day. That's hundreds of articles over thousands of hours of reading. 

I’ve developed a system which helps me:

• Find good content
• Select the right articles 
• Retain more vocabulary 
• Improve comprehension
• Accelerate reading speed
• And build a daily reading habit

And now I've distilled what I have learned into The Mandarin News Mastery system.

Who is the course for?

Mandarin News Mastery is for you if: 

✅ You've studied Chinese for at least 4 years

✅ You're an "upper intermediate" or "advanced" learner

✅ You have HSK5 or HSK6 proficiency or a Chinese language degree

✅ You can handle short articles but struggle with long-form pieces

✅ You've studied some newsy vocab and language structures

✅ You work with Chinese news as part of your job or research

✅ You want to build a daily news reading habit but need motivation

This course is not for everyone. It's definitely geared towards a more advanced level. So it won't be for you (yet) if:

❌ You've studied Chinese for less than 4 years

❌ You're a "beginner", or "lower intermediate" learner

❌ You are well below HSK5 proficiency  

What you’ll learn

The Mandarin News Mastery system will teach you how to dramatically accelerate your reading speed, and enhance your comprehension when reading Chinese language news.

The course is divided into two parts: 

• Building the system: 6-day live course
• Implementing the system: 21-day News Reading Sprint

There are also two optional tiers: Access All Areas with additional resources and 1+1 support, and The VIP Experience.

Live Course

The live course will be delivered in six one-hour online modules in the first week of October, starting on Sunday 1 October, ending on Friday 6 October.

• Day 1 (Sun 1/10): The Reading Habit Builder
  • Kick-off call
  • Getting motivated
  • Building a reading habit
• Day 2 (Mon 2/10): The Vocab Retention System
  • Best practices for vocab retention
  • Useful tools including online dictionaries, spaced repetition apps
  • Applying these to reading the news
• Day 3 (Tue 3/10): The Chinese Media Navigator
  • Recommended media sites
  • Navigating Mainland and non-mainland news sites
  • Understanding the challenges of censorship
• Day 4 (Wed 4/10): The Scan Reading Checklist
  • A checklist to assess if an article is right BEFORE you start reading it
  • A framework to prepare you to read effectively
  • How to remove barriers to comprehension before you start reading  
• Day 5 (Thu 5/10): The Active Reading Roadmap
  • How to efficiently read and understand any news article without getting lost
  • Best practices for combining active reading and vocabulary retention
  • How to use online tools such as ChatGPT
• Day 6 (Fri 6/10): The System in Action
  • Taking what you’ve learned and applying it to any news article

Each live one-hour session will follow this format:

• Held at 6pm UK time (the first session on Sunday will be at 2pm)
• 45 minute presentation
• 15 minute Q&A at the end
• Short piece of homework after each session
• Live sessions will be delivered in English (*Chinese language course materials are included in the Access All Areas package)

The course is delivered by Andrew Methven, and Zoe Qian:

• Andrew Methven: Author of Slow Chinese and creator of this course. I started teaching myself Mandarin over 20 years ago when travelling in China, and then living for several years in Taiwan. I eventually returned to London to take an MA in Chinese translation and linguistics. Slow Chinese is a side-hustle passion (ok, obsession) project to keep my language skills up-to-date. Every week I share what I learn in this newsletter, now with an audience of 7,000 China watchers. I also write the popular The Phrase of the Week column for The China Project. 
• Zoe Qian: Editor of Slow Chinese and contributor to this course. Growing up in mainland China, Zoe is a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese. Having lived in five countries and mastered two foreign languages, she understands the struggles of learning another language to a high standard. And when she’s not correcting my Mandarin, Zoe is a top conference interpreter which gives her invaluable insights from the frontlines into what's going on between China and other countries.

21-Day News Reading Sprint

After you have built your system, you'll need to establish a reading habit. 

The 21-Day News Reading Sprint will help you do just that. 

Starting on Saturday 7 October, the sprint includes: 

• Community: 
  • Dedicated Slack channel to share what you are reading
  • And connect with fellow learners
• Resources: 
  • Your first 7 days of reading content, including text and audio (advanced and intermediate content)
  • A database of over 80 high quality Chinese language media outlets  
• Monday Masterminds: 
  • Live mastermind calls each Monday to check-in, answer questions, and problem-solve (3 sessions in total)
  • Alternating 7pm and 7am UK time to catch Asia and US time zones

Access All Areas

If you really want to accelerate your Mandarin news reading, the Access All Areas package can help you with:

• Coaching call 
  • 1+1 30 minute coaching call
  • Recommendations for your news content diet
• Chinese language course materials
  • Chinese language audio and transcripts of the four main modules of the course
• Behind-the-Scenes: 
  • See my weekly content creation process: How I choose the topic, consume the news, and learn new vocab.

The VIP Experience

The VIP Experience package includes all the above, plus:

• Action Plan: 
  • A personalised action plan and content diet after completing the course
• Check-in Calls: 
  • Quarterly check-in calls for the next 12 months (4 in total) to keep you on track
• Lifetime access
  • Join future course cohorts of the Mandarin News Accelerator for FREE

What students are saying

"This was the most valuable 6 hours in a lifetime of learning Chinese."

The Mandarin News Mastery system is an evolution of a live course we delivered last year, The Methven Method.

This is what some of our students said about their experience:

Dan B

"This course gives a precise methodology to efficiently and systematically navigate a Chinese text and get the most out of it. Understanding how to use and apply the framework from the succinct 6 all-thrills-no-frills course was well worth my time and money. If you are an advanced learner and want to reinvigorate your research and studies, you should take this course without hesitation."

Josh S

"This course is one of the few resources out there that actually takes real-life material and teaches learners how to apply effective study methods. It's clear, effective, and highly applicable to anyone trying to take their Chinese learning to another level. If you are at the intermediate or higher level and are trying to bridge the gap into more authentic material, this is the right resource for you."

Jackie S

This method cleverly dissects each article and presents an organized linguistic format that readers can study and digest. I highly recommend this resource to serious students of the Chinese language.

Jeanne D

"I've been "studying" Chinese for a long time. Many of your suggestions and tips are new to me and very helpful. Above and beyond the strategic framework for tackling current medium/long form media articles in Chinese, the course presenters provided information on current, free, quality content sources that they have evaluated over time. This saves time searching out content. There were also tips and techniques for Chinese-English translation of slang, idiomatic and other difficult language that one encounters in Chinese. As someone who began studying Chinese in the pre-digital age, the amount and complexity of on-line content was daunting. I now have a way to approach selection and consumption of fresh new articles, and look forward to re-acquiring some facility in reading the news. The class is great for anyone looking to jump-start brushing up their Chinese reading ability, not just newer language learners."

Jeff F

I joined this course hoping to address my frustrations with Chinese text reading. My main challenge was wasting time searching for quality material. I relied on WeChat news feeds and got lost on Chinese news sites.The value of the method was apparent from the first session. The session on the media landscape was particularly valuable, and the framework for prequalifying an article was worth the price on its own: How to spend 5 minutes scanning a news article to determine if it’s worth diving deeper. The example articles you went through demonstrated its efficacy. This was the most valuable 6 hours in a lifetime of learning Chinese."

Price

The three tiers are priced as follows:

Mandarin News Mastery: $200

✅ Live sessions: 6 x live course modules, 3 x Monday Masterminds

✅ Resources: Database of recommended media outlets, first 7 days of reading

✅ Community: Slack channel access

Access All Areas: $300

✅ Mandarin materials: Chinese language audio and transcripts of the four main modules

✅ Coaching: 1+1 coaching call

✅ Access: Behind-the-scenes access to the Slow Chinese newsletter creative process

The VIP Experience: $500

✅ Action Plan: A personalised action plan and content diet after completing the course

✅ Check-in Calls: Quarterly check-in calls for the next 12 months (4 in total) to keep you on track

✅ Lifetime Access: An invitation to join all future cohorts for free