Learning Langugages Log

A Chinese alphabet doesn't exist!

Meaning that it works kind of like emojis - that you see what a certain character looks like and discern the meaning of them.

So I guess you can just learn how to write and the meaning of these "emojis" and then you are able to read and write Mandarin without actually knowing how to speak it.

Duolingo has me learning Pinyin (the sound system for Chinese) and Hanzi characters (for the actual writing bit - Chinese is written entirely in hanzi).

CEFR for Learning Chinese

I was on Duolingo, and I was curious about how it kept saying that my chinese level kept increasing from a score of 5 to 6 to halfway to a score of 7.

CEFR (which I forgot about but just learnt today (7/03/2026) stands for Commmon European Framework of Reference for Languages - basically setting/describing international standarads for language proficiency such as your ability to read, write, listen, and speak.

It has 6 levels that scale from A1 (lowest) - C2 (highest proficiency of a language learnt).

A1/A2 - Basic user

B1/B2 - Independent user

C1/C2 - Proficient user

Duo says that between a score of 20-29 (at a high A1 level), "you can chat a little, if someone is patient and ready to help." - LOL, Duo really humbling us.

Duo also says, "that at a score of 60-79 (early B1 leve)...means you can confindently handle most situations while traveling.

I thought "what fun! I'll aim for a B1 level then." But I searched up how long it takes to reach B1...

People saying 2 years!! okay -\~_~/-, it wasn't going to be a week anyway, I'll just have to stay strong even though I've never really stuck to laerning a language for long (maybe cause of school).Mandarin (official language of China and Taiwan) if fun to learn anyhow.