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  The following are extracts from a Facebook thread. This is a good example of people who read what they want to read and ignore what is important. Lion Luqman Michel With tone marks, Pinyin is as easy if not easier than Hanzi. You can read anything written in Pinyin that is within your vocabulary. NOTE: Here is my post on the importance of tone marks. LINK 

  At the onset I want to say that I want to learn to speak Mandarin the way it is intended to be spoken. I want to learn to speak it with the correct tones. Recently, I joined a number of groups on Face Book that are for sharing experiences learning Chinese. In most of the groups the beginners as well as intermediate learners complain about tones being the most difficult to learn in Mandarin. Just like many other matters people just say what others have said. Anyway, are tones as important as they are made to be? 

  Here is one YouTube video to learn to speak Mandarin. I would suggest you to learn Pinyin and learn to speak from the 32 lessons on this site.You need not learn the Chinese characters for the time being.  LINK Here is another beginner course for your listening practice. LINK I will introduce more lessons which are all free of charge.  There are free of charge lessons all the way up to HSK 6.  You don't have to learn the Chinese characters if you don't want to.

  I attended the Wellness conference at SICC from the 7 th to the 9 th June and have been away from social media. I learned many valuable facts from the convention including breathing exercises. Meanwhile, I have been following an excellent YouTube channel to learn to speak Mandarin fluently. Each of the lessons has a portion for shadowing. 

  The following is what I mentioned in my second post.  LINK   Many of the Cantonese and Hakka folks will say 'fu' instead of 'hu'.  Also pay attention to the incorrect pronunciations of other words. Shi Huangdi (literally meaning first emperor) tried to unify the Chinese with one language to no avail. The Chinese Government introduced Pinyin to ensure the Chinese speak Mandarin correctly like the Americans who learned it using romanisation. The Malaysian Government introduced Pinyin in the 70s for the same reason.  Today, many Americans in China speak better Mandarin than a majority of Chinese living in Malaysia. Here is a video of a teacher teaching her mom to read correctly. LINK    

  “Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading; cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.” — Charlie Munger There are two main places we can learn from: our own experience or the experience of others. This blog is about my experience learning Mandarin. I hope it will encourage my readers to learn it as well. I have heard a number of teachers from China who say that they cannot teach foreigners to learn to speak in Chinese without them learning Chinese characters. This is false information. Foreigners not only can learn to speak but they will be able to read anything written in Pinyin. Along the way they will learn the Chinese characters. 

  This is a continuation of part 1. This blog is for foreigners who intend to learn Chinese.  In part 1, I stated the following: Briefly: i.           There are many characters with different tones which can easily be represented by the tone marks on top of romanised letters. ii.          Many characters carry neutral tones when combined with other characters and they carry different meanings. iii.         The same character can represent a completely different tone and mean a completely different thing. iv.         The same character can represent a completely different sound. v.          I believe there may be more reasons but the above should suffice to show why Pinyin (romanisation) is a must to learn good Mandarin.