A great way to improve your pronunciation is to record yourself speaking. Most people don’t bother doing this since they think they can already hear themselves when they speak. However, most people are shocked when they hear their voice to find that their pronunciation isn’t as good as they thought it was. You are your own critic, so use the Test your Pronunciation tools on our website to constantly compare your voice to that of the native speakers. You can even record both samples and compare the two. Try to get your voice as close as you can to that of the native speaker’s.

It is sometimes hard to solicit help from native Chinese speakers if you want them to help correct your sentences. Usually, they won’t bother to correct your speech even if you make mistakes, to avoid having you lose face. One technique you can use is, the next time you have trouble finishing a sentence, don’t. Stumble through it then wait for the Chinese person to help you through it (if you struggle long enough, they should jump in). This way, instead of completing the sentence in an improper way and having no one correct it, you get the proper sentence that you can learn from and try to use next time.