Mandarin is easy in parts, but it is hard to start because you cannot get over not knowing how to say the first thing. Many new students keep collecting words and trying to pronounce them without saying them in front of other people. You can make this easier if you do not try to have a normal conversation all at once. Start talking using very short speaking exercises instead. Try saying “I want tea,” “I study Chinese,” or “It is too expensive.” Practice a single expression at a time to become more comfortable with sounds, tone changes, rhythm, word order, and all these together. It helps to begin with simple sentences and short phrases.
Find a sentence that will be useful to you and listen to the pinyin and audio of the expression three times without speaking out loud. Then say the sentence to yourself, trying to match its tone and flow. It is not enough to master Mandarin syllable by syllable. You need to understand how tones move throughout a complete phrase. When the phrase is too long, you can divide it into two or three shorter parts and practice the phrases individually before joining them together. Record yourself early, even if it feels uncomfortable. If you listen to the recording later, do not think in general terms about the result as being good or bad. Instead, focus on one part of the sentence. Perhaps the first tone was steady, but the last tone came too late. The narrower your comparison is, the more rapid your improvement will be. Another issue that you face as a beginner is that you try to say each syllable at the same pitch, in the same volume, and with the same length. In Mandarin, saying every syllable as an individual unit will make your speaking sound unnatural and cause your expression to be difficult to understand.
The same thing happens if you try to practice tones so thoroughly that the sentence no longer sounds natural. This does not mean you should not pay attention to tones in isolation but try practicing the tones in short expressions instead. If you are struggling with a word, try to avoid repeating the whole sentence until you get it right. Instead, repeat the word that is giving you a hard time five times alone and then reinsert the word into the expression. If third tone combinations are confusing, exaggerate them slightly during practice so your ear can catch the contour more clearly.
The goal is more precise pronunciation of individual words and expressions. When the expression becomes easier, stop making as much of an effort to emphasize those words and just let it come out naturally. You can try a fifteen-minute speaking session at any point during the day. Listen to one phrase for a short amount of time and repeat it with a quieter voice. Take a few more minutes to repeat it with just a quick glance at the pinyin. After that, try changing the expression by changing just one element. Using the sentence, “I want tea,” you could change it to say, “I want coffee,” “I want water,” “I want noodles,” or “I want rice.” This allows you to learn to speak flexibly but not too much too soon. In the final minutes, record two or three versions and play them back against the original audio. The most important part of this activity is listening to your recording to understand your own shortcomings, because it is the best way to improve your pronunciation as you are speaking. It does not mean you do not know how to speak Mandarin if your tone does not sound exactly right.
Mandarin can only become more fluent when you are able to hear and speak your errors out loud. It is fine to have trouble with a phrase in Mandarin. Instead of continuing to try, stop and try a smaller version of the activity. Break down the sentence so that it is not more than four syllables, tap out the rhythm by clapping or moving your body while repeating the phrase, or close the book and say the sentence while looking at a real object in the room. Do not think you need a greater variety of content if you are stuck on one point of practice. One phrase practiced in five different ways can do more for speaking confidence than ten phrases repeated once. It will take longer than usual to build up confidence and skill in Mandarin, but it is not a big deal if you feel a little unsure when speaking out loud. Short speaking drills at any time help to form a habit of speaking rather than thinking before speaking, but it is a habit that you can easily maintain in your daily speech.
Your mouth and your ears will start to understand the natural flow of Mandarin and how the tones change throughout an expression, allowing you to speak the words as you see them. Try using just the pinyin and audio to practice speaking until you begin to understand more. Try saying one sentence to get used to the tones in one context and repeating it five more times in a slightly different context. This will help you begin to understand the language as a whole rather than simply learning some new vocabulary. Speaking Mandarin can begin to make sense very quickly. You will see that speaking Mandarin is not only about what you understand in terms of vocabulary or tones but it is also about the confidence that you feel and that you gain from speaking it out loud.