Most people start learning Chinese through words and phrases.

It's easy to learn that 'ni hao' is hello, and 'wo jiao Chris' is I'm called Chris.

Or that apple is 'ping guo' and banana is 'xiang jiao'.

And there are thousands of videos and apps that will teach you words and phrases.

But how are you supposed to know how to put all of these words and phrases together in the right order?

I've seen it so many times before.

You learn the basic phrases, but then you just get stuck at a beginner level and never ever figure out how break through the plateau and speak longer, more complex Chinese.

What's more, if you just learn beginner phrases, you don't learn how to manipulate the language to your requirements, and when you end up speaking to a native Chinese speaker, you can't think in Chinese, you can't react quick enough, or worse still, you end up just standing there with no clue what to say what you're trying to say. 

Learning more words never seems to help, because you just aren't able to put them together in the right way.

You start to wonder what you've been learning all this time, whether you've just wasted your time, and you feel downright frustrated and depressed at how little Chinese you are actually able to say.

"Until now I have only listened and repeated phrases, without having a clue as to how Chinese sentences are structured."

"There is plenty of information out there for building vocab however it never tells how to actually use it in a sentence."

"The hardest part of learning Chinese is not remembering words but sentence structures! Translating from English to Chinese is so hard as I often forget where the different parts go in the sentences, and it has inhibited my ability to speak well."

Does this sound like you?

You see, most courses just concentrate on teaching phrases or they give you dialogues, but they never show you how the Chinese is put together.

They don't teach you the structure of the language, and they don't help you to train your brain to produce the language and think in Chinese.

The result: you never figure out how Chinese works and you're stuck with just parroting phrases.

You never get out of the very restrictive language that you've learned from your beginners' course and you sound like a complete amateur whenever you're talking to a native speaker.

But it doesn't have to be like that.

Imagine if you had figured out how to put Chinese sentences together, and you had enough practice so that you were able to do it quickly and automatically and express the ideas you want to say.

Imagine if you could figure out how Chinese 'works' and the grammar, and crack the code so that you could start saying complex Chinese sentences with ease.

The feeling when you are able to manipulate Chinese in your head without that huge struggle and you've got all the basic sentence patterns down is amazing.

When you don't know how to say 'everything', but you've got to that magical point where you've had enough practice that you can come up with the expressions and sentences naturally.

You really feel like you are starting to 'get' how Chinese works, and you know enough to be comfortable having everyday conversations. I call this 'basic fluency'.

And I know exactly what this feels like, because I experienced a breakthrough like this just a few years ago, so I know that it's completely possible, and I want to help you to achieve the same thing.

The way I help people to put together Chinese sentences more accurately is very simple.

1) Break every single Chinese sentence down into all the different parts

I've found that once you can see what every character in the sentence means, it's easy to figure out how Chinese sentences are put together.

The feedback I've got from learners time and time again has been that you need to understand what 'all the bits mean', so you can start to build your own sentences in Chinese and say what you want to say, not just the things in your textbook.

2) Learn from a lot of examples 

Can you just look at one example in a book and 'get' how to use a grammar point in everyday life?

Of course you can't.

The best way to learn the concepts of a language is by learning from examples. 

That's why Chinese Sentence Mastery at its core is a huge collection of examples – so you can see how the patterns of the language work in different combinations and everyday life circumstances.

3) Test yourself and do drills so you can practice

There's only so much you can learn by flicking through a book, and it's a completely different matter to actually put your brain through the process of thinking of the Chinese sentence yourself.

Therefore, you'll need to keep testing yourself and throwing yourself in at the deep end – figuring out how to put English sentences into Chinese, so that you can bridge the gap to fluency.

It's better to practice on your own first than put yourself in front of a native speaker and buck under the pressure and have no clue what to say.

Chinese Sentence Mastery comes complete with a set of electronic flashcards, and audio drills, so you can keep practising until you've cracked how Chinese works (don't be afraid of making mistakes though).

4) Focus on the language that you need for everyday conversation

There's no use just learning lists of vocabulary or grammar points.

All the sentences in Chinese Sentence Mastery are taken from everyday life situations – everyday chit chat, getting to know people, talking about your day, what you think about things, office language and sentences that you'll use in all kinds of situations as a tourist or getting around China.

As well as picking up how the language works and the grammar, you'll also learn the most important everyday vocabulary you need to know, all in context. Clever huh?