Learning to recognize and speak the sounds of another language is a form of exercise, and it requires repetition. By listening to -- and repeating -- the same dialogue every day, you're training new muscle memory, and signaling to your speech recognition center that  "these sounds are important." 

After you've listened to Lesson 1 once, use this track as your daily practice routine. At less than four minutes, I think you'll agree getting your Mandarin off the ground is really no big deal. 

About learning Chinese characters
Teaching Chinese characters is outside the scope of this podcast, but if you are learning Chinese characters through another course or method, you can use the transcript below to follow along.

Learning characters can be a fulfilling project, and can help you to remember and differentiate similar-sounding words. And, of course, it opens up more avenues for practicing your Mandarin, such as reading (books, children's books, comic books) and corresponding with Chinese speakers via email and other messaging apps. I highly encourage you to give it a try!

However, if the thought of memorizing all those characters now gives you a headache, rest assured: you can start speaking Mandarin without being able to read or write. Millions of preliterate children speak Mandarin fluently, and so can you! If and when you are ready to start learning the characters, already speaking some Mandarin will make it that much easier.

The bottom line is this: Don't let anything stop you or discourage you. The best method is the method you actually use, and any method you choose is better than no method at all! Find a way to move forward. You can always make adjustments later.

Dialogue transcript: 

• M：你好
• L：你好！
• M：你聽我說
• L：好
• M：你會說中文嗎？
• L：呃...
• M：你不會？
• L：我不會
• M：你會吧！你會說一點中文，對吧！
• L：對... 我會說一點點
• M：對吧！
• L：那，你會說英文嗎？
• M：不會
• L：喔... 
• M：加油！！！

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