Membership
Membership
No More Excuses! Join the Slow Chinese community and get inspired!
If you’ve been learning Chinese for a few years, but haven’t been back there since 2019, your Chinese language skills are probably feeling a bit rusty.
Now China is open again, are you planning to go this year?
Are you feeling out of date and out of touch…?
Do you want to start learning again, but have had enough of tedious textbooks?
If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, the Slow Chinese membership could be the solution for you!
Our membership resources help long-time, advanced, and aspiring learners of Mandarin maintain and improve their hard-earned language skills, and stay on top of the latest Chinese language trends.
It’s the perfect tool to help you get your Mandarin mojo back.
1. Benefits
The Slow Chinese membership resources will help you overcome your biggest learning challenges.
Staying up-to-date: “Feeling rusty?” Learn about one thing people are discussing in Chinese every week, and the real language they are using to talk about it.
Making time: “Can’t make time?” We save you time by carefully selecting 2-3 high quality Chinese news articles each week, and explaining all the vocab for you.
Building a habit: “Can’t get consistent?” We help you form a learning habit, providing engaging content every Saturday morning. Now there’s no excuse!
Getting motivated: “Can’t be bothered to sit down and learn?” We carefully select topics that are interesting and engaging, which you want to get stuck into!
And, most importantly, we teach you words and phrases to help you show off your amazing language skills with Chinese friends and colleagues through content you probably won’t find in a textbook.
2. Features
We do this through features designed for maximum flexibility. So you can use them according to your own learning style.
In addition to the text-based content in the free newsletter, and for less than the price of a coffee each week, you get access to a unique language learning resource for advanced and aspiring learners of Mandarin:
🔉Podcast
📚Downloads
💬 Community
Watch this free user’s guide to the Slow Chinese resources.
🔉Podcast:
A member-only 30 minute podcast every week with 85% native Chinese audio.
Format:
Introduction: Why I chose the story, why it’s interesting, and what I learned
Discussion about top phrases: Chinese deep-dive into our favourite words
Word list and example sentences: Words, phrases and sentences in Chinese
Audio article: Full audio of the main article we read every week
📚Resources:
Print outs: 3 x PDFs
Word list which can be integrated into your own word lists
Example Chinese sentences with pinyin and English translations
Full Chinese transcript of the Chinese part of the podcast
Integrations:
Pleco
Skritter
Hack Chinese
Further reading:
A short excerpt of Chinese text in the newsletter
2-4 links to Chinese articles carefully selected to practice what you’ve learned
💬 Community:
Live online meet-ups: Live sessions with members every month (the recording is published as a podcast or video)
Monthly wrap-up emails: At the end of every month, we recap what we’ve learned that month, with an “ask me a question” thread to check-in with you
Accountability: We are matching members to connect and practice together
Member Dinners: With planned meet-ups in London, New York, Paris, Barcelona, Singapore.
Deep Dives: Bi-monthly live sessions focussing on one particular topic to help overcome learning challenges.
3. Is the membership right for me?
Here’s a quick quiz to decide if membership is right for you:
Are you frustrated that your hard-won Chinese language skills are getting worse not better?
Do you find it hard to make time for improving your language skills?
Do you struggle with motivation to carry on learning Chinese?
Is it difficult to find good content to help you learn?
If you are an aspiring, advanced or long-time learner of Chinese, and the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’, then you’re in luck.
Because hundreds of members of the Slow Chinese community all faced these exact same problems.
But they now have access to unique learning resources, engaging content, and a community of like-minded learners who are all taking their language skills to the next level.
So….
4. What members of the community are saying
Here’s what other members are saying about their experience and how Slow Chinese is helping them.
Jeremy Golkorn, Editor-in-Chief, The China Project
Andrew Methven's Slow Chinese newsletter and podcast is the best and most efficient way I have found to maintain my Chinese reading abilities and learn new idiomatic language, and because it's drawn from Chinese media reports and online language, it's also an excellent method of keeping up with current events, as Chinese people are reading about them.
Geremie R. Barmé, Editor, China Heritage
I very much enjoy and admire Slow Chinese. Through it I rediscover old friends and encounter delightful new acquaintances. It often makes me wistful for nights spent in the rowdy company of revellers in “Old Peking”.
Matt Michaelson (US)
Two critical areas for the advanced language learner are up-to-date cultural knowledge and diverse and sophisticated native text and audio to facilitate immersion. Slow Chinese has the best of both. Massively helpful for learning, and there’s no better way to stay up on what’s happening on the Chinese Internet in Chinese.
Dom Hector (UK)
I’d recommend Slow Chinese to anyone who wants to learn Chinese without the feelings of slog and bore and simply enjoy the process and expect great results. I’d also recommend Slow Chinese to anyone who wants to engage critically and thoughtfully with current topics pertinent to China today, for which Slow Chinese is a stand-alone platform.
Bai Dan (US)
There is more to the SlowChinese subscription than meets the eye. I thought I was purchasing a subscription to a newsletter, podcast and couple extra resources to help nudge my Chinese forward. Little did I know I’d be joining a community of highly motivated and dedicated students and teachers, which has not only transformed my learning experience but launched my language capabilities to a new level. This is truly a unique Mandarin learning product you will not find elsewhere.
Anuprita (India)
Slow Chinese is a unique newsletter where the weekly podcasts enlighten the readers about the vocabulary related to trends and happenings in China. The topic selected for the same is interesting. SlowChinese is a treat to Chinese learners and can be truly helpful in upgrading one's Chinese language.
Justina (Argentina)
Us long-time Chinese language learners are a very diverse bunch, and Andrew has managed to come up with a product that unites us all: material that is current, varied and engaging, and an expanding set of resources that offer flexibility for each learner to use according to their needs - the most recent additions being podcast transcripts and monthly community meetings.
5. What does it cost?
Subscription:
Annual: $140/year (less than $12/month)
Monthly: $20/month
Bonus: I’ll throw in a free 20 minute 1-1 welcome call when you join to understand your learning needs and challenges, and suggest how best to use the resources to achieve your personal goals this year.