Want to learn some basic Mandarin to impress my badminton friends but none of the shared Anki decks seem to hit that trifecta of including pinyin + audio + the very very basic words I'd need to start with
Like come on I don't even know how to count to 10 lol
Oct 6, 2026, 5:38 PM@iseyk Extremely sincere suggestion: Download Pimsleur, do 15 minutes of Pimsleur every day. It is a subscription service but the content is very good and if you are using it daily the price feels reasonable (and if you are not doing it daily… you will not learn anything).
My process for learning Mandarin has been
Pimsleur +
By incredible luck, found a local adult learning center who was able to connect me with a Mandarin-speaking CPA to tutor me in a basement +
Card decks in Pleco (free, good)
Oct 6, 2026, 5:40 PM@iseyk Finding a 1:1 tutor sounds hard to replicate and also excessive for what you're trying to do but I can recommend Pimsleur+Pleco (although I do make all of my Pleco decks myself, from words in my weekly lessons). Maybe if you find a Anki deck that has a set of words you like, you could copy it into Pleco by hand? I find the process of making the flashcard decks to be almost as useful as drilling the flashcard decks. Writing a thing down helps you remember it.
Oct 6, 2026, 6:47 PM@iseyk (Pimsleur is audiobooks, it isn't a "game" like Duolingo, it's structured lessons with a thoughtful, spaced-repetition-oriented call-response format)
@mcc Wow thank you, super helpful!! I hadn't heard of pimsleur