In some relation to the previous post about the placement test, I think it's important to place an assessment of my current language abilities.
As of September 2025 I have spent around 2 100 hours studying Chinese, with all the time spent before November 2024 being a very general approximation. But according to FSI I should be half-way there, right?
This includes an university course I took at the beginning of 2021, and which was the start of my language learning journey. After that course, I studied pretty much nothing until I decided to go to Taiwan at the end of February in 2022. The placement test at NTNU placed me at level 1 as I was too stunned or shy to speak and say anything at all during the live placement test I did over Zoom.
I was studying the intensive 3 hour-a-day course at NTNU from the end of February 2022 to June 2022. From June 2022 to August 2022 I studied the 2 hour-a-day regular course due to lack of motivation, discipline, the fact that I didn't connect with the new intensive course teacher that I initially had and many other factors that coincided all at the same time. Together with homework, I'd reckon I spend around 2 hours every day outside of class. In general, my time in Taiwan during 2022 was disappointing in many ways – even though it led me to come back this time around, in 2025.
After Taiwan I returned home and didn't study for 1.5 years for various reasons both inside and outside my control until I started up again at the end of January 2024. Between February 2024-November 2024 I spent on average 1.5-2hrs a day studying. During the autumn of the same year I received a huge burst of motivation and from November 2024 on started studying 100 hours a month on average with a dip between end of March until August where I studied ~65-85 hours on average per month.
November 2024 is also when I started tracking all my study hours (which I'm planning a separate post about). For most of my sessions I use the Pomodoro method to keep track of my study time and also to ensure that I'm focused during my studies.
The main reading material I've been using is DuChinese, focusing on the Advanced level at the moment, as well as John DeFrancis "Advanced Chinese Reader". I'd wager my reading ability to be the best out of all areas.
Regarding conversations, I can speak about daily stuff and mostly get my point across after a few attempts if they don't initially understand, and sometimes I can go into some specialized topics but I've a hard time doing this too much and also I have a hard time to express myself clearly and nuanced. The only conversations I've had in Sweden since I left Taiwan in 2022 have been with my Chinese or Taiwanese friends, at most once or twice a month. My pronunciation is OK, it could definitely be worse, and is mostly understandable within context.
I'm currently mainly listening to two podcasts: "Learn Taiwanese Mandarin" and "Talk Taiwanese Mandarin With Abby" which I feel is quite comfortable at my level even though I struggle a bit more with "Talk Taiwanese Mandarin with Abby". Either way, my listening ability in real-life situations still lags a bit. I've started reading manhua but I still find myself having to look up a lot of vocabulary, and even though I've ventured into some Chinese books like 許三觀賣血記 by 余華, it's definitely very much challenging still. I still don't feel comfortable enough to watch a Chinese TV show or movie, but am able to understand some sentences and so forth, especially with subtitles.
While I'm capable of reading some academic texts, and some more "advanced" graded readers like in DuChinese, I still feel that my listening ability lags behind and that in many real life situations am unable to fully hear everything (and even get the main point sometimes), while also being able to reply in an understandable manner. This has been improving rapidly though, especially since my arrival in Taiwan.
Having done the placement test at Wenzao, I'd feel comfortable putting myself somewhere around B1 on both reading and listening.