u/miika2121

I'll be DMing my first ever homebrew (d&d) and would love some feedback on the map I've been working on. The players will be playing as a group of settlers on the island of New Valoran, where they'll need to explore all corners of the island to solve various mysteries!

I just started learning Mandarin about a month ago after a 5-year journey to fluency in Spanish (I passed my C1 exam last November). I'm planning to follow a similar learning approach, now with Mandarin, but a bit more structured this time around. My goal is to reach roughly a B2 equivalent (HSK 5–6?) within 3 years.

I plan to spend a minimum of 1 hour a day on focused study, split like this:

30 minutes Anki – I'm working through a 5,000-word frequency deck, adding 3–5 new words a day. At that pace, I'll finish the deck in about 3 years. After that, I'll start adding my own vocabulary as it comes up naturally in my studies. That's basically what I did with Spanish (at ~7K words now).

30 minutes of comprehensible input – So far I've been using this series, which has been perfect for an absolute beginner like me. After I finish it, I'll work my way through the CI Wiki, repeating and studying videos as needed. I also like shadowing videos that I already understand well.

With any extra study time during the day, I'll watch grammar explanation videos on YouTube to reinforce concepts I'm already starting to pick up through comprehensible input and vocabulary study.

After about 8 months, once I have around 1,000 words under my belt, I'll start taking 2 italki lessons a week with a native speaker, focused mainly on conversation. This is the same approach I used for the last ~4 years with Spanish. Around that point, I'll also start incorporating beginner podcasts into my commute, which should nearly double my daily immersion time. Between the podcasts and the twice-weekly italki lessons, I should be up to around 2 hours a day of language exposure, with about half of that being focused study and the other half passive input. By the end of 3 years, I expect to have somewhere around 1,500–2,000 hours of study.

How does this plan sound to y'all?

I know Mandarin will be much more challenging than Spanish, so I'm trying to keep my expectations realistic (it took me just 2 years to reach B2 in Spanish, hence expecting 3 for Mandarin). I wanted to map out a concrete 3-year plan to keep myself motivated through what I'm sure will be the toughest part of the learning process. That said, I'm really excited to take on the challenge and would love to hear what you'll think!