In Part 1, I told you what changed in the new HSK 3.0. There would be nine levels (instead of six), two character lists (instead of one), tasks (instead of word lists) and one stubborn fax machine. But that wasn't the question my student asked me at 1am the other night. She asked whether she had been studying for the wrong exam all this while. Old HSK or New HSK? This post is the answer I gave her, written out properly, because I have since been asked the same thing at least

Last week a student sent me a voice note at 1am in the night. It said, "lǎoshī, I just saw HSK exam is changing - have I been studying for the wrong HSK all this while?" I understand the panic. The internet has done a very good job of creating it. So this week, I decided to do what any good Mandarin instructor should - I read the official and updated new syllabus - all 406 pages - so you don't have to. . 不客气 (bú kèqi). If you still want to read or glance through the new HSK 3

Can you become a language teacher without a teaching degree? I did. And honestly, I never planned to teach Mandarin, or teach anything at all. But here I am, running The Mandarin Story, and this is probably the most fulfilling thing I have ever done. Let me take you back to 2016. I was 22 years old. Someone asked me to teach a class. I said yes, mostly because I did not know how to say no. No formal training. No BA in education. No teaching methodology course. Nothing that wo

The Chinese zodiac isn't just a cute way to say "I'm a Dragon" or "She's a Pig." It's a layered, fascinating system that reveals how an entire culture thinks about time, personality and cosmic balance. If you've ever been curious about these 12 animals and why people take them so seriously, check out part 1 where i explain the history of chinese zodiac. I teach Mandarin to beginners, and I've noticed something: the zodiac always hooks people. More than tones. More than strok

"What's your Chinese Zodiac Animal" might be one of the most asked questions in China. Do you know yours and what it says about you? When Chinese ask you this question, they are not making small talk. If you're asked this question this year and you say you are a Horse - they immediately know you are either 12/24/36/48 years old. Did you know that people in China, HongKong and Taiwan had a population boom in 2012 because it was the year of dragon and dragons are considered as

Two Tiny Chinese Words That Beginners Constantly Mix Up If you're learning Chinese, you've probably already met these two little troublemakers: 都 (dōu) and 多 (duō). They sound almost the same, they're both very common, and if you're at HSK 1, it's ridiculously easy to mix them up. So here's the easiest way to remember them: 都 = all 多 = many / more That's the basic difference. 都 (dōu) = ALL Use 都 when you're talking about everyone or everything in a group. 我们都喜欢。Wǒmen dōu xǐhu

When we started the June batch of my Chinese Foundation Course, most of my 12 students would have said yes, absolutely, one of the hardest languages on the planet. By the last class, the word I kept hearing was "fun". Then "doable". Then "not that hard, actually." That shift, that exact moment when the body stops bracing and starts remembering, is what I teach for. We just wrapped batch 32. I'm sitting here with a lot of feelings. What Happens in 20 Hours Twenty hours of liv

I just have to share about something truly special that happened recently. Our first collaboration with Pop-IN-Asia, and seeing it come together so beautifully just filled my heart. Seriously, what a wonderful experience! I want to give a massive shoutout to Bhargavi Viswanath, who represented The Mandarin Story so wonderfully. She was the simultaneous interpreter for Sun Caizhen and Liang Beiyi during their India fan interaction, and she absolutely nailed it. Just, so good.

Friday afternoon, my phone buzzed with a WhatsApp message from my student Tanveer. He had just wished his Chinese colleagues 端午节快乐 (Duānwǔ jié kuàilè), which means "Happy Dragon Boat Festival," for the occasion that day. And two of them told him he must be half Chinese. I read that and just sat with it for a moment. Because that, right there, is the entire reason I started The Mandarin Story. It Was Not an Exam. It Was a Moment. Tanveer did not pass an HSK test that day. He d

People ask me this more often than you would think. Sometimes it is a stranger who found my number, sometimes it is a student who is about to recommend us to a friend and wants to say the right thing. And every few weeks, someone asks me very seriously, "Su Laoshi, but honestly, which class should I join?" as if they expect me to only say my own. So let me do something that the internet does not usually do. Let me tell you how to choose a Mandarin class in Bangalore properly,

I just spent ten days in Hong Kong with my improv theatre friends, and it was magnificent. Somewhere between rehearsals and late-night noodles, three things happened that I hadn't exactly planned for. I became the group's interpreter. I performed improv, in Mandarin. And I convinced at least 20 people that Mandarin is one of the easiest, most logical languages you can learn.That last one is the part I want to talk about, because if you've ever thought about learning Mandarin

A week ago, I shared what the first four months of 2026 looked like for The Mandarin Story. Today I want to share what the next four years look like. For six years, I've built TMS solo. One teacher. One vision. One slow, steady climb from ₹20K to ₹3L a month. It's been the most rewarding work of my life. And it's also where I hit the ceiling of what one person can do. From building solo to building with others There's a phase in any small business where doing everything yours

Thirty cohorts. 300+ students. Five years of teaching Mandarin to Indian professionals. And in all that time, one pattern has shown up again and again, so consistently that I'd now bet on it: the students who come to me after spending months on free apps learn faster than the ones who walk in cold. Not because the apps taught them nothing. Because the apps showed them exactly what they were missing. The students who tried Duolingo first There's a version of this story I've wa

Labour Day feels like exactly the right day to show the labour I've been putting into building The Mandarin Story. Life's been a bit off the grid lately. But I'm showing up here today to share what the first four months of 2026 have actually looked like. Four months, in numbers Here's the snapshot of what I delivered between January and April: 3 Chinese cross-cultural trainings for Schaeffler 3 Chinese Foundation Course batches 2 HSK 1 batches 2 HSK 2 batches 2 HSK 3 batches

Two years of living in China completely broke my spice tolerance. I went from happily eating everything at 中辣 (zhōng là), medium spice, to coming back to India and telling every single restaurant: 我不要辣 (wǒ bù yào là). I don't want it spicy. Every. Single. Time. The irony I have to live with Here's the part that stings. My two favourite flavours in the world are 麻辣 (má là) and 酸辣 (suān là). I love them. I genuinely do. And I order them at 微辣 (wēi là), mild, while pretending I'

30 cohorts. 300+ students. And the journey keeps going. Last week, we finished our 30th cohort of the Chinese Foundation Course. When I started The Mandarin Story, I genuinely had no idea it would ever get here. What I actually set out to build I didn't start with a grand plan. I started with one stubborn belief: Indian professionals deserved a smarter, warmer, more relatable way to learn Mandarin. Not a stiff foreign-language class. Not rote drills and a textbook that assume

Today I wrapped up a Business Chinese training with the team at Titan, and my heart is full. I did not expect to feel this way about a corporate program, but here I am, already missing them. When you’re hired to run a “Business Chinese corporate training,” you walk in with certain assumptions. Professional. Polite. A little transactional. A box on someone’s annual learning plan that you help them tick. And then, if you do it right, something else happens. The room stops being

Yesterday, the HSK results came out, and my students passed their HSK 2 and HSK 3 exams with genuinely lovely scores. 🫶🏻 One of them is just twelve years old. Watching a child that age clear a real Chinese proficiency exam never stops feeling a little magical. But every time I share results like these, I get the same reply from people outside the Chinese-learning world: that’s wonderful, but what on earth is HSK? Fair question. Let me explain it properly. So, what is HSK? H

Tomorrow is my first day teaching offline for a company that signed up for my Survival Business Chinese course. Writing that gives me a flutter of nerves and a much bigger flutter of joy. Because the last time I walked into a company to teach Chinese in person was 2016. Eight years ago. In all my years of teaching, the best experience I’ve had is going into a company and teaching face to face. A real room, a real team, an energy you can’t get through a screen. And then the pa

Here’s a small trick that has changed how I work as a solo founder. When I can’t find the motivation, I stop trying to summon it and just move. I get up, do a workout, and then start my day from a cafe full of other people who are also working. It works almost every time. When you build something alone, there’s no office hum to carry you. No colleague arriving at their desk to make the day feel like it has started. It’s just you, your laptop, and a to-do list that somehow wei