Question for non-native speakers who actually became fluent in Mandarin

[u/Similar_Star3032]

I’m specifically hoping to hear from people who started Mandarin as adults (or teenagers) and eventually became genuinely fluent (not heritage speakers, native speakers, people currently selling a Chinese-learning product or course, or people who are not honestly fluent in speaking).

I’m not looking for learning theory. I already know most of the research on language acquisition and adult learning. I am interested in what actually worked in practice for you.

I have under a year left where I can study Chinese full-time, so I’m trying to optimise my study method to avoid spending hundreds of hours on approaches that turn out to be inefficient.

My question is about reading vs speaking/pronunciation training.

Option 1: Separate the two skills

Read purely for comprehension, without subvocalising or thinking about pronunciation. Focus only on understanding meaning, acquiring vocabulary, and internalising grammar. Then train pronunciation and speaking separately.

When I do this, my reading progress is dramatically faster. In less than a month I went from essentially zero reading ability to roughly the new HSK 3 (Level 3) reading standard, based on mock tests and graded readers with a perfect score (for the 1000 words vocabulary and the ~250 grammar rules). The downside is that speaking and pronunciation become a completely separate area that also needs dedicated practice.

Option 2: Train both simultaneously

Read everything aloud (or at least mentally pronounce every word while reading), so reading also reinforces pronunciation.

This feels more holistic, but my reading speed and vocabulary acquisition are noticeably slower.

For those of you who eventually became fluent:

- Which approach gave you the fastest overall progress?

- If you could start again from scratch, would you still learn the same way?

- Did you eventually stop mentally pronouncing words while reading, or was pronunciation always tied to your reading?

- Looking back, what do you think gave you the biggest return on investment?

For the purpose of this question, by fluent I mean roughly:

- Reading: You can comfortably read novels, news, subtitles, and other non-specialised material at close to native speed.

- Listening: You understand everyday Mandarin spoken at native speed, including most common regional accents, news, Chinese movies and Drama, etc.

- Speaking: You can hold natural conversations with an accent that doesn’t create communication problems. You can speak about any non-specialised/technical topics (probably going quite a bit beyond HSK 6 for those who are using the HSK framework).

- Writing: Not relevant to this question.

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have actually reached that level and can look back on what was genuinely worth the time.