Multilingual Nomad Life ft. Zhifei Zhang: What ABCs Actually Need to Know | Real You Mandarin Podcast EP13

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When Zhifei Zhang from Xiaogua Chinese and I started talking, we immediately realized how much we had in common. We've both lived the digital nomad life, we both speak multiple languages, and we both believe that the best way to learn a language is through real conversations, not textbooks. This episode goes deep into what it actually means to live between cultures and languages, and why that experience matters for American-Born Chinese (ABCs) and American-Born Taiwanese (ABTs), and other advanced Mandarin learners who are trying to expand their Mandarin.

What Happens When Languages Open Doors

Zhifei is a Mandarin teacher and content creator who runs the channel Xiaogua Chinese. She speaks Mandarin, English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Portuguese, and she's currently learning French. When I asked how to say "polyglot" in Chinese, she taught me: 多語者 / 多语者 / duō yǔ zhě. She also shared something that stuck with me. The measure word for languages can be "門 / 门 / mén," which also means "door," because each language you learn opens a door for you. That's the kind of insight that makes this podcast worth recording.

One of the biggest threads in our conversation was about how Zhifei approaches teaching Mandarin. She doesn't use textbooks. She teaches from real life, focusing on the Chinese people actually need in daily situations. She told me that she felt like she had a textbook drawn up in her own brain from years of learning languages herself, and that experience of being a language learner gave her a much better sense of what matters at each stage. That philosophy is really similar to what we do at Real You Mandarin, and hearing it from someone who's learned five-plus languages herself was validating.

Zhifei and I also bonded over the nomad life. I spent three years as a digital nomad across Asia, and she's been doing the same, currently based in Bali. We talked about how she first went to Spain to learn Spanish, ended up staying because of a relationship, and how that eventually expanded into building a life that spans multiple countries and languages.

What makes this episode especially relevant for ABCs is the way Zhifei talked about her ABC students. She admires the struggles we have with Mandarin, having grown up speaking Chinese at home, stopped actively learning it as teenagers, and now carrying around a kind of frozen vocabulary. Many of her ABC students went to Chinese school once a week for years, but it was as kids, and the language never grew up with them. That gap between childhood fluency and adult needs is exactly what both Xiaogua Chinese and Real You Mandarin are trying to close, just from different angles.

I also loved the moment where Zhifei said she feels a real sense of accomplishment, 成就感 / chéng jiù gǎn, from being able to fill in my Chinese gaps for me in this conversational way, helping me out while just chatting. That's the whole idea behind this podcast: you learn vocabulary in context, embedded in a real conversation, not from some textbook.

Key Vocab From This Episode

多語者 / 多语者 | duō yǔ zhě (polyglot / multilingual person)

數位遊牧 / 数位游牧 | shù wèi yóu mù (digital nomad (Taiwan usage))

電子遊民 / 电子游民 | diàn zǐ yóu mín (digital nomad (China usage))

定居 | dìng jū (to settle down / to take up residence)

共同點 / 共同点 | gòng tóng diǎn (common ground / things in common)

成就感 | chéng jiù gǎn (sense of accomplishment)

幸虧 / 幸亏 | xìng kuī (thanks to / luckily)

療癒 / 疗愈 | liáo yù (healing / therapeutic)

These are all words from the actual episode, not textbook vocabulary, but the kind of words that come up when you're talking about real life in Mandarin.

Shoutout to Zhifei Zhang, follow her at @xiaoguachinese for approachable, real-life Mandarin content.

Ready to Go Deeper?

If this episode resonated with you and you want to go deeper, this is exactly the kind of content we cover in our course Real You Mandarin: Self-Expression. It's 5 modules, 43 video lessons, and 1300+ flashcards covering everything from expressing your emotions and navigating interpersonal relationships to parenting, aging parents, and self-growth. Basically, all the conversations that actually matter in your life.

Not sure if it's for you yet? Try a free lesson first. No commitment, just a taste of what learning Mandarin can feel like when the content is actually relevant to your life.

Get the Full Transcript

Want the full transcript of this episode in Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Pinyin, and English with key vocab highlighted? Check out our Podcast Transcript Membership. Or download the free EP1 transcript to see what it's like.

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