Welcome to Stage 1 of the Advanced Learners Study Path. The first thing you will notice when you start this study path is a lot of information will be presented to you in English only. And, you’ll be tested on some pronunciation drills that we know will not be easy for you. We are doing this to set you a challenge: By the end of this stage you should understand all of the spoken English material that you hear in the first three lessons, and you should be well on the way to mastering almost native pronunciation of the English language.

Throughout this stage (and this entire study path) you will notice that some of the pronunciation videos are repeated more often than others. This is deliberate. We have identified the English sounds that Chinese learners find most difficult to master, and they are repeated more frequently than the other sounds. The way to improve your pronunciation very quickly is to practice each of the important sounds for a few minutes every day.