I just wrapped up a >60 day streak of learning Mandarin everyday, using the LingQ method (i.e. reading and listening to authentic content, in my case a TV series.)
Here’s the most important data point: reading speed.
It went from <10 words per minute to ~40, which is a 4x increase.
The reason I looked up this data is because today, after finishing my reading for the day, I realized that I’ve already read 40% of the third episode’s transcript, even though I started it about a week ago.
Only last month, it was painfully slow for me to get through the first episode.
I believe that Japanese listening comprehension is much more forgiving to beginners.
Although reading speed has gone up, I still feel like I’m still close to a complete beginner in Chinese.
I believe my reading speed will reach its peak in another month or two, but after that, it will still take me another 1.5 years until I’m able to converse in Chinese as easily as I do in Japanese.
