Thanks to hard work on Chinese study,careful ears and meticulous self-criticism,now learners can arrive at the third stage. In this period, not only has the pronunciation of pinyin's consonantsbeen acquired, but tones have been brought under control as well. This is not to say that the speaker get all right and does not screw up a consonant or get a tone wrong ocasionally.But learners are doing well on his or her way of Chinese study now.One danger that may appear at this stage is the false look of yourself.By the time the learner gets to this stage, his or her comprehension should be very decent as well,but as few foreigners come to this stage, the learner will probably get a wrong picture of his mastery of Mandarin.As basic communication is no longer a problem,even though the learner is not completely pleased with him or herself, it is also likely to become complacent in this stage.At this level, what is not understood can usually be worked around or explained in Chinese.This stage will last for a very long time,along with pronunciation and tonal errors are slowly disappearing, fluency is increased, and vocabulary is expanded.To make it quickly to the nextstage, a lot of hard work and self-criticism is a must,intense exposure to Chinese as long as prolonged.Everyday exposure is just not enough.
At this stage, the learners are no longer surprised by their improved communication abilities because they got there through hard work.Most learners who get to this level can read and write too,as the level of dedication involved.Learning more grammar patterns and expanding vocabulary is most efficiently accomplished through extensive reading in Chinese.You know for sure you're in this stage when the only new vocabulary or grammar patterns come to you through reading.Now learners should have made many Chinese friends and because of the outstanding communication abilities, they may treat you like you're a Chinese.People who used to say that you didn’t understand one thing simply because you’re not a Chinese may reconsider theirviews.Now learners could possibly understand everything said to them and make a response without too much thinking.The nextimportant thing to do is to learn vocabulary of questionable usefulness,express more abstract concepts, and develop a good sense for Chinese literature.Overall sentence intonation will still require a little work to be sounded perfectly natural.
Native Stage
Now learner's Chinese are probably better than many Chinese people.