u/7basketballs

ABC here. I’ve been trying to improve my Cantonese since the start of 2026. I’ve been taking almost weekly lessons with a teacher on iTalki, mostly focused on speaking. I’ve definitely noticed slow but steady improvement, and I’ve been practicing more with my parents and family too.

Now I want to start learning how to read, but honestly I feel completely lost on where to even begin. Right now I only recognize a few basic characters, mostly numbers.

For those of you who learned to read/write Chinese, did it mostly come down to memorizing what each character means and sounds like? Coming from English, it feels like a completely different way of learning because English has an alphabet, so I can sound out unfamiliar words and figure things out that way.

Are there any tips, tricks, or learning methods that helped you when starting out? Right now it feels overwhelming trying to memorize random characters and piece everything together.

Genuine question. I am not a parent, but would like to have children in the future with my partner. We've discussed what our plans are with schooling if this were to happen, and we both agreed that public school would be the option we go for.

We've both noticed especially with millennials almost like this non-negotiable with sending kids to private school and it costing tens of thousands. As someone who grew up in the public school system, maybe I'm a bit lost if it's really that great of an ROI?

I do believe that environmental factors matter in education, but also that education doesn't end at school and that as parents, it's your responsibility that you are part of your child succeeding in school, and maybe providing resources such as after school programs, or tutoring might be a great use of money instead of assuming that private school is just some magic place that guarantees success. (Only saying this since I've known a good amount of private school kids who really just to live pretty regular lives like everyone else)

I was not the brightest kid, but I did well enough and work a good career now. Even me and my friends who are all public school kids, went to college, and earn decent money now.

I'd love to hear different opinions out there.