The Story of Chinese Buddy
January 2, 2026
Chinese Buddy began in NZ while struggling in a classroom…
I’ve been an ESOL teacher for over 20 years, and in 2013, while living in New Zealand, I began teaching Mandarin in public primary schools in Auckland. Like many language teachers, I quickly realised that engagement was important — especially when working with school aged learners. Vocabulary lists alone weren’t enough. I wanted Mandarin learning to feel fun, memorable, and alive for students.
With a background in classical music composition, I started doing what felt natural to me: making up songs to help students remember Mandarin words and phrases. The response from children was immediate. They sang along. They remembered. Mandarin stopped feeling intimidating and boring, and students started feeling interested in learning.
Those early classroom songs eventually grew into what became the Chinese Buddy YouTube channel, where I went on to write and produce over 100 original Mandarin songs for kids and beginner learners. At the time, I had no experience with animation, very limited sound production knowledge (being from the classical music side), and no background in video creation/editing. Everything — animation, editing, recording, and publishing — had to be self-taught. For nearly two years, I wrote a new song almost every week, often staying up all night on Friday’s to finish animations for Saturday releases.
As the channel grew, I found a clear niche in second-language Chinese learning, particularly for teachers and students outside of China. While the YouTube channel gained millions of views, it didn’t provide a sustainable income, unfortunately. Music and video production takes an insane amount of time — around 50-60 hours per song. That led to a difficult but necessary decision: placing much of the content behind a paywall so that Chinese Buddy could continue long-term as a quality educational resource for Mandarin teachers.
Over time, my interests expanded beyond music and education into technology, data science, and web development. That journey eventually led to the creation of Character Coach, a web application that allows teachers to bring their own Chinese content to life through interactive online quizzes, games, and character-based learning experiences — all while integrating original Chinese Buddy songs.
Today, I live in Taiwan and continue building tools that make learning Mandarin more engaging, effective, and enjoyable. Chinese Buddy started with a song in a classroom, and it’s still driven by the same goal: helping teachers and students connect with the Chinese language in creative, meaningful ways.
If you’re interested sure would love you to try my new Character Coach app. You can also access to my Chinese Buddy animated song videos here.
If you’d like to give me a shout, I’m always here, too!
聽得懂？
Chinese Buddy的故事
Chinese Buddy 诞生于新西兰的一间课堂里……
我从事 ESOL（英语为其他语言）教学 已经超过 20 年。2013 年，我住在新西兰，并开始在奥克兰的公立小学教授 普通话。和许多语言老师一样，我很快意识到一件事：在课堂上，学生的参与度至关重要，尤其是面对学龄儿童时。单纯的词汇表远远不够，我希望 普通话学习 对学生来说是有趣的、难忘的、有生命力的。
由于我本身有 古典音乐作曲 的背景，我自然而然地开始做一件对我来说很熟悉的事情——编歌曲。我用歌曲来帮助学生记住普通话词汇和句型。孩子们的反应立刻就出现了：他们跟着唱，他们记住了内容，普通话不再显得可怕或枯燥，学生开始对 学中文 产生真正的兴趣。
这些最初在课堂上使用的歌曲，后来逐渐发展成了 Chinese Buddy YouTube 频道。我在频道中创作并制作了 100 多首原创的儿童普通话学习歌曲，主要面向儿童和初学者。当时，我几乎没有动画经验，音频制作知识也非常有限（毕竟我来自古典音乐领域），更没有任何视频制作或剪辑背景。动画、录音、剪辑、发布，全部都是自学完成的。
将近两年的时间里，我几乎每周都会创作一首新歌，经常在周五通宵制作动画，只为了能在周六准时发布。
随着频道的发展，我逐渐找到了一个非常清晰的定位：面向非母语者的第二语言中文学习，尤其是中国以外地区的老师和学生。虽然 YouTube 频道获得了数百万的观看次数，但现实是，它并不能带来可持续的收入。音乐和视频制作极其耗时——每一首歌曲大约需要 50–60 个小时。因此，我做出了一个困难但必要的决定：将部分内容放入付费体系中，好让 Chinese Buddy 能够作为一个长期、高质量的 普通话教学资源 持续发展下去。
随着时间推移，我的兴趣也从音乐和教育扩展到了 科技、数据科学和网页开发。这一学习旅程，最终促成了 Character Coach 的诞生——一个面向老师的网络应用，让教师可以通过 互动测验、在线游戏和汉字学习体验，将自己的中文教学内容真正“活”起来，同时还能整合 Chinese Buddy 的原创歌曲。
如今，我生活在台湾，持续打造能让 普通话学习更有趣、更有效、更愉快 的教学工具。Chinese Buddy 起源于一首课堂里的歌曲，而它始终坚持同一个目标：用有创意、有意义的方式，帮助老师和学生与中文建立更深的连接。
如果你有兴趣，非常欢迎你试用我最新的 Character Coach 应用。你也可以在这里访问 Chinese Buddy 的动画歌曲视频。
如果你想联系我，欢迎随时在这里找到我。