Learning Mandarin So Far...

So I've been learning Mandarin since September 2014 and it's been going alright.

I've picked up more than I thought and it has helped me understand my language better.

I have been speaking Hakka ever since I was a baby. I'm not brilliant at it but I'm conversant. When you grow up speaking it, you don't really question it - mainly because all I ever did was speak it, I never learned to write in Chinese.

Since I've been learning Mandarin, a lot of words makes sense now. It now clicks because some of the words in Hakka and Mandarin are similar. 

I've also noticed that because some of the words are similar, I get confused more. I say it wrong by accident or I can't distinguish between the dialects.

Some say probably easier because I already speak a Chinese dialect but it really isn't. 

I'm enjoying it though. Once this course is finished, I need to start taking an intermediate class somewhere else because I'm in my final year.