Everyone just shows up in the same feed. USians are making posts in English alongside all the posts in Chinese. I've seen Chinese users making jokes like "Give me your data!" or "Welcome, I'm your new Chinese spy". I saw one comment on a post that read, "They better start posting in English soon." which, was getting heavily flamed. Lots of Luigi posting, it would seem. I also keep getting Chinese accounts posting a lot of really cool Socialist Realism art/propaganda posters, old and new. Lots of cringe USians making posts about being "refugees" on the app.
Thank you so much, I didn't expect to get such an extensive response!
I did start learning tones with Duolingo but found it pretty hard so far, and my mental health has been going down way too much to find the motivation to commit to it. Hopefully it's gonna improve enough to start learning again.
I'm excited to read the material you're thinking of adapting!
Yeah, I'd learn pinyin first then tones, because tones kind of sit 'on top' of the base sounds of the language. It's possible to speak toneless Mandarin and still be basically understood by context. But you can't really speak with just pitch. I'll @you if I ever get my act together and make the post! There's quite a few Mandarin speakers and learners on HB so hopefully we can pool our brains together to help new learners get over the rough early game (??? is that a saying or am I just making shit up???)