Exposure does help! But it's limited LOL. Something I find funny is that to me, Cantonese sounds a lot more aggressive than Mandarin, so when I listen to a conversation in Canto I always wonder if they're fighting. But talking with people who speak Canto, they feel the same for Mandarin XD
And then talking to English speakers, they feel like all Chinese sound aggressive
~Jessi: it's so hard to find a good instructor QAQ
My old one was okay in teaching me the basics, but he was really... nitpicky and controlling? So he wouldn't let me figure things out myself and just kept lecturing me the whole time, which did bad things to my nerves
(Also he keep using math to explain things, and I suck at math)
My current instructor is much better in comparison, he sits back and lets me try things out (only stepping in if it's unsafe), and tries to explain things in different ways until I get it QuQ