Do you want to learn Chinese but you donโt know how to start? Thatโs the post for you!ย
Many times I got messages from people who want to learn Chinese Mandarin, but they do not know how to start, what to buy, which website is good or which APP they should download. So Iโve decided to prepare a post where I try to explain as much as I can! Basics about Chinese language, textbooks, usefulย APPs and websites.ย
Pinyin ๆผ้ณย (pฤซn yฤซn) Chinese romanization system
The most important thing is to get familiar with sounds and romanization system of Chinese characters.
I recommend you to watch these two videos below:
initialsย
finals.
Get familiar withย tonesย too! In Chinese there are 4 tones:ย
first toneย ( ห ) called flatย or high-levelย toneย ๅฆย mฤ
second tone ( ห ) called rising or high-rising tone ้บปย mรก
third tone ( ห ) called falling-rising or low tone ้ฉฌย mว
fourth tone ( ห ) called falling or high-falling tone ้ชย mร ย
plus neutral tone!ย ๅ ma
If you want to practice your tones and listen to it, I can recommend you this website: Introduction to Tones. ๐ฃย say initials and finals at loud, ๐ฃย say at loud every word you learn - multiple times!ย ๐ฃย try to record yourself and listen to your audio, ๐ฃย if you have Chinese friends - send them your audio or try to speak with them, and ask for corrections!ย ๐ฃย if you donโt have Chinese friends - you can always send audio to apps like HiNative, HelloTalk or Tandem and see how natives are reacting on your Chinese! ๐ฃย if you want - you can get Chinese classes - for beginners, itโs a smart move, in my humble opinion (or get a teacher on iTalki).
Characters ๆฑๅญ (Hร n zรฌ)
Chinese is a special language because it has characters - not letters. Each character has its own reading and meaning!ย
For better understanding them, I would like to recommend you to think about them as small pictures!ย There are two types of writing Chinese characters:
traditionalย ย ๅชฝ ้บป ้ฆฌ ็ฝต ๅ
simplifiedย ๅฆย ้บปย ้ฉฌย ้ชย ๅ
The traditional one is used in Taiwan and Hongkong and simplified one is used in Mainland China. You can see that the traditional one are more complicated and have more lines!ย In the beginning, Iโd recommend you to learn 100 most common Chinese Characters. Try to write characters as many as you can - at the very beginning, itโs very important to get used to a new way of writing!ย
When you are already more advanced and you easily remembered 100 characters, you can read about Radicalsย - they will help you to understand more advanced characters and how they are constructed.ย
๐ย You can definitely check the book by James Heisigย โRemembering the Hanziโ. He had a cool idea of how in an easy way people from outside China (or Japan/Korea) can understand and learn characters!
๐ย write, write, write hanzi every day! ๐ย try to post pictures of your characters on IG/tumblr or send it to someone who knows how to write them, so they can check it for you and tell you how to improve! ๐ย at the beginning every character looks crappy - itโs normal!ย
HSK examย
You are at the beginning of the journey with Chinese, so I will not talk a lot about the Chinese Proficiency Test (ๆฑ่ฏญๆฐดๅนณ่่ฏ). The basic thing you should know, there are 6 levels (at the moment there are 6, but they are planning to add 3 more levels for more advanced learners). Each level has a list of characters, words and grammar points you have to know.ย Donโt bother yourself with HSK exams if you donโt need at the very beginning. I havenโt touch HSK 1, 2 and 3 - I was just studying with my textbooks and I ended up at HSK 5 somehow! :D
Textbooks
At the very beginning, I can recommend you to invest in a textbook. I know a lot of people want to learn forย โfreeโ and not to spend a single $โฆ You can always check if your local/academical library has any textbooks! I am a textbook-person, I need at the beginning of any language some books to make myselfย โintoโ the language, to feel it and understand basics.ย Two series of textbooks to Chinese I know and tried are:ย
New Practical Chinese Reader
Boya Chinese.
Personally, I am a fan of New Practical Chinese Reader. I used NPChR tom 1, 2, 3 and now Iโm working with 4th tom!ย ย If you already know that you want/need to prepare to HSK exam, then I highly recommend series:
HSK Standard Course!ย
HSK Vocabulary Book (mini-series).ย
APPs
Below Iโve mentioned few of apps that I recommend and they are perfect for the start!ย
๐ฑ Memriseย - this app was with me at the very beginning and I still use it! The perfect tool to remember new vocabulary/sentences! There are plenty of official courses created by Memrise app, but also courses made by other users. Official courses have short videos with native speakers, which is a really nice bonus because you can hear REAL people :]ย
๐ฑ SuperChinese - a very solidย app which is going to introduce you to the Chinese language world! They have real-life conversations, teach how to write characters, a function of speech recognition (so you can practice your pronunciation and tones) and many many more functions. Download it and you will not regret it!ย ๐ฑย Pleco - Chinese-English, English-Chinese dictionary and life-saver. I donโt know any Chinese learner who doesnโt use this dictionary, seriously!ย ย
๐ฑ HelloTalk, HiNative, Tandem - all these three apps are good to meet natives! You can find folks from China and talk with them! Personally, I used them a lot at the very beginning. I wanted to see how natives are texting and make some new friends!ย
๐ฑ APPs (beside Memrise) that help you to learn vocabulary: Anki, Quizlet.ย
Websites
Excellent websites for beginners are:
Little Fox Chinese
BBC Learn Chinese
Chairman Bao
Yellow Bridge
Chinese Tools
Courses on edX
Courses on Courseraย
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