Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles published in July 2011

  1. Chinese vocabulary in your pocket

    Having vocabulary with you so that you can study anywhere isn’t merely a handy trick, it’s essential. You don’t want to waste high quality time at home in front of your computer doing something you might as well do in the super market queue or while waiting for the bus. Study the right things at the right time!

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  2. Improve your conversations by listening to the listener

    Listen o thelistener

    Listening to a dialogue, have you ever tried listening to the person who isn’t speaking? Try listening to the listener, it will teach you many small words and sounds that help you communicate.

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  3. Dealing with tricky vocabulary: Killing leeches

    Leeches are words or characters that you keep forgetting and therefore consume much more time than other words or characters. Rather than trying to hammer these words into your brain, a specific strategy is needed to kill the leeches. This article deals with just that, how to handle difficult vocabulary you keep on forgetting.

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  4. Memorising dictionaries to boost Chinese reading ability

    Memorising a dictionary is of course not an optimal way of learning vocabulary, but I do think it’s good to use frequency lists (such as dictionaries listing the most common characters) to plug holes in your foundation and make it stronger.

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