Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles published in October 2013

  1. How to improve your Chinese writing ability through focused reading

    Everybody knows that if we want to improve our writing ability, we need to read more. But what should we read and how? With enough exposure, we can probably learn anything, but it’s much more efficient if we read with focus. If that focus coincides with the current weaknesses in our writing ability, supplemented with some targeted practice, we can improve our writing more quickly!

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  2. Drills and exercises aren’t only for beginners

    It’s commonplace to see workbooks used a lot in beginner courses, but the more advanced the students become, the less they are used. This is mostly for the better, but in this article, I argue that advanced students actually need more drilling than they (we) think. Being able to say or write what we want in one way isn’t enough, we need diversity and a bigger active vocabulary. Drilling is the only time-efficient way of achieving that.

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  3. Preparing for rainy days and dealing with slumps

    Preparing for rainy days and dealing with slumps

    We all experience slumps in our learning, but there are many things we can do to reduce the negative effects of these slumps. The solution is three-fold: Preparing for the slump before it hits you, finding learning activities that don’t feel like work and paying attention to what you feel capable of at the moment. You will still experience slumps, but hopefully they will be less severe!

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  4. Your slumps affect your language learning more than your flows

    There are people who go on binges and study like maniacs for short periods of time, but then run out of steam and have slump lasting considerably longer. The problem with this kind of studying is that it really affects your average output. The best is to have a steady, regular performance that gives you the mileage you need without burning yourself out completely. This article examines this problem in greater detail and gives some suggestions for how to improve your slumps.

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  5. About fossilisation and improving your Chinese pronunciation

    It’s a fact that most foreign adults don’t acquire native like pronunciation in Chinese, but what’s the reason? In most debates at this point, someone will throw in the word “fossilisation”, as if that actually explained anything. This article is about why the concept of fossilisation is bunk and how we should think about adult pronunciation instead.

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