Intermediate

Situation: You can understand and produce language about personal or familiar topics and you can communicate with natives about most topics on a basic level, albeit haltingly. You can handle language which is directed to you and adjusted to your level. This is roughly equal to CEFR B1.

Goal: Be able to understand general, non-specialist content produced by native speakers for native speakers. Be able to communicate with native speakers about similar topics, albeit not necessarily completely correctly.

Here are some typical questions belonging to the intermediate level:

• I feel that I can communicate in Chinese, how do I keep improving?
• How do I deepen my knowledge and broaden my vocabulary?
• How do I take the step from intermediate to advanced?

It’s relatively easy to write suggestions for beginners, simply because their situations tend to be similar. Reaching the intermediates level, however, students have already trod wildly different paths and general recommendations become very hard to produce. Thus, if you feel that you’re having problems with a specific area, I suggest checking the pages about listening, speaking, reading and writing.

You can also browse articles relevant for intermediate learners (scroll down to see all of them in a text-only list):

All articles
Chinese is fascinating and exciting, not weird and stupid
Learning Chinese is easy
The importance of knowing many words
Mental models and making mistakes
Learning Chinese through social media
The art of being corrected
Creating a powerful toolkit: Character components
The virtues of language exchanges
Spaced repetition software and why you should use it
Creating a powerful toolkit: Characters and words
Learning Chinese words really fast
Listening ability, a matter of practice?
Pros and cons with travelling to learn a language
Take responsibility for your own learning now
Anki, the best of spaced repetition software
A smart method to discover problems with tones
Using search engines to study Chinese
Why you should use more than one textbook
Diversified learning is smart learning
Goals and motivation, part 1 – Introduction
Goals and motivation, part 2 – Long-term goals
Goals and motivation, part 3 – Short-term goals
Goals and motivation, part 4 – Micro goals
You won’t learn Chinese simply by living abroad
Spaced repetition isn’t rote learning
Review: Chinese Synonyms Usage Dictionary
Make sure listening isn’t a practical problem
Escaping the convenience trap
Memorising dictionaries to boost reading ability
Time quality: Studying the right thing at the right time
Dealing with tricky vocabulary: Killing leeches
Listening to the listener
Vocabulary in your pocket
Memory aids and mnemonics to enhance learning
Four different kinds of mistakes: Problem analysis
Growing up in Chinese
How to find more time to practise listening
Learning the third tone
Don’t be a tourist
Achieving the impossible by being inspired
Holistic language learning: Integrating knowledge
The kamikaze approach to learning Chinese
Benchmarking progress to stay motivated
Enjoying the journey while focusing on the destination
The Chinese-Chinese dictionary survival guide
Timeboxing Chinese
About opening doors and the paths beyond
Triggering quantum leaps in listening ability
Reading manga for more than just pleasure
Playing word games to practise fluency
Tones are more important than you think
Mapping the terra incognita of vocabulary
Reading speed: Learning how to read ten lines at a glance
If you want to master Chinese, make long-term investments
Can you become fluent in Chinese in three months?
Learn by exaggerating: Slow, then fast; big, then small
Learning efficiently vs. learning quickly
Learning simplified and traditional Chinese
Advancing in spite of praise
When perfectionism becomes an obstacle to progress
Understanding regionally accented Mandarin
Use the benefits of teaching to boost your own learning
The 10,000 hour rule – Blood, sweat and tears
The importance of counting what counts
Defining Language Hacking: Lessons Learned From Hacking Chinese
Answer buttons and how to use SRS
Language question triage – General guidelines
Don’t try to improve everything at once, limit your focus
Listening strategies: An introduction
Listening strategies: Problem analysis
Listening strategies: Background listening
Practising sports to learn Chinese and make friends
Listening strategies: Passive listening
Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2: Playing computer games in Chinese
Using Lang-8 to improve your Chinese
Listening strategies: Active listening
Language is communication, not only an abstract subject to study
Listening strategies: Improving listening speed
Improving writing ability: Common problems and how to tackle them
Listening strategies: Deliberate practice and i+2
Chinese Language Learner Interview Series – Olle Linge
Recording yourself to improve speaking ability
Approaches to reading in Chinese
A language learner’s guide to reading comics in Chinese
31 Twitter feeds to help you learn Chinese
Listening strategies: Diversify your listening practice
Why learning Chinese through music is underrated
Study according to your current productivity level
The time barrel: Or why you have more time than you think
Extending mnemonics: Tones and pronunciation
Learning Chinese with StarCraft 2
12 songs to learn Chinese and expand your horizons
The importance of tones is inversely proportional to the predictability of what you say
Don’t just read about learning methods, actually try them as well
A guide to Pinyin traps and pitfalls
Vocalise more to learn more Chinese
Learning styles: Use with caution!
Chat your way to better Chinese
Learning Chinese in the shower with me
Is it necessary to learn to write Chinese characters by hand?
13 more songs to learn Chinese and expand your horizons
RTI, my favourite radio station
Have fun learning Chinese or else…
Measurable progress is a double-edged sword
Why you really should use a Chinese notebook
You can’t learn Chinese characters by rote
Chinese character challenge: Towards a more sensible way of learning to write Chinese
Remembering is a skill you can learn
Sensible character learning: Progress, reminders and reflections
How to create mnemonics for general or abstract character components
Don’t use mnemonics for everything
Translating to improve your Chinese
The Cthulhu bubble and studying Chinese
Horizontal vocabulary learning
21 essential dictionaries and corpora for learning Chinese
14 extra songs to learn Chinese and expand your horizons
You shouldn’t walk the road to Chinese fluency alone
Is your flashcard deck too big for your own good?
The question you have to ask about your Chinese teacher or course
Learning the right chengyu the right way
Immersion at home or: Why you don’t have to go abroad to learn Chinese
You might be too lazy to learn Chinese, but you’re not too old
Adding tone marks (w/o Pinyin) above characters to practise tones
Using Audacity to learn Chinese (speaking and listening)