Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Recent articles about how to learn Mandarin Page 30

  1. One year of language challenges on Hacking Chinese

    Hacking Chinese Challenges has now been online for more than a year and it’s time to take a step back to evaluate the service. Have you tried it out yet? What did you think? This article contains a short survey as well as some of my own reflections about the past and future of language challenges.

    Read →

  2. Learning to pronounce Mandarin with Pinyin, Zhuyin and IPA: Part 3

    As adults, understanding is important when learning pronunciation. One way to achieve this is through the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which will allow you to see the sounds your ears might fail to hear. Learning IPA also means learning basic phonetics, and that will do you good in the long run!

    Read →

  3. The real challenge with learning Chinese characters

    The real challenge when learning Chinese characters is not to commit a large number of them to memory, it’s to relate them to each other, including how they are used, how they are different and how they are similar. Creating such an interconnected web is a lifelong project.

    Read →

  4. Improving pronunciation beyond the basics

    Learning pronunciation beyond the basics is about knowing where you want to be and where you are now. Then you identify which problems keep you from reaching your goal, and solve them one by one in order of importance. This starts with high-quality practice where you learn to pronounce something correctly, then moves to high-quantity practice where you gradually decrease the effort needed to get it right. After a while, no effort will be required and you will have successfully improved your pronunciation!

    Read →

  5. Which words you should learn and where to find them

    When learning a language, it’s important to know many words, but it’s also important that you learn the right words. How do you know which words to learn? Where should you find those words? And how much can you express using the ten hundred most common words?

    Read →

  6. Can native speakers be wrong about Chinese grammar and pronunciation?

    What does it mean when something is said to be “correct” in Chinese? Who’s right if all the people around you say something, but the dictionary says something else? Mandarin is a huge language spoken my a very large number of people, so some variation is to be expected. This article is about the flexibility of Mandarin and how to deal with it as a student.

    Read →

  7. Learning Chinese characters through pictures

    This article is about using pictures to learn Chinese characters. In order to learn characters efficiently, it’s important to understand how they work and what the building blocks are so that these can be used in other characters. Any pictures you use to remember should be based on this. Avoid using pictures that obscure the real meaning.

    Read →

  8. Panning: How to keep similar Chinese characters and words separate

    The real challenge when learning Chinese characters and words isn’t to remember them, it’s to keep them separate from each other. This article concludes my series about zooming and panning to integrate your knowledge better.

    Read →

  9. Zooming out: The resources you need to put Chinese in context

    In order to learn efficiently, it’s important that you integrate your knowledge. This means being able to break down Chinese in order to understand it, as well as looking at context and sorting out confusing cases. In this second article, I introduce tools for zooming out and putting things in context.

    Read →

  10. Chinese character challenge, September 10th to 30th

    Let’s learn characters together! If you need to expand your knowledge of characters, fight you ever-increasing review queue or just learn more of them, this challenge is for you. Enrol, set a goal and learn as much as you can before the end of the month! Active participants can win prizes from Skritter.

    Read →