Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles tagged with ‘HSK’

  1. Should you throw away your Chinese textbook?

    Many students rely on textbooks to learn Chinese, but is this a good idea? Some people say that to unleash your full potential, you should throw your textbook away.

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  2. Insights from the new HSK 7-9: Interview with Sara Jaaksola

    Are you curious about the new HSK? Do you want to know what it’s really like to take and pass the advanced level? And how should you prepare to ace your own exams?

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  3. Seeing through the illusion of advanced Chinese learning

    Courses and textbooks encourage narrow but advanced proficiency in Chinese, but if you want to be able to communicate well, you need to see through the illusion.

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  4. Vocabulary lists that help you learn Chinese and how to use them

    Learning new characters and words from a list is rarely a good idea, but there are exceptions! Let’s have a look at five types of vocabulary lists how to use them to learn Chinese.

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  5. Can ChatGPT pass the HSK?

    Robot reading. Created with Stable Diffusion and some GIMP editing for the book cover.

    ChatGPT has been all over the news for its remarkable ability to interact in a human-like manner, understand questions and respond in a meaningful way. It has even been used to pass university exams. But how good is it at Chinese? Can it pass the HSK?

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  6. Using the HSK as a roadmap to learning Chinese

    For some students, the HSK is not just a proficiency test, but also a roadmap to learning Chinese. Is treating it as such a good idea? And if you do, what should you keep in mind?

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  7. The new HSK 3.0: What you need to know

    On July 1st, 2021, a new Chinese proficiency standard takes effect. This will have big consequences for the HSK, the most widely used proficiency test for non-native speakers. What are these changes and what do they mean for you as a student?

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  8. What important words are missing from HSK?

    HSK is not only a popular test, it’s also used by many students as a guide for which words to learn. But the HSK lists don’t contain all common words, so it raises the question which words are missing or delayed in the HSK word lists. This article gives one answer to this question, showing that certain categories of words are missing entirely, such as profanity, place names and names for things foreign in China. As a student, you probably want to learn these, so browsing through the list of missing words could be helpful!

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  9. How to figure out how good your Chinese is

    Figuring out how good your Chinese is can help you focus on the right areas and evaluate your learning methods. But language assessment is hard! This article describes how and why you should assess how good your Chinese is, and gives you tools and resources to do so.

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  10. How important is reading speed on tests like HSK and TOCFL?

    Reading speed is an issue on proficiency tests like HSK and TOCFL. But how much of a problem is it? How fast do you need to read? This article discusses the role of reading speed on proficiency exams.

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