Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles published in March 2014

  1. Improving Foreign Language Pronunciation: Interview with Hacking Chinese on Language is Culture

    This is a 70-minute interview with me done by David Mansaray of Language is Culture. In the interview, we talk mainly about learning how to pronounce a foreign language as an adult. I share some of my own knowledge, thoughts and opinions and there’s probably something for everyone in this interview. Listen to it directly or download it to your phone for later listening!

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  2. Sensible Chinese character learning challenge 2014

    The 2014 sensible Chinese character learning challenge starts soon! This article introduces the challenge and how you join us. Apart from learning a lot of characters and improving the way you learn characters, you also get a discount and free extensions on Skritter, as well as a chance of winning character posters from Hanzi WallChart!

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  3. Sensible Chinese character learning revisited

    In a way, learning Chinese characters is very much like learning vocabulary in any foreign language and much of the efficient methods developed there works well for Chinese as well. However, characters are also fundamentally different from words in English and this influences how we should learn them as well. This article is a recap of how to learn Chinese characters in a sensible way. It is also a prologue for the upcoming character learning challenge.

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  4. Hacking Chinese meet-up in Taipei 2014-03-22

    It’s been way too long since the previous meet-up and it’s time to get together again to talk about Chinese, life, the universe and whatever else you want to talk about. About a dozen people usually turn up and this is an excellent occasion to get to know some other serious learners and talk about Chinese for a few hours. The main language is English (i.e. you don’t have to be good at Chinese to join), but Chinese is of course also great.

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  5. Asking the experts: How to learn Chinese grammar

    How should we learn Chinese grammar? This article collects the best answers from more than 15 experts and experienced learners.

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  6. Flashcard overflow: About card models and review directions

    The question of how to design flashcards is faced by all learners who use them. What should you put on the front? What should you put on the back? Should you add single characters or whole words? Or perhaps sentences are better? The general answer is that it depends and this article discusses some of the factors the answers depend on.

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