Hacking Chinese

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  1. Outlier Chinese Character Masterclass review: Understand more, learn faster, remember longer

    Mastering Chinese characters, whether you find them enchantingly beautiful or overwhelmingly complex, is essential for literacy in Chinese. Outlier Linguistics will help you understand how the Chinese writing system works, making it easier to learn!

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  2. Review: The Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters

    Outlier Linguistics Dictionary of Chinese characters is an excellent tool to help you understand and thereby learn Chinese characters more effectively. This is an in-depth review, covering the two versions of the dictionary, essential and expert, as well as other related products provided by outlier. There is also a 25% discount code for those who want to try the dictionary!

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  3. Skritter review: Boosting your Chinese character learning

    Skritter is a modern tool for learning ancient characters. It combines research-based methods such as active recall and spaced repetition with great Chinese-specific tools and content. While it’s not a free resource, it has enough edges over more generic, free services to be worth it in my opinion.

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  4. Review: Learning Chinese by video immersion with FluentU

    FluentU offers authentic as well as learner-oriented videos for learning Chinese. A neat interface allows you to use an excellent pop-up dictionary and other useful features to watch and learn from videos. This is an in-depth review of FluentU Chinese.

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  5. Review: Language Empowerment: Demystify Chinese culture and fire up your Mandarin + interview with the author

    Language Empowerment is a neat little book that manages to pack a lot of information and inspiration into relatively few pages. I highly recommend it for people who have just started learning Chinese or who are interested in doing so. This book covers many topics that you need to know about, but which few textbooks or teachers mention! It is also easy to access and enjoyable to read.

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  6. Student Q&A, February 2024: Typing or handwriting, using new words in texts, and how to use AI to improve your writing

    Is it better to practise writing Chinese on a computer or by hand? How do you find the right words when writing? And how can you leverage AI to improve your writing ability?

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  7. Shapeshifting Chinese characters

    Most Chinese character components are well-behaved; they look the same in different compounds and aren’t hard to recognise. Some components are sneaky, though; they change appearance depending on context! Let’s have a closer look at these shapeshifting characters. 

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  8. Hacking Chinese Podcast three-year anniversary Q&A

    This is a Q&A to mark the third anniversary of the Hacking Chinese Podcast! Should you drop everything you’re doing to learn Chinese for one year? How should you approach reading at an intermediate level? And how do you choose the best resources for learning?

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  9. Best of Hacking Chinese 2022

    Sparkler celebrating the best of Hacking Chinese 2022.

    2022 was a year of stability on Hacking Chinese; consistent but without major breakthroughs. What was the most popular article? The most popular podcast episode? Let’s summarise the year that was and highlight content you really shouldn’t miss!

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  10. Kickstart your learning with the Skritter Character Course

    What’s the best way to learn Chinese characters as a beginner? The Skritter character course is my best attempt at answering that question.

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