Recent articles
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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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Chinese listening challenge, January 2020
It’s time for a listening challenge! It starts on January 10th, so enrol, set your goal and listen as much as you can before the end of the month. This article contains more information about the challenge, some important things to keep in mind as well as suggestions for what to listen to.
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Best of Hacking Chinese 2019
Happy New Year! Much happened on Hacking Chinese in 2019, and this article summarises the year that was by highlighting the most popular articles, both ranked by popular vote and by editor’s choice (my own humble opinion). It also discusses some upcoming projects and ideas for 2020!
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How to look up Chinese characters you don’t know
Looking up an unknown character in Chinese is much trickier than looking up unknown words in most other languages. This article discusses various ways of looking up Chinese characters, including paper dictionaries, handwriting input, OCR and more.
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Chinese reading challenge, December 2019
It’s time for a reading challenge! It starts on December 10th, so enrol, set your goal and read as much as you can before the end of the month. This article contains more information about the challenge, some important things to keep in mind as well as some advice about improving reading ability in Chinese.
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Can too much guidance make you learn less Chinese?
Guidance and support can make learning Chinese easier, but could too much of it make it harder? This article discusses the downsides of receiving too much help and the benefits of engaging more with the Chinese language on your own, without having everything explained to you.
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Why is listening in Chinese so hard?
Most students think that listening in Chinese is hard, but how much of that is just listening being difficult in general and how much is attributable to Chinese specifically? This article covers both aspects and discusses reasons why listening is difficult, both in general and for Chinese in particular.
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Chinese habit formation challenge, November 2019
It’s time for a learning habit challenge! It starts on November 10th, so enrol, decide on a habit you desire to have and work your way towards forming it over the coming weeks. This article contains more information about the challenge, some important things to keep in mind as well as suggestions for what habits to aim for and how to get there.
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Training your Chinese teacher, part 3: Listening ability
Listening ability is generally overlooked in language teaching. At first glance, it might seem that having a teacher is not as useful for improving listening as it is for improving speaking, but is that really the case? This article covers both what you should and what you shouldn’t do with your teacher if improving listening ability is your goal!
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Two types of pronunciation problems and what to do about them
Many assume that when someone gets pronunciation wrong, they haven’t learnt how to produce that sound correctly yet. This is not always the case, though, because there is another reason that is perhaps even more likely to be the cause of the problem! What are the two types of problems and what can we do about them?
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