Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles in the ‘Distinctively Chinese’ category Page 9

  1. The best Twitter feeds for learning Chinese in 2016

    Learning Chinese through Twitter is great because it gives you bite-sized chunks. This post presents the best Twitter feeds for learning Chinese in 2016.

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  2. How technology can help you learn Chinese

    How technology can help you learn Chinese

    Technology has changed the way we learn Chinese, mostly to the better. This article is about some of the most important implications of this, focusing mainly on the positive effects of technology.

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  3. Should you learn the pronunciation of radicals?

    Pronunciation of radicals

    Learning character components in general is good, but should you learn the pronunciation of radicals? The answer can be both “yes” and “no” depending on what you mean!

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  4. Chinese characters that share the same components but are still different

    Some Chinese characters consist of the same components in different places, creating completely different characters. This article discusses this phenomenon and its implications for language learners.

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  5. Learn Chinese character meaning and pronunciation together

    Phonetic components in Chinese characters

    A large majority of all Chinese characters look the way they do because of how they are pronounced. You can use this to your benefit if you learn Chinese character meaning and pronunciation together.

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  6. Learning tones in Mandarin is not optional

    Learning tones in Mandarin is not optional. The longer you wait before paying attention to tones, the more you will have to relearn later. If you don’t know the tone, you don’t know the word. It takes time to learn to hear tones and treat them as integral parts of syllables, but the sooner you start, the better.

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  7. The Hacking Chinese free tone training course

    Learning to hear the difference between tones is difficult for many learners. Research shows that speaker variability and a systematic and predictable approach are key to overcoming the problem. With this article, I launch a tone training course, which is meant to provide you with just that. For free!

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  8. Learning to hear the sounds and tones in Mandarin

    Learning to hear the difference between tones in Mandarin can be difficult for adult learners. In this article, I introduce two effective ways of overcoming this problem, as well as my own research project, which is meant to help students and will be available soon.

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  9. How to verify that you use the right Chinese font

    For second language learners, using the wrong font can make learning characters very confusing. In this article, I will help you verify that you have the right fonts installed and discuss what happens if you don’t. This is a follow-up to an earlier article about Chinese fonts for students.

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  10. Chinese character variants and fonts for language learners

    Chinese character variants and regional font standards can be really confusing for language learners. As if simplified/traditional wasn’t enough, characters can look different depending on the font used or where the text was printed! This article will help you understand what’s going on.

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