Articles in the ‘Learning in class’ category Page 8
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Which Chinese language course should you take?
This article will guide you through the most important factors to consider when choosing your Chinese language course, including location, price and extent.
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What your Chinese course will not teach you
Taking a Chinese course will give you a framework for learning the language, but it’s far from enough. This article is about what you need to do apart from going to class.
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Why you should learn Chinese in Chinese
It’s helpful to use your native language to learn Chinese, but one of the first things you should do is to convert anything you use often in the learning process into Chinese. This includes common classroom expressions or other phrases used when learning. Advanced students will find challenges in Chinese-only learning materials and dictionaries.
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Will a Chinese-only rule improve your learning?
Is a Chinese-only rule good for learning? Most people agree that immersion is a good thing, but that’s not the same as saying that using no English is good
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Launching Hacking Chinese Resources
“Resources” is a new section of Hacking Chinese that strives to provide you with resources for learning Chinese suitable to you. Everything is neatly tagged by difficulty level, topic/skill and type of resource, enabling you to find whatever you need, whenever you need it.
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Why good feedback matters and how to get it
Teachers give feedback in many different ways, some terribly bad, others very good. The bad ones let you struggle for hours just to correct your essay, not necessarily learning much on the way. The good ones not only allow you to correct your essay, you also feel that you’re learning a lot and won’t make the same mistakes again. This article sets down some guidelines for how to give good feedback, useful for both students and teachers.
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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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Learning how to fish: Or, why it’s essential to know how to learn
Learning how to learn Chinese is an essential skill for any student, regardless if you study on your own or in a course. This article explains why going to class is not enough.
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Focusing on tone pairs to improve your Mandarin pronunciation
When learning to pronounce tones in Chinese, it makes sense to focus on words rather than single syllables. Most words in Mandarin are disyllabic and since practising these will also include tone changes (sandhi), focusing on tone pairs is recommended. This article gives you all HSK and TOCFL words, sorted by tone! First all [first tone] + [first tone], then all [first tone] + [second tone] and so on. This is great for students who need words to practise difficult combinations, but it’s also useful for teachers.
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Role-playing to learn more Chinese and avoid frustration
Focusing on meaning rather than form is usually a good idea. It allows you to communicate as opposed to just do drills, which is only useful in limited doses. However, caring too much about what you want to say rather than how you do it will sometimes make you unable to say much at all. In these cases, role play! You don’t need to answer questions truthfully in class. Exploring questions from different perspectives will not only help you learn more, it’s more fun as well!
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