Learn Chinese Reading: A No Stress Guide for Newbies

Japanese is very demanding as it is Chinese. FSI says you will need 88 weeks, somewhere between 1. Even though they are two different languages, Chinese and Japanese have historical bonds. We have good news for you. 117 billion speakers, with 918 million native speakers. One of the best apps to practice Chinese conversation is italki. This will help you improve the pace of your Chinese. With iTalki, you can book sessions with any tutor of your choice. Learn Chinese proverbs — Chinese proverbs can help you enhance your Chinese conversations and make more meaningful connections. I am really happy with the quality and presentation of the article. Numbers are probably the easiest part of Mandarin Chinese. Thankfully, technology has taken things a step further and not only made these dictionaries easy to use, but also added features such as OCR “Optical Character Recognition”, which can use your phone’s camera to identify a Chinese character. The “lessons” also include pronunciation guides and vivid images that help with word association. The best way to learn Chinese quickly is to go to China on an intensive Chinese language course.

4 Reasons Chinese Is Not as Hard to Learn as You Think

In rare cases, a character might have two pronunciations, but those are recognised oddities in Chinese called a “多音字” “multi sound character”, as opposed any other character which doesn’t have a name. It means that one should not forget why they started. Mandarin comes in second with 1. Pinyin, however, is a way of writing Chinese in a romanised alphabet so that learners can read and pronounce it without having to learn thousands of characters first. Price: Subscription based, free trial available. You know how going to the gym is awful for the first couple of weeks, but then you’re glad you stuck with it. The thing about Duolingo is, when used alone, it’s not actually that useful. You can get a free 14 day trial of FluentU to see if it’s a good learning tool for you, so it’s worth checking out. All problems solved then, right. They provide 1 to 1 online lessons. Music is a fun and effective way to learn the language. The reason is simple: simplified chinese over simplified a lot of things and it’s causing THEM a lot of pain in the butt. Ninchanese is a Chinese teaching game that can be used as an app or online. If you’re into music, for example, use music to learn Chinese.

11 Immerse yourself in a Mandarin environment

You see, I simply don’t write. Now that you have been studying and building Chinese skills, that learning is still quite “fragile. The end result, is images like this. NTU is especially delighted to join other world class universities on Coursera and to offer quality university courses to the Chinese speaking population. Traditional Korean principles, heavily influenced by Confucianism, still permeate modern life. So according to my experience learning Chinese, did it feel like I was learning the hardest language in the world. Seven years after completing my Master’s I’m stuck in a dead end customer service job swarmed with Chinese customers who are often too rude for my liking. The app uses this technique along with a combination of SRS flashcards and stroke recognition to help you remember how to write each character. Then, 5 to 6 months later, you can quickly hold a few minutes of discussions and comprehend many texts. It is so diverse that every region has its own dialects and languages. With some practice, you can use https://learnchinesegrammar.com/ this method to significantly improve how fast you learn to recognize written Chinese, memorizing 30 60 characters an hour with ease. With dedication and practice, anyone can become proficient at speaking, reading, writing, understanding basic grammar structures etc. The benefits of learning Chinese using graphic images quickly add up to significant time savings for you, your data plan, and your dream of learning a new language. Maybe you’ve become fascinated with the economy of China and pursued the language to advance your career. It offers over 7,000 lessons and it’s used by some of the leading schools and universities around the world. Most lessons are gamified or have game like components, making Ninchanese a stress free and even fun way to learn the language.

Offered by

One of the keys to being able to master any foreign language is having access to high quality study resources, and fortunately, if you’re. AboutHomeFAQFees and Discounts. Are you learning Chinese for travel. It may take some time to become accustomed to Chinese grammar. As you work your way through our lesson archives, we’ll track your progress so you can see just how fast you’re learning. As a native speaker, I can tell you that the only way to learn and master new words in Chinese is simply to expose yourself to the language as much as possible and to consistently practice. If you had a long day, try to turn your daily Chinese character memorizing task into a relaxing meditation with a beautiful Chinese song. I am currently enrolled and working through the HSK 5 program and could not be more impressed. So, you should read about what other people are doing before attempting to memorize 2,000 cards in a row. Shopping sprees are an essential part of every city break. Once you’ve got to grips with the pinyin chart, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of believing you’ve mastered the romanization and are ready to move on to learn some “real” Chinese. Premium subscribers also get access to a slew of features, some of which are more useful than others. A Mandarin Chinese character, unlike a word in an alphabetic language, takes rote memory not just to grasp what it says but also to understand how it is said. Starting from zero to speak Mandarin fluently within 30 days is not a practical plan to master the Chinese language, even if you can study 10 hours per day. Remember that these are arbitrary classifications and are only suggestions. Trust me, it’ll help you understand and remember the definition of radicals in the end. Personally, I find grammar the hardest and enjoy learning Chinese characters – therefore, Korean is the hardest language for me difficult grammar and no Chinese characters, and Chinese is the easiest easy grammar and Chinese characters. ChinesePod was a pioneer in the field of Chinese listening apps in 2005. You can actually access them faster than logging in and trying to do so via a live site. Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. In fact, pinyin is commonly used on daily basis by all Chinese speakers when writing in Chinese on their computers and smartphones.

So, Is Chinese Hard To Learn?

Best Communication Skills App: Pimsleur. And in those days, back in the early seventies, there wasn’t quite as much listening material available. Many people will feel the need to retort this post saying that they found Chinese to be very hard, and I agree with you. You also want to spread your time out over the day. Thank you for your time in reading and I hope that this was helpful to you. Make more Chinese speaking friends. Rocket Chinese provides interactive audio lessons in various categories e. Thanks, it’s very informative. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Since they cover several aspects of Chinese, they can make better options for learners that are just starting out with the language.

Step Ten: How to Study Chinese By Balancing the Challenge Frustration Curve

Many English speakers certainly find it tough. The app primarily features over 7000 graded reader lessons written as news articles online. They are divided into three difficulty levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. While writing your own sample sentences may seem like a chore, this truly is an effective way to check your own learning and solidify the knowledge in your brain. Chinese is also a tonal, syllable timed language. Guest interview is with John Gordon, who shares his personal experience of learning Chinese and hosting TV shows in China. As with Skritter, I didn’t include ChinesePod on this list because they don’t offer a free version of their product. Be kind to yourself and celebrate your efforts in Mandarin Chinese, no matter how small. It also means that you’re more likely to see results in Chinese. Universities in China and Taiwan use Coursera to post classes they offer online. It’s easy to confuse ‘characters’ and ‘words’, so we’ll just clear it up now: A word might be a single character. That’s why I think Reading and Writing Chinese is another one of the important books to learn Chinese you can’t afford to miss out on. Traditional characters were the only ones that existed until around the 1950s and have developed over thousands of years. If you also know the tone, the potential meanings are reduced. This folk etymology might help you remember the character in the short term, but over time, it can end up confusing you rather than helping you. When an English learner studies a new word, they have to remember a unique spelling for each word. And, so many episodes available for free, there’s no reason not to give them a try and add them to your study plan today. It’s a great demonstration of the need to use Chinese characters, but is a poor demonstration of how hard the language is when you realize it literally sounds like gibberish. As an expert storyteller, he publishes creative fiction in English and German and helps other authors shape their manuscripts into compelling stories. Haicheng北海市海城区北海大道183号城市购物广场 0510号Tel: +86 0 10 65129057Email. On Ninchanese, you can learn the vocabulary, pinyin, and grammar, and with a voice recognition feature, you can also learn to speak. You can choose to learn from pre made lists – including official HSK word lists. I’m currently in the middle of one of those occasional language learning meltdowns I’ve found the cure is to just binge watch more TV and try to relax / meditate more. Not because learning to read and write Japanese is harder, but because you’ll need to learn a lot more than just a writing system. Check out this video if you like to learn more about the best way to learn Kanji. The best way to do this is to listen to a native speaker with a standard accent and practice shadowing. Arabic speakers find Russian grammar complicated because it has a large number of unfamiliar rules and a ton of exceptions to those rules. Every Specialization includes a hands on project.

4 Don’t speak before you are ready

Along with many other learners of Mandarin, I believe that learning to write characters is the most time intensive aspect of learning Mandarin, and it carries with it the least reward. Knowing pinyin is essential for knowing how to speak and listen to Chinese. It has a more familiar alphabet, but a complicated gender system and free word order. Before you jump into the Chinese language, there are a few things you should research. I found out that my Chinese level quickly improved since then. I have been able to express my meaning in simple Chinese. See our full review of ChineseSkill. Learning Mandarin words is the first step in speaking Chinese. However, with thousands of Chinese characters in a dictionary, memorizing all of them will not happen overnight. To make it worse, a character’s tones can change in the context of a word or sentence. Upon completion of CHINA 201R and 202R, the student should have a reading vocabulary of 1,600 Chinese characters and have learned about 300 key sentence patterns. Homework will be assigned after each class to enable the students to reinforce and practice the language learned in class. It teaches phrases that are useful and will break down the language barrier if you plan to visit or live in China. Then I found I could download e books for free also outside of China. Even if you are taking classes or have a tutor, having good independent study habits will help you make steady progress towards fluency. Best for improving your Chinese vocabulary and grammar. Best for improving your Chinese vocabulary. Ricci and Ruggieri, with the help of the Chinese Jesuit Lay Brother Sebastiano Fernandez also spelled Fernandes; 1562–1621, are thought to have created the first Portuguese Chinese dictionary some time between 1583 and 1588. Hungarian also has many irregular verbs, which can make it challenging to conjugate verbs correctly. Practice imitating what you are listening to. The difference is that Mandarin uses tones in a mechanical way, in order to contrast syllables within a word, whereas we use tones in English primarily to show our emotions. So those are some easy aspects and some hard aspects of learning Chinese, but how hard is it to learn Mandarin compared to other languages. Each FluentU video has interactive subtitles, which let you click on words and structures you don’t know yet. Depending on how much time you have, start gathering the following learning materials and tools and go through them either simultaneously, or one at a time. She grew up in Beijing, before going to the University of Southern California USC to get her degree in Social Sciences and Psychology.

What is ChinesePod?

ChineseClass101 is like ChinesePod’s enthusiastic but ultimately less impressive cousin. Singapore is an island state in Southeast Asia. For those interested in studying the world’s most widely spoken language, however, the good news is that learning Chinese is not so difficult as it seems. Because of this, there is no conclusive answer to the question, “Is Chinese a difficult language to learn. For each new word that you learn in Chinese, you also have to internalize the one of the five tones that correspond to it, or you will definitely not be understood. See our Super Detailed Pimsleur Review. Each lesson from ChineseClass101 is based on a video or audio clip often recorded as a podcast. If you want way more detail than a blog post, make sure to check out my in depth guide on “Why Chinese is Easy”. My main mission was to get through at least two levels of Pimsleur for Mandarin and meet with teachers online 2 3x a week. You need to accept that you are learning two languages at once and that things will take longer. In this case, you can anticipate reaching “fluency” in a much shorter time span. Com launches its new smartphone app, it cost just U$50 a month which is nothing compared to the benefits or so the creators say. Thanks for introducing LingQ by the way. Experts claim that you need 150 words in Chinese to be able to hold basic and intermediate conversations. Of course, no one’s suggesting it’s an ‘easy’ journey. Just remember to have fun and enjoy the learning process. Make it cheaper: Piányí yī diǎn. You can say “我不是中国人,” which would be “I am not Chinese. In Chinese, individual words are like bricks that you’re free to arrange in your own order.

Vikash Gupta

After reading so much about the Chinese language, the questions “is it worth it. It is predicated on the assumption that you are needed to enroll in traditional language programs to learn Chinese, which is not the most efficient approach to acquiring a new language. I have received several inquiries from people looking to start learning Chinese. Check out polyglot and LingQ cofounder Steve Kaufmann’s blog post for some tips on how to learn Chinese. Knowing language difficulty will also help you come up with a realistic timeline for learning. Learning thousands of characters is difficult for English speakers. Since alphabets are so useful, why not give one to Chinese. Every video has interactive subtitles in English, Chinese and pinyin that allow you to hover over any word to see an in context definition and native pronunciation. It’s not easy to give an exact number of levels of formal speech in Japanese, but generally most people agree that there are three. If you are interested in Korean culture, you may try Korean, and the same goes for Japanese. It is a hard language to wrap your brain around because of its numerous dialects, huge vocabulary over 200 synonyms for the word camel. Japan still continuously is a major source of the world’s innovation, technology, and business. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.

Has Chinese Learning Got You Down?

It’s helpful for easy cross referencing and makes sure you understand the material. As with so much in language learning, too much explanation upfront is a distraction to acquiring the language. Words of colors can be used both as a noun, for example 白色 bái sè/, and 黑色 hēi sè/; and as an adjective. Of course, the most rapid and effective way is to live abroad in China or Taiwan for a good couple of months to immerse yourself in the language and culture. Interesting, but not quite so relevant to helping me the rest of the year. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. 很好 hén hǎo or hen2 hao3. Also read: 10 Key Differences Between Mandarin and Cantonese. When it comes to NBA, Stephen Curry is his go to player, and he admires the way he dominates the game. Even native speakers like myself sometimes come across words I’ve never seen before. To track your work across TED Ed over time, Register or Login instead. Once you have enough passive input, it’s time to start practicing your speaking skills. Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. The local community is so excited to see that I am starting to learn their language. Still, it’s a helpful download for other language learners as well. We’ve done a couple of notebook style updates. That’s because English uses the word “thousand” to refer to numbers that have from four to six digits 1,000 999,999, but Chinese uses the word “千” qian only for numbers that have four digits 1,000 9,999. Memrise teaches you Chinese vocabulary, through lessons based on your interests. Research shows that by watching videos at just above your level, you maximise speed of learning. Most learners have a hard time pronouncing the Chinese language. He was on book 3 and was at a very impressive level of Chinese. NEWSLETTER: Get the day’s top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >>. Prices all over the city are much, much lower than in the United States, and are easy on just about any American’s wallet. Check out the page dedicated to the particle “了”. I’m already very familiar with it in written form I just need to learn how the characters are pronounced since I currently pronounce it with the Cantonese pronunciation.