hey..everyone.

I am new here and from china.I found this website by search of google.there are a lot interesting things here.even I find so much chinese lessones in this website.that's really helpful for the people who want to learn chinese.

About me,I have been learning English for one year by myself.I found this "difficulty" language is very sexy.now I am interesting in the western culture,especially movies,musics,sports..etc. in fact,I found a way to learn English here.hmm...I can listen to the simple chinese dialogs,and I found it means in English.so I can leaning chinese(actually,I am good at it) and english at the same time.even if I am still a beginner of English.but I think I can learn it better in the near future.as you learn chinese.

hey,my grammar still bad,let's go ahead..

I have choosen an academic aproach to study Chinese.

First set the goal. In my case that is to pass the HSK test next summer. That would require around 1000 Chinese words. To learn those i use many sources.

- Chinesepod for listening

- New practical Chinese reader books for grammar, tests, reading and writing.

- Software ,chinese homework trainer for drilling words and characters, dicttionary, strokeorders etc.

- The chinese comunity here in Gothenburg, Sweden, for talking.

This combined makes it relatively easy to study.

I am aiming to learn 5 new words per day. When learning those i place them in an practice list in the software and then starts drilling. My number one tool when learning to write the characters is my lapwhiteboard. That is  A4 sized thin paper white board where i can write my characters and then whipe themout and redo it. I like to write the characters large at first since they in that way stick in myhead. After that i write them in more actual size, many, many times. 

Every weekend i repeat all old words that i already have learned so that they stick even harder to my weak brain.

Since I am relatively often in Asia i have bought a lot of Chinese books, films etc. I use them to practice my reading. They have the simple stuctures that i can read and not feel stuid about. Newspapers are still to hard at this point.

Every day when i ride my bike to work i listen to Chinesepod, each chapter twice. At home i type in the new words and key sentences in the software for practice and future review.

When i found words with combined charcters, I look up each individua character to learn them at the same time. I use on line dicitoanries to find key sentences with those characters.

This summer i actualy build my own Chinese garden at home with water, bamboo granit chairs etc. There i like to sit in the evenings and write my characters. That is realy good for the motivation.

So, that is my aproach. 

In my own studying i use a variaty of tools to help me be more effective. I will list some of them here if anyone else like to use them.

http://www.mandarintools.com/ Most of you probably know this site. If not, you realy must go there! There are both online and dowloadable stuff. E.g flashcards,text annotator,dictionary,encoding converter and much,much more. The developer is both a very skilled programmer and good at Chinese.

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chinese-dictionary.php This is a dictonary that have one extra feature and that is that it can break down each character in to pieces and explain the origin of them. Very useful when it comes to understand the meaning of an character. By understanding the origin it is easier to remember them.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/ Probabaly Internets most active forum for people studying Chinese or just interested in Chinese and or China. Here you find answers to most of your questions.

http://list.mp3.baidu.com/topso/mp3topsong.html#top2 Baidu is a site with tons of Chinese music to listen to or to dowload(usualy MP3). Here you find both Chinese pop from the charts as well as club music etc. Listen to Chinese music is a very good way to get used to Chinese and understand the pronunciation. I especially recomend Wang Fei, she is one of the main reasons i started to study Chinese;-)

http://www.zhongwen.com/ The original dictionary. Here you can search for words/characters and get the composition of the character with links to words using that character etc.

http://lost-theory.org/ocrat/chargif/ Ocrat who had those animations have by some reason closed their site but this site still hosts them. Here you can search for chinese characters and get an animation showing how to write them. There are also stroke order animations in many other dictionaries and software. Actualy, the code for that comes from one of my own early projects. I did manage to create java animations for around 1500 characters. ZDA, mandarintools, yellowbridge etc are all using my old code.

http://zdt.sourceforge.net/  an open source software to practice Chinese. Makes it possible to create your own study lists and practice. With many nice features.

http://www.euroasiasoftware.com/ht/index.html My own software for studying Chinese. Free software but seldom updated anymore due to lack of time. I am currently working on some updates though since i have taken up my Chinese again. Has many features not included in any other software. Many test features, print feeature for flash cards, annotation etc.  Comes with many pre loaded study lists.

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php Very nice online chinese dictionary. On of the most used ones.

http://www.chinese-tools.com/chinese/examples A dictionary with example sentences for words. Also with many other tools on the site.

http://www.adsotrans.com/newsinchinese/ Read annotated Chinese news. Very nice feature. You get the news in Chinese. If there is any word you do not know you only have to hover the mouse over it to get the pinyin and translation. Adsotrans also have this feature as an download for firefox and lots of other tools.

Ok, that was all for now. Please add your own resources. There are so many on the net and i have probably missed several of them. I have only mentioned the one that i use my self most often.  Naturaly i have not mentioned Chinesepod but that is the place where i hang most of my time:-)

An amazing dictionary that I bought is the "Pocket Mandarin Chinese Dictionary." It has both Chinese-English and English-Chinese. It contains the 3,000 most commonly used words in the language, which I find useful because it allows you to focus on the foundations of the language and essential vocabulary. Usually, if I want to say something and I don't know how, the word will be in this dictionary. Rarely do I need to use words that are not in this book.  Check it out!

Jordan

One way to get exposed to natural spoken Chinese is to watch Chinese TV. Many of the shows is texted in Chinese so you can actually both practice your reading and your listening. If you are a newbie the childrens shows is exelent and for more advanced learners the news is very good. There are tons of Chinese soap operas and they are often focusing on the Chinese history. There are a few free channels that you can tune in to if you have satellite equipment at home. One nice channel is PCNE and another one is CCTV4. For CCTV4 you can also look at some of their programs on the net: http://www.cctv-4.com/2007/. CCT9 is an English speaking channel broadcasted form China and accessible in most countries. They have Chinese lessons most weekdays and lots of cultural points. CCTV (Chinese Central TV is also accessible on the net; http://english.cctv.com/. Naturally there is also a Chinese version;-) Some on line content from their shows to view.

There is also many music shows. One nice thing with many of them is that they have subtitles. This makes it easier when you try to get the words from the lyrics.

I'd like to hear from others, both more advanced and at my same level, how many chinese characters they are learning each day. Or trying to learn, at least.

    I am currently living in Chengdu, attending Si Chuan Da Xue, and our class so far averages about 100-125 characters per week. I'm starting to think this pace is just too much !  I can retain many of these new characters short-term, but the older ones fall out of the back of my head as one ones are added up front (!)

    Not looking for excuses here - I'll probably switch classes to a more moderate pace. Just looking for comparisons.

I'm using a combo of my chinese textbook (Ok, I guess) and Wenlin software to create flashcards, which I find very helpful.

thanks,

Bob

Hey guys

I was browsing the Chinese language section at Borders books the other day (again) and this one caught my eye. It was so interesting that it was hard to put down and i almost bought it that day!

here is the description:

Anyone have this one yet?? I will be buying it soon.

Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1: A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters (Paperback)

by Alison Matthews and Laurence Matthews

Aimed at helping students of Chinese learn and remember Chinese characters, including the pronunciation of characters, fast and effectively, Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1 is a systematic study aid to this difficult language.

Designed specifically to ease students into the daunting process of learning Chinese characters, Learning Chinese Characters Volume 1 incorporates the key principle of visual imagery. A book for serious learners of Chinese, it can be used alongside (or after, or even before) a course in the Chinese language. Concise, clear and appealing, this practical guide is well designed and includes an easy-to-use index.

I researched it on Amazon today and found that it has gotten rave reviews online. One of the reviewers acutally reccomends Cpod for more in depth grammar explanations etc.

NEW HOPE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE SCHOOL

For international students

OUR ADVANGAGES:
1, We could solve your VISA problem.
2, we could gradually develop your real time oral communication language skill within a short time.
3, we could make you a higher and better Business Chinese starting point.
4, Small size & effective class (Typical and vivid teaching procedure) 

SPECIAL COURSE SCHEDULE:

Spoken Chinese Intensive Class

Pronunciation and grammar correct class

Short-term business training courses

HSK test counseling classes

Curriculum:

Chinese spoken language (applied teaching materials in Chinese-English, Chinese-France, Chinese-South Korea and Chinese-Thailand control version), Chinese pronunciation listening, Chinese reading, Chinese grammar, basic business Chinese, Business negotiation skills, Business writing, Business Case Analysis, Business Investigation, HSK simulation test, etc..

Tition Fee

Accommodation

Hotel Style Apartment,10-20 minutes walk to school.

Nutritious meal provided, 10RMB /person/meal

School also provides accommodation and meals according to the student’s requirement

Contact Details

School Address:b-1601 #166  Weiyuan Street Kunming Yunnan China
Email:mynhschool@hotmail.com         Fax:0086-871-3639520
Free consultation Tel :0086-871-3622155-0; 0086-871-3639520
Contact Person: Liu Teacher         13769110101(English);

Yang Teacher        13808752071(English)

I am a newbie...listening to podcasts and taking a course in Mandarin at the local junior college. I would like to buy some CDs to listen to while commuting to work. What I'm thinking of are stories read aloud in Chinese. I'd like to develop my ear for the language. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

Linda

Hi,I'm Chinese,I'm so glad to find here and meet you all,I desire to make friends here.I'm learning English now . I'm a beginner and I apologize for my poor English,so don't laugh at me if I made mistakes,I hope that we can learn from each other.thanks

大家好，我是个中国人，我很高兴找到这个网站，当然我不是来学汉语的，而是希望在这里可以结交一些外国朋友，因为我正在学英语，当然我的英语很差劲，所以如果我上面这段英文有什么错误，各位老师千万别笑我啊，我很希望能帮助外国朋友学汉语的同时我也能向对方学习英语，我们互相学习，谢谢。

spam4

hello, everybody. My English name is Chandler. I am a Chinese. Now I am studying English and internatlional business. I want to make friends with everyone who come from English country. I would like to teach him Chinese in English. That can help me studying English and know more about the foreign country. that will help me lot in my study.

Thanks so much! if you have interest, please contact me without hesitation.

I'm a serial procrastinator. There are times i'm surprised I've accomplished anything at all.  I sit down to study a lesson, or review a lesson, but then realize i'm hungry, or the phone rings, or I need to google something, and then its an hour later. Certainly, this journey of 10,000 steps called learning Mandarin needs you to do something to stay motivated and focused. 

I'm curious to hear from anyone regarding how they've managed to procrastinate less.  I doubt that serial procrastinators are ever cured, but it would be interesting to hear if someone actually overcame procrastination to become the highly effective, time efficient, mandarin learner. 

Hey, im good in studying chinese when im lying down  [ bed time/sleeping time ]. Just that, i dont study the words, only to speak. Is it good that way?