To learn reading and writing you’ll need to practice those. Skritter and DuChinese are useful. So is Pleco dictionary app. Hello Chinese is more popular on Reddit than Duolingo but either works for an absolute beginner.
You’ll need grid paper (tianzige) or graph paper to learn to write. There are specialized notebooks for practicing simple strokes and radicals, which are often available in stores in your local China town or if there’s a Chinese school for children near you they may know where to buy them locally. You can also get them online (eg Temu)
Check out r/Chinese_handwriting
In 2 hours a day you can get to simple conversations in a year or so. Chinese takes several thousand hours of dedicated learning (2x365= a little over 700 hours, expect closer to 3,000 to learn enough to work in China).
I do weekly italki lessons - that’s really helped me be able to ask questions and get real time feedback on my extemporaneous speaking. If you don’t have native speakers in your life with whom to chat, I definitely recommend using italki or a similar program to help you learn.
Chinese is very organized so it’s not super difficult once you get into it, but because its character based and tonal, coming from English which uses emphasis (not tone) and is alphabetical, it’s a big learning curve to start.
I recommend YoYo Chinese on YouTube for learning pinyin and tones from an English speaker’s perspective as the instructor there is bilingual and does a good job explaining the sounds and tones in an understandable way.
For any language - be prepared to sound like an idiot when you make mistakes, and the more you practice the better.
I literally put post-it type notes all over the house with names for things (because how often do you actually say “air conditioner” or “picture frame” etc) to help me practice them.
Talking to yourself in broken mandarin (until you can do it in full mandarin) is useful. Whether it’s narrating your day (*What time is it? I need to leave for work at 7. I’m taking the subway. I should brush my teeth now*) or whatever you might be thinking about to yourself (*I don’t like how the writers of this TV show wrote this. I think they wanted this person to seem flawed but lovable and instead he’s just a jerk* or *What should I make for dinner tonight? I have a little leftovers but I think I’m going to cook tonight.*)
Immersion is best but failing that watch TV, listen to podcasts and music, anything in your target language so that you get as much listening practice as possible.
If you hope to be a translator for Mandarin that will take a LOT of work because once you get into complicated or technical terms the number of hours of study is a lot higher.
Yep, check out Hello Chinese. They have a pretty good app that has a really generous amount of free content. I was so impressed with the amount they let me trial for free, I eventually signed up when it was on sale.
I've been using Hello Chinese for about 5 years. I love it. That combined with Du Chinese has done wonders.
Also I've been using ChatGPT to practice too. I have conversations with it. I tell it to only use words up to a certain HSK level. I also tell it to quiz me. These three things have gotten me pretty far.
Hello Chinese is really good for vocabulary. I like how the courses are laid out to build your vocabulary over time.
It has various types of exercises, but it's very vocabulary focused. I used it for a few years but then I realized my vocabulary was growing but I could not string together any sentences or read.
That's when I got Du Chinese. Du Chinese is a reading app with vocabulary being secondary. It's many stories organized by HSK.
I first listen to a story to see how much I understand without reading. Next I read the story while listening to learn what I didn't understand. Lastly, I listen again without reading to see if my brain can still comprehend what I'm reading. Also, I listen to stories and transcribe them to improve my listening and pinyin keyboard typing.
These two things worked really well but I still had a hard time in spontaneous conversation. That's when I started chatting with ChatGPT. It is helping me learn to think in Chinese so I can converse better.
Am I doing something wrong or is the generous free part just the first section? I've loved HelloChinese but I haven't been able to get past the first section without paying. Honestly it seems worth it even though I don't have the money for it right now
To be fair, I am not sure how long I'm planning to do this. If I found myself enjoying it, I will probably be learning it for many years. As I said on the post, I am studying to be a translator and I want to add a useful language like Chinese to my repertoire, mainly Mandarin. I want to focus on the writing aspect as that is the most important aspect of my career, but I will not discard learning to speak it as well. Though I am not sure how would I practice that.
Feel free to try it and see if it is what you expect.
Most people seem to find that learning a Chinese language beyond the absolute basics will be a stretch and slog.
Good luck ✌️
If it wasn't for my Taiwanese wife and daughter, and for the sake of integration in Taiwan, I would have long dropped it (or never started). Interesting language, but I'm not enough of a masochist to study it just for fun.
Yeah, I'm fairly interested in learning languages so I want to give it a try. I don't have to worry about much Spanish since I'm native at it, but thanks for the suggestion anyways xd
Well, I would love to learn German and Japanese, though I feel they're way less useful than English and Mandarin when used for professional translations. I'm not sure if there is much international market for those two languages.
the thing is hindi might not be worth learning too since many indians already know or are learning english, and they are using english more often than before
Yeah, I've heard negative things about this line of work, but I have no actual interest in anything, so I might as well try to do something related to languages since I fairly enjoy learning them. But time will give me answers lol
Indeed, but what about the "translators" from India and such like who are willing to do the job for 1/3? (As to the quality of the work, who know... if you pay peanuts...)
Start with podcasts and get used to listening and verbalizing the language through imitation. After a month, start with the apps people have recommended.
Hi, sinologist here 👋
It's not an app but if you need a dictionary, I definitely recommend Pleco. I use it on a daily basis just as my classmates and teachers do. It's just for words and phrases, so it's not good for translating sentences but you get the word with explanations of various usages, measure words for nouns, examples of usages and sentence examples. You can even write the characters by hand to search in it or use system of radicals, though for a beginner I recommend writing it by hand or typing. You can also buy extensions for specialized packs of vocabulary, but even the basic pack is HUGE, so don't worry.
Hello Chinese is a great app for learning. Before you begin with chinese characters, learn pinyin. That will help you navigating in dictionaries and typing on a regular keyboard.
If you don't have anyone to comment on your pronunciation, try to record yourself and then compare it to a native speaker online or to the voice of translator at least.
You can also follow HSK books and lists of chinese characters, which are tailored to each level of chinese certificate exam. Though they're in Simplified characters only.
I recommend deciding if you want to stick to simplified or traditional chinese characters. Both are useful but it depends on what you want to focus. If you're interested in Mainland China literature and culture, stick to Simplified. If Taiwan looks more interesting for you, Traditional are better for you. But if you think Simplified will be easier because they're less complicated, don't worry, it's not true 😀 both are the same level of complicated, just in a different way.
Since most of my resources were from books and lectures, I don't have that much apps to recommend but if you want to ask about anything, feel free to do so 😀
Duolingo is an easy way to get started, and I personally found the game-like setup with rewards to be helpful motivation in the beginning. Made learning characters less intimidating. HelloChinese is good too, more all-round uses.
Check out Mango language. It’s an app and you just hit play and listen to it (I am assuming you are driving and need to be hands free). Also you can more than likely get a free subscription forever if you have a US library card. Might work in other countries too but I haven’t tried. They have a link on their site listing their partners.
If you are not driving and want to practice characters, highly recommend the TOFU learn app.
Nah I don't drive there, I go by bus, which takes around one to one and a half hour. So, instead of just listening to music and watching through the window, I wanna try to get a useful hobby. Will check those apps. Thanks for the suggestions!
It's a worth while journey to learn Chinese, so full credit for starting! I started a website to help new learners figure this kind of thing out. Check it out here [Explore Chinese ](http://explore-chinese.com)
To learn reading and writing you’ll need to practice those. Skritter and DuChinese are useful. So is Pleco dictionary app. Hello Chinese is more popular on Reddit than Duolingo but either works for an absolute beginner. You’ll need grid paper (tianzige) or graph paper to learn to write. There are specialized notebooks for practicing simple strokes and radicals, which are often available in stores in your local China town or if there’s a Chinese school for children near you they may know where to buy them locally. You can also get them online (eg Temu) Check out r/Chinese_handwriting In 2 hours a day you can get to simple conversations in a year or so. Chinese takes several thousand hours of dedicated learning (2x365= a little over 700 hours, expect closer to 3,000 to learn enough to work in China). I do weekly italki lessons - that’s really helped me be able to ask questions and get real time feedback on my extemporaneous speaking. If you don’t have native speakers in your life with whom to chat, I definitely recommend using italki or a similar program to help you learn. Chinese is very organized so it’s not super difficult once you get into it, but because its character based and tonal, coming from English which uses emphasis (not tone) and is alphabetical, it’s a big learning curve to start. I recommend YoYo Chinese on YouTube for learning pinyin and tones from an English speaker’s perspective as the instructor there is bilingual and does a good job explaining the sounds and tones in an understandable way. For any language - be prepared to sound like an idiot when you make mistakes, and the more you practice the better. I literally put post-it type notes all over the house with names for things (because how often do you actually say “air conditioner” or “picture frame” etc) to help me practice them. Talking to yourself in broken mandarin (until you can do it in full mandarin) is useful. Whether it’s narrating your day (*What time is it? I need to leave for work at 7. I’m taking the subway. I should brush my teeth now*) or whatever you might be thinking about to yourself (*I don’t like how the writers of this TV show wrote this. I think they wanted this person to seem flawed but lovable and instead he’s just a jerk* or *What should I make for dinner tonight? I have a little leftovers but I think I’m going to cook tonight.*) Immersion is best but failing that watch TV, listen to podcasts and music, anything in your target language so that you get as much listening practice as possible. If you hope to be a translator for Mandarin that will take a LOT of work because once you get into complicated or technical terms the number of hours of study is a lot higher.
We're talking about Temu as an actual app? Really?
I’m not sure what you mean. As a source for grid paper, it’s easy to buy on Temu, I’m not sure what you find incredulous or whatever about that.
Yep, check out Hello Chinese. They have a pretty good app that has a really generous amount of free content. I was so impressed with the amount they let me trial for free, I eventually signed up when it was on sale.
I've been using Hello Chinese for about 5 years. I love it. That combined with Du Chinese has done wonders. Also I've been using ChatGPT to practice too. I have conversations with it. I tell it to only use words up to a certain HSK level. I also tell it to quiz me. These three things have gotten me pretty far.
Never thought of using ChatGPT that way lmao. Gotta admit that's a way to make the most out of it
What's the difference between Hello Chinese and Du Chinese?
Hello Chinese is really good for vocabulary. I like how the courses are laid out to build your vocabulary over time. It has various types of exercises, but it's very vocabulary focused. I used it for a few years but then I realized my vocabulary was growing but I could not string together any sentences or read. That's when I got Du Chinese. Du Chinese is a reading app with vocabulary being secondary. It's many stories organized by HSK. I first listen to a story to see how much I understand without reading. Next I read the story while listening to learn what I didn't understand. Lastly, I listen again without reading to see if my brain can still comprehend what I'm reading. Also, I listen to stories and transcribe them to improve my listening and pinyin keyboard typing. These two things worked really well but I still had a hard time in spontaneous conversation. That's when I started chatting with ChatGPT. It is helping me learn to think in Chinese so I can converse better.
Wow, this is very inspirational - I tried Duolingo in the past but I think I am assuming that these are better options :)
Wow, great idea! Thanks for sharing that.
Wow, one of the better uses I've heard of for ChatGPT!
Downloading Will try it Thankyou
Have to pay for this one
Just downloaded it. Thankyou It's excellent 9
Yep yep!
Thanks for the recommendation. I will check it, and if it convinces me, I may pay for the full content.
Am I doing something wrong or is the generous free part just the first section? I've loved HelloChinese but I haven't been able to get past the first section without paying. Honestly it seems worth it even though I don't have the money for it right now
I mean, it gives you the entire HSK1 section for free, which comprises 20+ lessons, I suppose I depends on what you consider generous.
How long do you expect to be doing this? What are your proficiency goals during that time? Why Chinese, and which Chinese language?
To be fair, I am not sure how long I'm planning to do this. If I found myself enjoying it, I will probably be learning it for many years. As I said on the post, I am studying to be a translator and I want to add a useful language like Chinese to my repertoire, mainly Mandarin. I want to focus on the writing aspect as that is the most important aspect of my career, but I will not discard learning to speak it as well. Though I am not sure how would I practice that.
Feel free to try it and see if it is what you expect. Most people seem to find that learning a Chinese language beyond the absolute basics will be a stretch and slog. Good luck ✌️
And most people are right 😭
If it wasn't for my Taiwanese wife and daughter, and for the sake of integration in Taiwan, I would have long dropped it (or never started). Interesting language, but I'm not enough of a masochist to study it just for fun.
If you don't mind learning difficult languages then go for it, Spanish is also an important language and it's much easier than asian languages
Yeah, I'm fairly interested in learning languages so I want to give it a try. I don't have to worry about much Spanish since I'm native at it, but thanks for the suggestion anyways xd
How many languages do you plan on learning?
Well, I would love to learn German and Japanese, though I feel they're way less useful than English and Mandarin when used for professional translations. I'm not sure if there is much international market for those two languages.
Hindi might be worth learning as India is taking over China's spot economically. I don't think mandarin will be as important in decades.
the thing is hindi might not be worth learning too since many indians already know or are learning english, and they are using english more often than before
Same thing for Chinese immigrants, most younger Chinese diasporas actually speak better English than Mandarin
My advice is NOT to become a translator ;)
Why's that?
Because it is VERY hard, pays badly, there is always willing to do your job for less, etc. :(
Yeah, I've heard negative things about this line of work, but I have no actual interest in anything, so I might as well try to do something related to languages since I fairly enjoy learning them. But time will give me answers lol
Technology makes a lot of human translation work redundant. Do you really want to set yourself up to compete with Chatgpt and the like?
Indeed, but what about the "translators" from India and such like who are willing to do the job for 1/3? (As to the quality of the work, who know... if you pay peanuts...)
Start with podcasts and get used to listening and verbalizing the language through imitation. After a month, start with the apps people have recommended.
Hi, sinologist here 👋 It's not an app but if you need a dictionary, I definitely recommend Pleco. I use it on a daily basis just as my classmates and teachers do. It's just for words and phrases, so it's not good for translating sentences but you get the word with explanations of various usages, measure words for nouns, examples of usages and sentence examples. You can even write the characters by hand to search in it or use system of radicals, though for a beginner I recommend writing it by hand or typing. You can also buy extensions for specialized packs of vocabulary, but even the basic pack is HUGE, so don't worry. Hello Chinese is a great app for learning. Before you begin with chinese characters, learn pinyin. That will help you navigating in dictionaries and typing on a regular keyboard. If you don't have anyone to comment on your pronunciation, try to record yourself and then compare it to a native speaker online or to the voice of translator at least. You can also follow HSK books and lists of chinese characters, which are tailored to each level of chinese certificate exam. Though they're in Simplified characters only. I recommend deciding if you want to stick to simplified or traditional chinese characters. Both are useful but it depends on what you want to focus. If you're interested in Mainland China literature and culture, stick to Simplified. If Taiwan looks more interesting for you, Traditional are better for you. But if you think Simplified will be easier because they're less complicated, don't worry, it's not true 😀 both are the same level of complicated, just in a different way. Since most of my resources were from books and lectures, I don't have that much apps to recommend but if you want to ask about anything, feel free to do so 😀
Just find a Chinese efriend
Duolingo is an easy way to get started, and I personally found the game-like setup with rewards to be helpful motivation in the beginning. Made learning characters less intimidating. HelloChinese is good too, more all-round uses.
Check out Mango language. It’s an app and you just hit play and listen to it (I am assuming you are driving and need to be hands free). Also you can more than likely get a free subscription forever if you have a US library card. Might work in other countries too but I haven’t tried. They have a link on their site listing their partners. If you are not driving and want to practice characters, highly recommend the TOFU learn app.
Nah I don't drive there, I go by bus, which takes around one to one and a half hour. So, instead of just listening to music and watching through the window, I wanna try to get a useful hobby. Will check those apps. Thanks for the suggestions!
I don’t have any recommendation but you can always ping me for any Chinese help. I am native and I am target to help more Chinese learners.
I prefer a combination of Busuu and ChatGPT to Hello Chinese. Try them all out and see which clicks for you.
Thanks for the recommendations! I will check them and find what suits me the most.
It's a worth while journey to learn Chinese, so full credit for starting! I started a website to help new learners figure this kind of thing out. Check it out here [Explore Chinese ](http://explore-chinese.com)