Today I want to talk about the new Chinese language courses “Hacking Chinese – A practical Guide to Learn Mandarin” and Unlocking Chinese – The ultimate course for beginners created by Olle Linge, author of the well-known blog, “Hacking Chinese.”

Who is Olle Linge and what is his philosophy on learning?

Olle Linge is a Swedish young man who, after studying for almost a decade, obtained a masters degree for teaching Chinese as a second language in Taipei. Besides teaching Chinese privately and managing “Hacking Chinese”, which is in my opinion one of the two or three best websites around, Olle has also created two courses that promises to teach you how to learn Chinese.

Olle sums up his philosophy on learning through an ancient proverb:

“授人以魚，不如授人以漁.”

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” [Read more…]

This article contains a list of free resources to learn Chinese online. Click on one of the following links to “jump” directly to the section of the article that interests you most:

When we firstly published it, in June 2012, this list contained 25 resources. However, we update it every year with the best web sites and free apps that we “discover” (many of which were suggested to us by your readers).

Our goal is not to list all the free resources dedicated to learning Chinese; rather it’s to present to you the best of each of the categories listed above.

Keep reading to find a brief review and corresponding link to the web site of each resource cited.

Enjoy!

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The unstoppable progress of today’s technology has been the source of significant advances in language learning, and Chinese is no exception.

Both mobile apps and online resources have led to many possibilities for improving the effectiveness of studying. However, in this article, we are going to focus on individual lessons online, which constitute a veritable revolution, as they permit access to good teachers regardless of where you are.

Nowadays there is no shortage of free resources for learning a language: websites, apps, forums, videos, podcasts, you name it.However, many people are still looking for a more professional Mandarin course, the type of course that is generally paid. Personally, in the past few years, I have bought a few of them. Why?

There are two main reasons for that:

• Often, you must pay if you want the best resources. Think of FluentU, Yoyo Chinese or Skritter. Who would take the time to develop such a wonderful learning tools for free?

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In this article, I am going to review FluentU, a database of YouTube videos in Mandarin with subtitles (and much more).

Why?

Because I think videos are the best way to achieve “immersion” while studying a foreign language. Admittedly, talking with native people on a regular basis is even better; however, it’s not always possible and, at least when you are starting out, it’s extremely difficult.

What is immersion? And why is it so important?

You can’t learn a new language by just “studying.” In the end, mastering a language comes down to being able to communicate effectively with native speakers. The language you can learn through books is usually quite different from the spoken language, and with Chinese, the gap is even larger than with English or French, for example.

During the time I spent in China, I met many people who, after studying Chinese in their country for several years, came to China and became completely frustrated. Why? Because Chinese people were unable to understand them and, even worse, they couldn’t understand what Chinese people were saying. Even if they had good grammar and vocabulary basics, they had never been in contact with the “real” language. [Read more…]

I have been living in China for more than five years and every time I go home, people ask me:

“Isn’t it really hard to learn Chinese letters?”

To which I respond: “Not as hard as you think.”

The next question is usually:

“Do you know the whole alphabet?”

To which I don’t know what to say, so I just answer “No, not yet.”

This article is dedicated to the people that ask me these things, as well as for those who are interested in Chinese writing and don’t know where to start.

When you finish reading this article, you will have a basic idea of Chinese writing and will have learned some of these incorrectly named Chinese letters effortlessly, in such a way that you are not going to forget them easily.

If you stumbled upon this article accidentally because you want to get a tattoo with Chinese letters, wait a second, as you might still learn something and avoid getting a tattoo of something that your future Chinese girlfriend/boyfriend is going to laugh at every time they see it. [Read more…]

P.S. Click here to test your HSK level with our free quiz!

Premise

Before taking the time to read this guide, know that you can only really appreciate it if you’ve already reached level 5 of the HSK exam or if you’ve already attained a good level.

Consider too that you’ll have to know more than 2500/3000 words before being able to specifically work on the HSK 6. Happy studies!

Structure of the test

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Chinese writing has a fascination all its own: from the ornamental aspect, which all can appreciate even without being an expert, to the symbolic value which is exotic to us, to the long tradition that the characters bring from over two millennia of history full of meaning and even magic.

There are those who don’t consider it so much as a form of writing the words of a spoken language as much as a system for “writing the world”.

In this article I will speak to you about the rules through which this “world” is created on paper: starting from an alphabetic writing you’ll be used to, up to simple signs that indicate sounds whose combinations create the written text, while the question becomes a little more complicated for Chinese.

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