There is no one way to learn Chinese. You’ll need to use a variety of tools and methods and put together a program that works for you. As a student of the Chinese language, I have learned many things in my journey. On this page, I will share various resources and techniques that can be helpful in your Chinese language studies.
Use Multiple Approaches to Learn Chinese
Learning Chinese effectively involves using a variety of methods. Combine language apps, textbooks, online courses, and immersion experiences. Practice speaking with native speakers, use flashcards for vocabulary, and watch Chinese media for listening skills. Mixing different activities keeps learning engaging and helps reinforce your knowledge. This diverse approach makes your journey to fluency more effective and enjoyable.
Use a language app such as DuoLingo to practice reading and listening to Chinese. DuoLingo won’t get to fluency in Chinese, but it will engage you and get you better at listening and reading Chinese.
Use flashcard such as Anki – create your own lists based off your current studies.
Read, read and read even more Chinese. By reading Chinese you’ll get the repetition needed to learn the language. Be sure to read aloud when reading Chinese, this will help you with memorizing the words and getting the tones correct.
How to Read Graded Reader Stories
- Start by reading with the assistance of Pinyin and English (bottom of page).
- Progress to reading the Chinese only version at the top of the page.
- First focus on recognizing the words and reading them aloud.
- Then focus on getting the tones correct.
- Then focus on understanding the sentences.
- Listen to each line to practice your listening skills.
How to Select a Story to Read
When selecting a graded story to read you should focus on words you need practice with. Many stories are written around a single word and are designed to give you examples of uses for that word. By repeating that word throughout the story you’ll become comfortable with reading and using that word. The stories that focus on a single word will typically have that word in the title of the story.
Be sure to stay in your HSK level when selecting a story to read. We’ve put extra effort into ensuring that stories within an HSK level use only words from that level. For HSK 1 and 2 some of the stories may not be eloquent, but they will give you practice with that HSK level vocabulary without introducing words you don’t know (this was a big frustration for me in reading HSK stories from other sources).
Learn to Recognize Chinese Characters like People’s Faces
Native Chinese speakers will recognize characters as whole units rather than focusing on their individual components. As a student I was taught to look at the components to get a hint to the characters meaning. This is helpful at the very beginning, but not how native Chinese speakers look at characters. In a course I was taking, the teacher said to learn to recognize Chinese characters the same way you recognize people’s faces. Once I started doing this my reading skills improved dramatically.