The scope of most articles on this website reaches far beyond the Chinese language. They deal with strategies for language learning, or indeed other things connected to learning in general, such as planning, psychology and productivity. However, the website is still called Hacking Chinese and everything I write is related to learning Chinese in some way. This category is for articles dealing with topics that are distinctively Chinese. It might be about learning characters, tones or dealing with Chinese dialects, but all articles below contain information, tips or tricks regarding the Chinese language itself. Here are some examples:
How difficult is Chinese?
Many people have asked this question and many have tried to give an answer. Depending on the angle of approach, I think that it can either be argued both that Chinese is fairly easy and that it’s really hard. These articles are somewhat contradictiory, so I leave it to you to form your own opinion of the difficulty level of learning Chinese. The most important thing is that Chinese is not impossible to learn. It’s only weird, stupid and difficult if you regard it as such. A positive attitude will take you a long way.
Are there any special tricks for learning Chinese compared to other languages?
Yes, there are, and this is partly the reason why I think Chinese isn’t as hard as all that. The most important thing to realise when studying Chinese is that all words consist of characters and that characters typically consist of several components. In the short term, it will take you longer to learn each word if you also learn the individual characters, and likewise it will take you longer to learn the characters if you have to learn the components as well.
In the long term, however, all time spent on learning individual characters and their components will pay of handsomely. Since learning Chinese is definitely a long-term project, I strongly suggest that you start expanding your knowledge of the building blocks of the Chinese language. This knowledge is essential, regardless if you’re learning simplified or traditional Chinese (or both).
What about pronunciation?
Chinese pronunciation is perhaps the most difficult part for most learners. Mastering the tones is difficult and there are many sounds in Chinese that doesn’t exist in English. My best advice on this front is to be diligent from the very start (see my beginner tips here). You should avoid perfectionism in general, but pronunciation is an exceptions. Tones doubly so.
Here are some more articles dealing with topics that are distinctively Chinese:
- Student Q&A, December 2024: Learning similar Chinese characters, polyphonic characters, and flashcards vs. reading for building vocabulary
- How to learn Zhuyin (Bopomofo) in two hours
- Do you really know how to count in Chinese?
- Three things I wish I had known as an advanced student of Chinese: The time machine, part 3
- Three things I wish I had known as an intermediate student of Chinese: The time machine, part 2
- Three things I wish I had known as a beginner student of Chinese: The time machine, part 1
- Insights from my recent trip to China: The importance of top-down listening
- Chinese character variants and font differences for language learners
- Should you learn the pronunciation of radicals?
- Student Q&A, June 2024: How much time on flashcards, Remembering the Hanzi, and resources for learning characters
- Chinese character learning for all students
- Learning to hear the sounds and tones in Mandarin
- 24 great resources for improving your Mandarin pronunciation
- Beyond tīng bu dǒng, part 6: Why is listening in Chinese so hard?
- Chengyu, a magic key to Chinese language and culture, or a waste of time?
- Interview: Insights from Skritter’s Complete Guide to Learning Chinese
- The best podcasts for learning Chinese in 2024
- Student Q&A, March 2024: Reading aloud, finding word boundaries, and working actively with reading materials
- Outlier Chinese Character Masterclass review: Understand more, learn faster, remember longer
- The Hacking Chinese guide to Mandarin tones
- Student Q&A, December 2023: How many words to learn, if it’s good to learn radicals, and whether to learn simplified or traditional characters
- The 10 best free Chinese reading resources for beginner, intermediate and advanced learners
- Shapeshifting Chinese characters
- 100 hours of Chinese listening in 3 weeks: What I learnt and how to apply it
- How long do you have to study Chinese to make it useful?
- Is Chinese difficult to learn?
- Insights from the new HSK 7-9: Interview with Sara Jaaksola
- Skritter review: Boosting your Chinese character learning
- Learn Chinese by playing Mahjong (麻将, májiàng)
- Can ChatGPT pass the HSK?
- Using the HSK as a roadmap to learning Chinese
- Standard pronunciation in Chinese and why you want it
- Learning the neutral tone in Mandarin
- Kickstart your learning with the Skritter Character Course
- Hacking Chinese Podcast two-year anniversary Q&A
- How to learn Chinese characters as a beginner
- 7 ways to write Mandarin tones
- Do you have to learn to write Chinese characters by hand?
- Are authentic texts good for learning Chinese or is graded content better?
- How to learn Chinese pronunciation as a beginner
- Learning Classical Chinese is for everyone (no, seriously!)
- A guide to Pinyin traps and pitfalls: Learning Mandarin pronunciation
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 6: Learning and remembering compound words
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 5: Making sense of Chinese words
- Why spaced repetition software is uniquely well suited to learning Chinese characters
- 6 challenges students face when learning to read Chinese and how to overcome them
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 4: Learning and remembering compound characters
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 3: Compound characters
- A smart method to discover problems with Mandarin sounds and tones
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 2: Basic characters, components and radicals
- The building blocks of Chinese, part 1: Chinese characters and words in a nutshell
- Chinese language learning in the twenty-first century: Towards a digital ecosystem? Interview with Julien Leyre
- The new HSK 3.0: What you need to know
- Learning to understand regionally accented Mandarin
- The importance of tones is inversely proportional to the predictability of what you say
- Lost in transcription: Saylaw, Ice Island and Aristotle
- What’s the difference between Chinese pronunciation and Pinyin? Does it matter?
- Learning the second tone in Mandarin Chinese
- Chinese input methods: A guide for second language learners
- 6 things in Chinese that are harder to learn than they seem
- Learning science in Chinese with 李永乐老师
- My best advice on how to learn Chinese characters
- Learning the third tone in Mandarin Chinese
- The most serious mistake students make when learning Mandarin pronunciation
- 9 answers to questions about Pinyin and pronunciation
- Are simplified characters really simpler to learn?
- 7 mistakes I made when writing Chinese characters and what I learnt from them
- Should you learn the names of the strokes in Chinese characters?
- How to not teach Chinese characters to beginners: A 12-step approach
- The key to unlocking your first semester of Chinese
- Review: The Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters
- All the resources you need to learn and teach Chinese stroke order
- Should you learn to speak Chinese before you learn Chinese characters?
- Chinese is fascinating and exciting, not weird and stupid
- Dealing with Chinese characters you keep mixing up
- 5 levels of understanding Chinese characters: Superficial forms to deep structure
- Does using colour to represent Mandarin tones make them easier to learn?
- How to look up Chinese characters you don’t know
- Two types of pronunciation problems and what to do about them
- 101 questions and answers about how to learn Chinese
- How good is voice recognition for learning Chinese pronunciation?
- Using speech recognition to improve Chinese pronunciation, part 1
- Tone errors in Mandarin that actually can cause misunderstandings
- Free and easy audio flashcards for Chinese dictation practice with Anki
- Review: Language Empowerment: Demystify Chinese culture and fire up your Mandarin + interview with the author
- 36 samples of Chinese handwriting from students and native speakers
- How to improve your Chinese handwriting
- Focusing on Chinese tones without being distracted by Pinyin
- How to become a Chinese-English translator and what it’s like to be one
- Obligatory and optional tone change rules in Mandarin
- Expanding your Chinese with 一步一个脚印
- Learning to read handwritten Chinese
- Accessing Chinese culture through cartoons
- The best Twitter feeds for learning Chinese in 2016
- How technology can help you learn Chinese
- Chinese characters that share the same components but are still different
- Learn Chinese character meaning and pronunciation together
- Learning tones in Mandarin is not optional
- The Hacking Chinese free tone training course
- How to verify that you use the right Chinese font
- Learning to pronounce Mandarin with Pinyin, Zhuyin and IPA: Part 3
- The real challenge with learning Chinese characters
- Can native speakers be wrong about Chinese grammar and pronunciation?
- Learning Chinese characters through pictures
- Panning: How to keep similar Chinese characters and words separate
- Zooming out: The resources you need to put Chinese in context
- Zooming in: The tools you need to break down and understand Chinese
- Chinese listening practice with 锵锵三人行
- What you intend to write is more important than the character you actually write
- How to find a suitable Chinese name
- Focus on initials and finals, not Pinyin spelling
- Why you should think of characters in terms of functional components
- Learning to write Chinese characters through communication
- 7 ways of learning to write Chinese characters
- How to Approach Chinese Grammar
- Handwriting Chinese characters: The minimum requirements
- Learn to read Chinese… with ease?
- Sensible Chinese character learning revisited
- Asking the experts: How to learn Chinese grammar
- Focusing on tone pairs to improve your Mandarin pronunciation
- A language learner’s guide to wuxia novels
- Wuxia, a key to Chinese language and culture
- 25 books I’ve read in Chinese, with reviews and difficulty ratings
- Learning to read aloud in Chinese
- 5 websites to help answer your questions about Chinese
- Reading aloud in Chinese is really hard
- Phonetic components, part 2: Hacking Chinese characters
- Phonetic components, part 1: The key to 80% of all Chinese characters
- Dealing with near-synonyms in Chinese as an independent learner
- 21 essential dictionaries and corpora for learning Chinese
- Horizontal vocabulary learning in Chinese
- Don’t use mnemonics for everything
- How to create mnemonics for general or abstract character components
- Sensible character learning: Progress, reminders and reflections
- Towards a more sensible way of learning to write Chinese
- You can’t learn Chinese characters by rote
- Extending mnemonics: Tones and pronunciation
- Kickstart your Chinese character learning with the 100 most common radicals
- Review: The Phonology of Standard Chinese
- Learning simplified and traditional Chinese
- Learning Chinese is easier than you think