Articles in the ‘Beginner’ category Page 26
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Review: Mandarin Companion graded readers (Level 1)
Graded readers are an important step on your journey to becoming literate in Chinese. In this article, I review five books in the Mandarin Companion series, level 1, which uses only 300 unique characters. These books are useful for both beginners (extra reading) and intermediate learners (extensive reading).
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The best Twitter feeds for learning Chinese in 2015
Who should you follow on Twitter if you want to learn Chinese? There’s an increasing number of people who tweet excellent language content within the 140 character limit, often with pictures. This article contains a list of the 9 best ones, including a short intro and examples of what they tweet.
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Will a Chinese-only rule improve your learning?
Is a Chinese-only rule good for learning? Most people agree that immersion is a good thing, but that’s not the same as saying that using no English is good
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Using Chinese textbooks to improve reading ability
Textbooks are underrated as a source of reading material for beginners and intermediate students. By using more than one textbook series, you reap the benefits of using textbooks, while avoiding the main drawback, the lack of diversity. This article discusses how and why textbooks are important for most learners of Chinese.
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How to adjust your Chinese listening to the right level
Listening to enough Chinese is difficult because it’s hard to find and manage the right amount of audio. One of the key points to success is to make sure you have enough easy audio available. This article discusses the importance of adjusting your audio to your current state of mind.
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Three steps to more and better Chinese listening practice
Learning to understand spoken Chinese takes time. This article looks at three strategies for better Chinese listening practice for long-term learning.
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What you intend to write is more important than the character you actually write
Why is focusing on intent important when learning to write Chinese characters? What you intend to write is more important than what you actually write.
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How to find a suitable Chinese name
Finding a good Chinese name can be hard. If you care about your name, you should make an effort to find a good one.
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Focus on initials and finals, not Pinyin spelling
Instead of worrying too much about Pinyin spelling and what sounds each letter represents, students of Mandarin should zoom out a bit and focus on initials and finals as whole units. There are only around 60 of them and focusing on them will pay off handsomely.
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How knowing your best performance in Chinese can help you improve
When learning Chinese, it’s important to know how good your best performance is, because this determines the way you study. If your best performance is good enough, you mostly need high-volume practice, more of the same will get you there. But if your best performance isn’t good enough, you need to change tactics and go for high-quality practice instead.
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