Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles tagged with ‘Podcast episode’ Page 18

  1. How I learnt Chinese, part 6: Graduate program in Taiwan

    We can still make progress, of course, and if we enjoy it, we can also achieve a lot. But it's not easy.

    I’ve spent two years in a master’s program for teaching Chinese as a second language, designed for native speakers and taught in Chinese. Here’s what I learnt from the experience!

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  2. How I learnt Chinese, part 5: Returning to Sweden

    Excursion with Taiwanese exchange students

    In this fifth part of the story of how I learnt Chinese I write about the two years I spent in Sweden after returning from Taiwan. I learnt on my own, through online course and by hanging out with exchange students.

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  3. How I learnt Chinese, part 1: Where it all started

    This is the first part in a series of articles about how I learnt Chinese. It covers the very beginning, why I became interested in learning Chinese and how that transformed into an opportunity to actually learn.

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  4. Which words you should learn and where to find them

    When learning a language, it’s important to know many words, but it’s also important that you learn the right words. How do you know which words to learn? Where should you find those words? And how much can you express using the ten hundred most common words?

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  5. Learning to pronounce Mandarin with Pinyin, Zhuyin and IPA: Part 2

    Which transcription system should you use for Mandarin Chinese: Pinyin, Zhuyin or perhaps IPA? Which system you start out with isn’t extremely important, but if you care about pronunciation, it certainly helps to learn more than one system. In this article, I discuss the pros and cons of all three systems and offer some advice about learning pronunciation.

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  6. Learning to pronounce Mandarin with Pinyin, Zhuyin and IPA: Part 1

    Learning to pronounce Mandarin involves several steps. You need to first discriminate between and then identify the sounds, but you also need to be able to write them down and also be able to read how words are pronounced. In this article, I discuss this process and how you should go about it. It also contains advice for what to avoid!

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  7. How translation to another language can help you learn Chinese

    Have you tried translating Chinese to your native language as learning method? You should; it has more benefits than you might realise!

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  8. Two reasons why pronunciation matters more than you think

    Good pronunciation matters, whether you like it or not. In general, students (and teachers) tend to stop caring about pronunciation much earlier than they should. You don’t need to aim for native-like pronunciation, but clear and easily-understood Chinese should be the goal of all students. In this article I present two arguments: one about the fact that pronunciation and communication are closely linked, one about how pronunciation reflects both you as a person and your other skills.

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  9. How to find more time to practise Chinese listening

    Listening is probably the most important skill when learning Chinese, and the more you practise, the better. In order to listen as much as you should, you need to stop thinking about listening as a study activity and start thinking about it as a part of life!

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