So you want to learn Chinese?

Coming to Hong-Kong was for us the trigger to start learning Chinese. But where to start? How to choose our learning resources and which Chinese to learn? All questions for which we have had to make decisions. Here are the results of our brainstorming.

A brief introduction

Here is a list of online (websites, apps...) and tangible (books...) resources we're using on a regular basis. Some are free and others require payment before letting you use their full services.

These are all personal choices and in no way do I pretend to assemble a list of "best" sources for learning Mandarin. I am just merely compiling a list of what I have found useful for us. Of course, we have not tested everything there is on the market, but at some point, I found too many sources becomes cumbersome and defeats the original goal of making your learning easy and enjoyable.


Please note that we are in no way linked to these providers and are not gaining anything from them other than the services we receive as regular clients or users of their services. We chose those because after trying them out, we found they are effective and suit the type of learners in our home.

Which Chinese to learn?

 

The resources listed here are for Mandarin Chinese (Putonghua) and not Cantonese, which is the local language in Hong Kong.  The choice about which language to learn has not been an easy one, but several reasons led us to elect Mandarin over Cantonese:

- Mandarin is taught at their school and the children have 7 hours of lessons every week;
- Cantonese boasts a staggering 9 tones you need to master in order to learn this very tonal language, whereas Mandarin "only" requires 5;
- It is much easier to find resources to learn Mandarin than Cantonese in general;
- Mandarin is spoken by a wider number of people in China, although we have come to understand that accents and local dialects are so numerous that communication can be somewhat difficult throughout China even for native speakers;
- Given that we also want to learn how to write, the simplified system associated with Mandarin is easier to learn for foreigners than the traditional one (even though we do find the traditional one quite beautiful and it is the one used in Hong Kong).

Nonetheless, learning Mandarin  in Hong-Kong feels a bit like learning French while living in Spain!

Online resources

1. Before we even moved to Hong-Kong, we watched ShaoLan's TED talk and we learned our very first 8 Chinese characters, making our initial contact with this beautiful language an exciting and empowering experience.  Since then, we have been regular users (and shall we say it: fans) of ShaoLan's beautifully developed method called "Chineasy" and its associated website, Facebook pages (she has one for Chineasy and one for herself) and Tweeter account.

ShaoLan's TED talk

Chineasy website

2.  Also before moving to Hong-Kong, I downloaded and started using this application on my phone, I found it interesting because little by little, all the English is replaced by the Chinese as you learn it, making for a good revision process even tough as you learn  new vocabulary. I also found the voices very clear and easy to understand when using the different tones, a very challenging side of learning a tonal language.  To be quite honest, I have not gone to the end of the provided lessons yet, so I can only speak for the first sets of lessons.  I appreciate being able to use their website to download the vocabulary lists. Finally, I have once experienced a glitch with the program (which was due to my phone, not the app) and e-mailed them for help, which I have immediately received in a very friendly and efficient manner.
 
Chinese Learn Online (CLO)

3. The firsts weeks of Chinese lessons for the children were devoted to learning the different tones, and they were instructed to refer to this website to practise. It is very efficient and practical, although seems not to work on all platforms and OS.

Pearson Longman Mandarin Tones practice

4. When roaming around, I always find new characters that I want a translation for, so I searched for a dictionary. I found the perfect one for my needs: I wanted to be able to input both pinyin or characters, I wanted to be able to see both simplified and traditional versions of a character, I wanted to be able to listen to a correct tonal readout of the character, I wanted a correct translation of course, and this dictionary also provides lists of words and expressions where the researched character is used. On top of this, this dictionary is free under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Perfect!

CC-CEDICT dictionary

I am mainly using the free app version of this dictionary on my phone:

ktdict-c-e-chinese-english app in iTunes

5. The Yellowbridge website offers dictionary services as well as ethymology and many other perks, but I mainly use it to master the stroke order when learning a new character. The pronunciation sound byte is very clear as well. Last but not least, the list of provided radicals is very nice and easy to use.

Yellowbridge Chinese

6. Generate your own exercise sheets for character writing practice with this great website. It also shows strokes order and I use it quite often.

ArchChinese

7. When first wanting to learn about stroke order rules, I found this site useful and simple as an introduction to my learning.

Clearchinese - writing lesson

8. Wikipedia, a must when finding information online.

The Wikipedia page for stroke order is very explanatory:

 Wikipedia stroke order

And so is the general article about Chinese characters:

Wikipedia Chinese Character

Books

 

1. A friend recommended I buy this series of book, which come in 5 sets, as they are very popular with parents in Hong-Kong who want to teach their children without them feeling bored. It is based on traditional characters, which gives us an added benefit as we can now understand some of the signs around us. The teaching method is very well though, and although its repetitive system is aimed at small children, I found it is very helpful for me as well since it slowly introduces to sentence formation. There is systematically an English translation, which makes it easier to understand, especially when it comes to the numerous and diverse measure words that Chinese call for. Finally, each set of 5 little learning books comes with a small set of storybooks based on the taught characters, giving you an exhilarating sense of accomplishment when you have read and understood a complete story (OK, aimed at a 3 years old, but still!!!).
ISBN: 978-988-17005-9-9
 

Basic Chinese 500, by Lucia L. Lau - The Sage Foundation (first set and first book shown)

I have just discovered they also have an app on Apple Store, which I have not tested. However, since the books are quite difficult to obtain (I had to wait for over 5 weeks for my local bookstore to receive them as they were out of print they fly of the shelf so quickly), it might be a good alternative:

Basic Chinese Sage foundation app

 2. My better half has decided not to learn to write but concentrate on the spoken learning of Mandarin, so here is the book the teacher chose to that point. There still are some characters of course, but there is a lot of pinyin and most of the vocabulary one needs right away when working in mainland China. I am using it as a side-source for common phrases and general conversation quick fixes. "Short-Term Spoken English" is aimed at foreigners.

Short-Term Spoken Chinese - 2nd edition - Threshold vol.1

Beijing Language and Culture University Press

3. Still on spoken Mandarin, I wanted to have the correct pronunciation models to listen to, so after reviewing the options at my local library, I opted for the "Basic Spoken Chinese" by Cornelius C. Kubler from Tuttle Publishings, which is also aimed at foreigners. It comes with one DVD and one CD, respectively containing videos ad mp3 audio clips associated with each lesson in the book. It is made for students in a classroom environment, but I have found it clear enough to use on my own as an independent learner.

Basic Spoken Chinese, by Cornelius C. Kubler - Tuttle Publishing

Tuttle Publishing source

4. Even though I try to learn new characters from diverse sources (if only just by jotting them down on a notebook to look up later when I am walking in the city), I wanted a more structured method to practice writing, so I opted for this volume, also published by Tuttle: "250 Essential Chinese Characters", by Philip Yungkin Lee. I found to my surprise that I knew quite a number of them already when I started studying it. I'm looking forward to getting the second volume!

250 Essential Chinese Characters vol.1, Philip Yungkin Lee - Tuttle Publishing

Tuttle Publishing Source

That's it for now! I will keep updating this list as we go and our needs evolve.