I was tired of dictionary look ups and interrupting the flow when it came to unknown words - so I use Toku Reader (iOS or Android). I use it everyday to improve my Chinese as a heritage speaker living in the U.S.

Hello! I am a Chinese tutor and I need help for planning and arranging my lessons for written exams/dictation. I find that copying the vocabularies and being dictated over and over works best for me, but it is very boring for kids. I was wondering if you all have any advice for me? Thank you very much!

Did you ever notice how Mandarin often feels more vivid and imagery — in a different way — compared to English and Bahasa Melayu?

\- Angry → marah (BM) → 生气 (shēng qì) — literally "generating qi/energy", like building up pressure that's about to burst!

\- Sad → sedih (BM) → 伤心 (shāng xīn) — literally "a broken heart" 💔

\- Happy → gembira (BM) → 开心 (kāi xīn) — literally "opening your heart" 💛

English and Bahasa Melayu describe the feeling — Mandarin paints a whole picture of it! That's why it feels so much more "dramatic" and heartfelt.

Just a fun observation! What are some other Mandarin words that feel really expressive to you?

I want to learn Chinese as a fun way to exercise my brain but idk where to start what should I learn first and what resources can help me understand and practice effectively?

It starts from the very first lesson I have with my teacher, the word 妈 mā = mother and 马 mǎ = horse. I understand this, and then there are more difficult ones, different tones means something totally different.

I am a English speaker so that I rely heavily on the English pronunciation when reading Pinyin. While it is hard for me already when I have to read word by word in Pinyin, and I still need to look at the tones, makes my head hurts.. QQ

I love the games my teacher hosts but it is still very hard to follow. I know it takes time to revise and study but I am an adult and I learn a little slower than other people..

What should I do.. ? Some classmates recommend me to listen to Weather Reports as they are easier than News reports and there are more useful words.. some said watching dramas are more interesting but harder to learn as they are not "basic communications" anymore.

Do you guys have any tips?

Why do we always say "说说看" in everyday Chinese but never "说说听"? I mean, shouldn't we be using our ears to listen?

Do you want a Chinese friend?

Recently I've started learning Mandarin, it's been about a week since I started. My routine consists of at least 2+ hours of active/semi-active listening of native level podcasts per day, I rotate between 3, so I get variety and it helps with the sheer bulk of immersion. For my comprehension, I've been using anki with two decks, the first deck is with the 5000 most common words in Chinese. It plays the pronunciation of the word and then an example sentence and using that I figure out what the word is, I also added a text box to practice remembering the pinyin for each word(it DOES NOT affect grading) then after I flip the card to reveal the characters it's built of and the example sentence, with each NEW word I practice writing it a few times, and then for previously learned words when I flip the card I look at the character for a second then hide it and try to recall how to write the character once and then move to the next card. For the second deck, it's the same deck just flipped the layout, it shows me a word(just made of the character(s); no pinyin) and I have to try to read it getting the proper pinyin pronunciation and associated meaning. Doing this two decks format helps train my mind to isolate the words/pronunciation. Then finally I do a tone trainer for 30 minutes, to help me differentiate between tones. I intend to add reading at beginner level content eventually once my vocabulary is built enough to start. Also I'm on a silent period so that I don't build any bad habits when it comes to speaking before my brain understands the phonetics well enough. I decided to go with native level podcasts rather than beginner ones as it puts me right into the deep end of the language without watering it down or giving me a false sense of how it's used, I believe that is more beneficial in the long run despite how it may feel now, I understand the importance of comprehensible input which is where I tie my anki vocab in as it exposes me to the meanings where I will eventually start catching them in context of the podcasts. A few years ago I spent a few months doing a similar process for Japanese and despite the native level content, in that small time, I eventually started understanding more and more so I'm fairly confident with this method especially after spending a long time doing extensive research into immersion. Let me know what you think about my approach, I'm always open to feedback.

Heyy everyone! 👋😆

I’m a 17 y/o student from Malaysia 🇲🇾 and I’m currently looking for people who wanna learn some Mandarin!
I use Mandarin pretty much every day, so if you’re a total beginner or you just wanna get better at speaking Chinese, I got you ！

We can learn stuff like:
🗣️ Basic conversations & speaking
🔤 Pinyin + pronunciation
📚 Everyday words & phrases
💬 How to actually talk to Chinese people IRL
👧 Fun & simple Chinese for kids

And don’t worry, I’m not gonna hit you with a whole textbook and make you memorise 100 words in one lesson 😭

I’m pretty chill with the lessons — we can learn whatever you’re actually interested in, whether it’s travelling, daily conversations, chatting with friends, or just wanting to understand Chinese better.
If you’re interested, just DM me! We can chat first, no pressure at all :) 🫶

According to a dictionary compilation of about 4,600 Chinese idioms (成语 chéngyǔ) with identifiable sources, the approximate origins are:

Ancient China → Qin & Han (before 220 AD) 68%

Wei, Jin & Northern/Southern Dynasties (220–589) 15%

Sui & Tang (581–907) 9%

Song Dynasty (960–1279) 6%

Yuan, Ming & Qing (1271–1912) 2%

Even as a native Chinese speaker, I was surprised to learn that nearly two-thirds of these idioms can be traced back to more than 2,000 years ago. I had originally thought there would be more Chiense idioms from the Tang and Song dynasties, but in fact, they account for only 15 percent.

Context, I've been with my Malaysian Chinese gf for 8 years, her family have taught me quite a lot, and lived with her family for about half of that. I have a 600 day streak on Duolingo and have paid for several online courses for learning mandarin.

Still after all this experience I am unable to understand conversation fully, only infer what they are saying through hearing words like "mai买" "mifan米饭" or just "fan" which prompts me to ask if her mom is buying rice.

I honestly try really hard, and then see people who pick up the language in under a year without all the opportunity and resources they have.

Am I doing it wrong? Am I just stupid? Or is there a guaranteed way to make progressive learning that sticks?

Thank you for reading this novel guys, I just wanna make my wonderful mother in law proud.

。。。因建议ChatGPT的新用途-了解您的孩子-而遭到网友的冷嘲热讽。

i think its quite useful to know this idiom, not sure if its a chengyu though.