When learning to pronounce tones in Chinese, it makes sense to focus on words rather than single syllables. Most words in Chinese are disyllabic and since practising these will also include to tone... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

This article describes the basics of way to teach tones that is different from the traditional way mainly in that the third tone is no longer described as a falling-rising tone (since that is rarel... Read more.

sinosplice.com

The third tone is an essentially low tone. The only time it's pronounced with a high element is in front of another third tone (when it turns into a second tone) and when in complete isolation (whi... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

When it comes to learning to understand spoken Chinese, there are few shortcuts. The more you listen, the more you will understand. But how can we fit more listening into our lives without cutting ... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

This is the second and final article about using phonetic components to hack Chinese characters and make it considerably easier to handle similarly looking characters. This article describes both t... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

Writing Chinese characters for the first time can be very hard, mostly because it's so different from writing letters. It feels more like drawing a picture than writing! This article is aimed at be... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

Audacity is a marvellous piece of software that allows you to record audio (yourself, other people or whatever is playing on your computer), mimic native speakers, edit and enhance the audio, as we... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

You don't have to go abroad to learn Chinese. The main difference between staying at home and going abroad is that it requires less effort to learn once you're there (although it still requires qui... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

Many people regard chengyu as the golden key to the Chinese language and believe that learning chengyu will impress native speakers and take their Chinese to the next level. However, learning cheng... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

80% of all Chinese characters are made up of one semantic component (meaning) and one phonetic component (pronunciation). The sheer number of characters formed this way means that these characters ... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

This is Hugh Grigg's site about his East Asia studies (as the title implies). Even though the site is about all East Asia, I think most posts are still about Chinese in some way, including a large ... Read more.

eastasiastudent.net

This is the best overview of spaced repetition research I have seen online or offline. It's thorough, well-argued and probably covers more than you were looking for. It's not specifically about Chi... Read more.

gwern.net

Outlier Linguistics hosts an excellent blog with a large number of insightful articles into Chinese characters. Some of them are directly useful because they talk about learning characters, others ... Read more.

outlier-linguistics.com

This is an article by David Moser about the incredible changes the digital age has brought to learners of Chinese all over the world. After providing a background for those who started learning Chi... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

Tones are more important than most people think. Just because native speakers reduce tones and speak quickly, it doesn't mean that you can do the same and get away with it. Don't be fooled by peopl... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

My article about various common problems students have with Pinyin. These problems mostly exist because people read Pinyin as if it were a phonetic alphabet instead of a transcription system. Read more.

hackingchinese.com

This article is a guide to reading comics in Chinese, suitable for beginners as well as those who already have some experience. Reading comics is an excellent way of attacking the Great Wall of Chi... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

Chinese Hacks is run by Dave Flynn and might look similar to Hacking Chinese at first glance, but actually isn't. Most of the articles on Chinese Hacks are about software, apps or other tools for l... Read more.

chinesehacks.com

Ideally, we would study Chinese just because we want to and in any manner we see fit, but this isn't how it works for most students. Instead, we need to care about tests and grades, an extra layer ... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

Many students of Chinese think that it's hard to bridge the gap from textbook Chinese to the Chinese used by native speakers in the real world. This article contains useful insights and hands-on ad... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

This is a simple and straightforward explanation of Chinese phonetics. I recommend it because it's not very complicated and (mostly) correct. I will try to write something myself later, but in the ... Read more.

zein.se

Language Log is an excellent blog where ~20 authors share their thoughts about languages and related topics. While the other authors also post interesting articles, I have chosen to link directly t... Read more.

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu

Evaluating pronunciation needn't be hard, but many methods commonly used by teachers are deeply flawed, resulting in inaccurate error analysis. If we want to improve, we need to be clear about what... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

John Pasden has over ten years of experience teaching Chinese language, and a particular awareness of phonetic difficulties. This page gathers a number of posts on his website sinosplice about pron... Read more.

sinosplice.com

Laowai Chinese doesn't update often, but when it does, it's usually worth reading. The blog is about anything related to Chinese and China, but I find posts about vocabulary, grammar and culture th... Read more.

laowaichinese.net

This is a blog about Chinese language and culture run by Lewis Tatt. It's been online for several years, but I only noticed it recently. It hosts a large number of interesting articles, often focus... Read more.

themandarincornerblog.com

This is a Q&A page where teachers answer questions about Mandarin, mainly vocabulary use and grammar, but sometimes other questions as well. It's mostly useful because of the wealth of information ... Read more.

hwjyw.com

This is a very large list of traditional characters with multiple pronunciations in the form of an Excel file (the other two files are announcements about the list in Chinese). The first sheet just... Read more.

word.hlc.edu.tw

This newly launched site offers basic information about pronunciation, mostly things that should be in all beginner courses and textbooks but seldom are. Currently, the content is fairly limited, b... Read more.

resources.allsetlearning.com

DigMandarin offer several interesting resources for free. The blog is a mix of directly useful resources, such as vocabulary for certain situations, and information/inspiration on learning Mandarin... Read more.

digmandarin.com

We all experience slumps in our learning, but there are many thing we can do to reduce the negative effects of these slumps. The solution is three-fold: Preparing for the slump before it hits you, ... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

HiNative is a Q&A site where you can ask people all over the world about culture, language, anything. We support over 100 languages. Read more.

hinative.com

Duanmu San's "The Phonology of Standard Chinese" is by far the best introduction to Mandarin phonology that I'm aware of. It's mostly useful for people who like phonology or are already at an advan... Read more.

hackingchinese.com

Serge Gorodish describes himself as "Mathematician, father, programmer, amateur linguist, cynic/idealist, and all-around nice guy" and has found a way to split pinyin syllables in components, which... Read more.

countryoftheblind.blogspot.de

This blog-post offers an introduction to the concept of coloured tones in Chinese learning software. Where do the colours come from? Why were they chosen? And what colours should you choose for you... Read more.

laowaichinese.net

A blog written and managed by an advanced Chinese featuring reviews of books, TV dramas and games. Additionally, the blog also features recommendations for utilising media in Chinese language learn... Read more.

thecozystudy.com

This is a unique resource that shows how most common speech sounds are actually produced. Most other resources use animations and diagrams, but this is the frist I see which show actual MRI scans. ... Read more.

seeingspeech.ac.uk

This list contains syllable frequency, listing each syllable, with Pinyin and Zhuyin, as well as a sample character. It’s not sorted in order of frequency, but the frequency data is there. Also, pl... Read more.

technology.chtsai.org

All the information you need to know in order to be able to teach yourself Mandarin from scratch with several resources. Read more.

teachyourselfmandarin.wordpress.com

This blog provides in-depth explanations of some grammar and vocabulary topics in Mandarin Chinese. While there aren't a huge number of articles so far, there are enough to issue a general recommen... Read more.

mandarinfriend.wordpress.com

This page lists variant pronunciations and their standard readings in Mandarin Chinese (Mainland Standard). It does not list characters that have different readings based on different meanings, so ... Read more.

baike.baidu.com

I find it very hard to classify this blog because it contains a little bit of everything. This is how Sara's describes her own blog: "Finnish girl living in China offering advice for life, love ... Read more.

sarajaaksola.com