Why wont this site in the year 2026 wont let us download the pdf version of the report, Im tweaking for this reason.

While browsing through the community, I noticed that everyone really likes to learn through the meanings and 'backstories' of words. This has given me two questions:

First, if you learn vocabulary strictly by their definitions, does that cause confusion when you encounter similar words—like mixing up '制定' (formulate) and '制订' (draw up), or '截止' (deadline) and '截至' (up to)? Does this method make your progress slower? And as your vocabulary grows, does it become a hassle to recall the 'backstory' and meaning of every single word every time you review?

Second, this hyper-focus on nuances can be maddening. Take distinguishing individual characters like '已' (already) and '己' (self), or '冼' (wash) and '洗' (wash)—it's easy to reach a breaking point. Since you can't always rely on stories or meanings to tell them apart, how do you remember these individual characters?

This is just a clumsy question from a 20-year-old Chinese student. I don't mean to dismiss anyone's hard work and enthusiasm for learning. I apologize if I've caused any offense.

I took the HSK3 exam yesterday and had an interesting observation about the transition between HSK3 and HSK4.

For context, I’ve been developing and refining a structured learning progression while studying, and this exam ended up being a really interesting stress test for how that progression system is working so far.

Overall the test felt good. I usually finished sections with a couple minutes to spare and had time to check my answers. Listening actually felt easier than reading with this leraning system.

The reading section and the sentence-pairing questions were the most challenging. Some sentences I could process in chunks of meaning, while others I still had to read word by word and then piece the meaning together afterwards. It felt like I’m right in the middle of that HSK3 to HSK4 transition where you stop translating and start recognizing sentence patterns.

Vocabulary recognition was strong (probably around 95% of the words on screen), so even when I didn’t recognize a specific character I could usually infer the meaning from the surrounding words.

The most interesting moment during the exam was when a few sentence pattern clicked and the meaning appeared almost immediately in my head along with a mental image of the situation. That felt very different from earlier stages where everything had to be translated piece by piece.

The biggest weaknesses I noticed are still reading smoothly and using more nuanced words naturally during the speaking/writing portions of the HSKK. I will get to work on refining those for the HSK 4 progression and up.

The big thing that surprised me was how long the exam actually feels, 80 questions for the HSK and 30 for the HSKK requires a lot more sustained focus than I expected.

As I start refining the structured progression system toward the next stage of HSK4, the main focus will be strengthening the transition from word recognition to sentence-level chunking, especially in reading and speaking.

I was curious if anyone who has already gone through the HSK3 to HSK4 transition either agrees or noticed anything else that becomes important at this stage that I should consider while refining this next part of the progression system.

Hi all, I am looking for good recommendations to learn Hanzi for an absolute beginner.

For context, I recently started going to Chinese lessons on the Confucius Institute, however, they told us that the focus will not be on learning Hanzi, but on communicating.

In parallel, I am using Hello Chinese Premium subscription - but character learning is not included in Premium, but only in Premium+, which I can't afford.

Pleco is very useful as reference, but I feel I need practice writing so I can remember.

Any good tips for how to practice? Should I just make a list of characters and write one by one many times and try to memorize meaning? Is there a better way to do this?

I found this channel, Sensoba Chinese, that is posting comprehensible input. She speaks VERY slowly and VERY clearly, and for anyone that is just starting she is AMAZING. All other input videos feel soooo fast but her videos are so so helpful.

I am not affiliated with her in anyway I just wanted to let others know because her channel is so small but she’s so good!

The average phonetic-semantic pair character is conceptually pretty simple - you have a word that already has a sound, you pick an arbitrary phonetic to match that, and then you pick some semantic part to suggest meaning.

However, there are some characters where it seems (at least to me) clear that the word started out as one character and then the meaning was expanded to something slightly different and people were like "whatever just slap another radical on it and that's how you write it" but since it's the same word to begin with the pronunciation stays the same, ultimately making a character where both parts are semantic and one of those parts is also simultaneously technically phonetic.

Two examples off the top of my head:

黑 and 墨: The former originally was a picture of tattooed criminals with the meaning morphing into black and then the ink sense spun off by addition of 土, former phonetic of the latter

扇 and 煽: Literally a fan vs. to literally or metaphorically fan flames, former phonetic of the latter

Basically looking for a literal word or phrase, English or Chinese or whatever, used to describe this phenomenon / way of making characters. Thank you in advance!

(EDIT: It's 食飯 not 吃饭, I have mistyped).

I have a Hakka relative (probably from Fengshun or something) and pronounces 食飯 as "sit pau" whereas my relative from Meixian apparently says "sek fan". There seems to be more dialects that pronounce 食飯 differently so I was wondering, Which dialects say "sit pau" and which say "sek fan"?

Basically, anytime I come across a new character I have to copy it on my phone, paste it onto a website to figure out whether it even means, then try to memorize the pinyin and stroke order… but then I just give up and don’t really have a system to actually retaining these characters.. anyone know what I could do to not make this a mission to gain more characters?

Or should I just stick to what I’m doing which is Skritter app to learn HSK 4-6 for my next level up?

Also I suck at speaking because I can’t make mandarin my main language just yet.. or ever lol

I’m a Chinese teacher, and I’ve noticed an interesting pattern.

Sometimes I take on a few students for free. But compared with my paying students, the free students are actually more likely to cancel lessons and often seem less motivated.

Later I reflected on it and realized that charging for lessons might actually make both the student and the teacher take things more seriously. When students pay for something, they naturally expect value in return, and that seems to increase their commitment.

I’m curious if other teachers have experienced something similar. Do you think people value things more when they pay for them?🤔

Update:

Thanks everyone for the interest! I’ve decided to stop offering free lessons for now, as they ended up taking quite a lot of my time and energy.

However, I still offer regular Chinese lessons at a reasonable price（focus a lot on speaking practice and real communication）If you’re interested in learning Chinese, feel free to message me

Hello all, I’ll first give context, then the question

CONTEXT: I am currently learning Chinese (immersion with classes every day). I am learning a lot of new words every day (via handwriting, anki, and sentences). A lot of these words come from words I encounter that I deem high enough frequency to justify reviewing, but some of these do just come from HSK and “top 2000” most used list.

PROBLEM: recently, with some words I often switch the character order （同时 vs 时同） when trying to speak. I have plenty of correction from my teacher, and I don’t want to decrease my current review/input rate (close to 30 words a day in anki) because I have plenty of time to review, BUT:

I am concerned that I may be learning “too quick” and therefore potentially building bad habits and/or creating poor “pathways” in my brain for word recall.

Is this normal? Am I risking creating “bad neural pathways” (my pseudo-science term)?

* I am cross posting to because this question may also have answers in a general language learning sense.

Hi,

I am a big fan of chinese dramas. I has been watching pursuit of jade fervently but while I can pick up a word here and there, its very difficult to be able to follow. What are the resources that would be good for this.

Follow up question. Is it Chinese or Mandarin that they tend to use for those shows.

Hi, many years ago I studied Mandarin Chinese, and I'd like to get back to it, and take it a bit more seriously. Does anyone know of any websites or Discord channels that have character guides, videos, etc.?

Hola, hace muchos años estudié el básico uno de chino mandarín, me gustaría volver a ello, y un poco más serio. Alguien sabe que página o canales de discord que tengan guías de carácteres, o vídeos, etc. Les agradecería si supieran de algo;)

All apps are paywalled and overpriced, and I only want to buy premium for 1.

So what would be be the best all in 1 app if you had to pick? (I'm already using Anki)

hello! i recently realized that i don't know nearly as many words in mandarin as i should, and i've been itching to remedy that. are there any sites/resources that i can use to learn vocabulary?

Hello everyone!

I want to learn Chinese.

My native language is Arabic and I'm fluent in English. I really want to learn Chinese because I'm planning on doing my master's in China by the end of next year or the following year depending if I'll do a double major or not in engineering.

I don't know where to start. I have zero knowledge when it comes to the Chinese language. I'll order the HSK textbooks 1 to 3 with the workbooks hopefully next week. Right now I want to make a solid plan at least until I receive the HSK books.

But where do I start as a complete beginner? How do I approach it? Are there good online resources for learning Chinese from scratch? I saw a lot of people use an AI voice chat to help them with the speaking part but I'm not sure where to start. What should I focus on when I start my learning journey?

If you don't mind, tell me about your journey.

I would really appreciate any advice related to the learning like resources or tips or the learning journey.

Thanks.

Note: I'm planning on doing my master's in English but learning Chinese is something I wanted to do for a long time and it's really important to me.

In a previous post, I mentioned that sometimes I offer free Chinese lessons.

But I noticed something interesting: people usually don’t value free things as much. Those free students are actually more likely to cancel lessons and often seem less motivated than my paying students.

After thinking about it more, I realized the issue might not be “free” itself, but the format.

So recently I’ve been considering another idea: free public livestream Chinese sessions.

The idea would be very simple and spontaneous. No scheduling in advance, so there’s no issue with people canceling. If someone happens to see the livestream and wants to practice Chinese, they can just join.

It also feels more open and fair. Meanwhile, students who want structured learning or personal feedback could still book paid lessons.

Do you think this kind of model would work?

And if I decide to try it, are there any platforms you’d recommend for this kind of livestream?

Hey everyone,

We wanted to give you a heads-up about some changes to . To keep the app sustainable, we’ve had to remove a few features, like exercises, AI chat, and content recommendations. The website functionality has also been discontinued. For context, you can find some previous posts about Langtern and .

The good news: you no longer need an account or login to use Langtern. Just open the app and start learning.

The core tools that help you learn from real content are still here and fully supported:

• Dictionary

• In-app browser with pop-up dictionary

• Media player for local files with pop-up dictionary

• Document reader with pop-up dictionary

• Flashcards

• Integration with Pleco and Anki

Langtern is still available for / and , and also as a that provides the pop-up dictionary for Youtube and text on websites.

Huge thanks to everyone who’s used Langtern, shared feedback, or just enjoyed learning with us. Your support means a lot 💛

I want to know of there are any sites like that outside of chinese internet so that I can study in my own time when I dont have lessons. I know mangadex sometimes has chinese translations but not for the mangas I read

Hello guys! As a native speaker interested in “Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language”, I wonder how you guys judge the difficulty of Chinese grammar.

I've read several Chinese grammar books, each of them shows a (somewhat varying) complex grammar system, full of tedious subtleties, which shocked me a lot. I've also read many papers discussing “abnormal” grammatical phenomenons, where scholars try to use advanced and fancy theories to explain them. All of those give me an impression that Chinese grammar is way difficult.

However, on Chinese Internet, lots of netizens may say, look, Chinese grammar is not complicated at all! Most of foreigners think so!

So I want to ask: Do you guys really think so?

I’m aware I’m still super new to the language and not even HSK2 yet (working my way up though), but I just wanted to say it feels so rewarding to me the way Mandarin is structured. I love how everything kinda builds off of one another. Like how words are often compounds of two characters without any kinda conjugation or anything, so I can sometimes guess their meaning if i just know the two characters or I learn new characters just from one word. Also hanzi itself is beautiful, and it feels like it both helps me remember words and I feel accomplished when learning them. Also that radicals make them build kinda off each other too. Also although tones can be difficult when speaking fast I love how the syllables are only about 400 + tones.😋Sorry if this doesn’t fit the sub I just wanted to share my joy

Hey everyone! 马年快乐!

If you hang out on the Chinese internet regularly, you've probably noticed that netizens love labeling all kinds of frustrating behaviors. Today I'm going to introduce four frequently used terms to help you accurately describe those annoying characters.

懂王 dǒng wáng, literally means "King of Understanding", but it's actually sarcastic, referring to people who think they know everything and must share their opinions on any topic, when in fact they're often wrong or superficial. And the person who made the "懂王" label widely known? Trump lol.

• 你能别装懂王了吗？这又不是你的专业领域。Nǐ néng bié zhuāng dǒng wáng le ma? Zhè yòu bú shì nǐ de zhuān yè lǐng yù.

  • Can you stop pretending to be a know-it-all? This isn't even your area of expertise.

• 这里的出租车司机都是懂王，千万别跟他们聊天。Zhè lǐ de chū zū chē sī jī dōu shì dǒng wáng, qiān wàn bié gēn tā men liáo tiān.

  • The taxi drivers here are all know-it-alls, whatever you do, don't chat with them.

• 他可真是个懂王，什么话题都能聊几个小时。Tā kě zhēn shì gè dǒng wáng, shén me huà tí dōu néng liáo jǐ gè xiǎo shí.

  • He's really a know-it-all, he can talk about any topic for hours.

巨婴 jù yīng, literally means "Giant Baby", referring to adults who are mentally immature, self-centered, and lack responsibility—like babies who never grew up in any way except physically. Pretty vivid, right?

• 这么大了还要别人帮忙洗衣服，真是个巨婴。Zhè me dà le hái yào bié rén bāng máng xǐ yī fu, zhēn shì gè jù yīng.

  • At this age and still needs someone to help with laundry, what an adult baby.

• 谁愿意和巨婴谈恋爱啊？我又不想给人当妈。Shuí yuàn yì hé jù yīng tán liàn ài a? Wǒ yòu bù xiǎng gěi rén dāng mā.

  • Who wants to date an adult baby? I don't want to be someone's mom.

• 隔壁组那个巨婴又去找经理告状了，真烦！Gé bì zǔ nà gè jù yīng yòu qù zhǎo jīng lǐ gào zhuàng le, zhēn fán!

  • That adult baby from the next team went to complain to the manager again—so annoying!

二极管 èr jí guǎn, originally means "Diode", and because "二极" means "bi-pole", it's now used as a metaphor to mock people with extreme, black-and-white thinking. In their eyes, things are only completely right or completely wrong, they never consider any middle ground.

• 我把评论区里那些二极管都拉黑了！Wǒ bǎ píng lùn qū lǐ nà xiē èr jí guǎn dōu lā hēi le!

  • I blocked all those binary thinkers in the comments!

• 别理他，他就是个二极管，完全不讲理。Bié lǐ tā, tā jiù shì gè èr jí guǎn, wán quán bù jiǎng lǐ.

  • Don't bother with him, he's a binary thinker, completely unreasonable.

• 二极管们无法接受人是复杂的，这很可悲。Èr jí guǎn men wú fǎ jiē shòu rén shì fù zá de, zhè hěn kě bēi.

  • Binary thinkers can't accept that people are complex, it's quite sad.

玻璃心 bō li xīn, literally means "Glass Heart", describing someone who's psychologically fragile, can't handle much, and gets hurt or angry very easily—as fragile as glass. It's basically the English "snowflake."

• 遇到那种玻璃心的下属，我都不敢大声批评他们。Yù dào nà zhǒng bō li xīn de xià shǔ, wǒ dōu bù gǎn dà shēng pī píng tā men.

  • When I have snowflake subordinates, I don't even dare raise my voice to criticize them.

• 你不要这么玻璃心好不好，他也不是恶意的。Nǐ bú yào zhè me bō li xīn hǎo bu hǎo, tā yě bú shì è yì de.

  • Don't be such a snowflake, okay? He didn't mean any harm.

• 被霸凌的人有权利感到痛苦，这绝对不是玻璃心。Bèi bà líng de rén yǒu quán lì gǎn dào tòng kǔ, zhè jué duì bú shì bō li xīn.

  • People who are bullied have every right to feel pain—that's absolutely not being a snowflake.

These four terms are high-frequency roasting words on Chinese internet. Master them, and you'll better understand what netizens are complaining about. But be careful, these are all pretty sharp critical terms. Use them cautiously so you don't actually offend anyone!

In your country's culture, are there similar popular personality label terms? Share in the comments!

My sister is currently studying abroad at Tongji University in Shanghai this spring. One of the main reasons she chose the program was to improve her Chinese speaking ability.

Unfortunately things didn’t go the way they were supposed to. The advisor at her home university who was responsible for helping set up housing and classes didn’t properly arrange things ahead of time. When she arrived in Shanghai, she found out she couldn’t register for the higher-level Chinese language classes because they weren’t available through her program. By the time she realized this and tried to fix it, the registration deadline had already passed.

Now she’s stuck in a very basic Chinese class that’s closer to elementary level, even though she’s actually around an intermediate level. So the class isn’t really helping her improve much.

She’s also living off campus, which has made it harder to meet people and practice Chinese regularly.

At this point she’s trying to figure out what she can do to still make the most of the experience. So I was wondering if anyone has advice on what she could do.

The TOFU Learn apps are unfortunately gone from the app store. Do you guys know another similar flashcard app? I’m not looking for something like Anki. I want a flashcard app where you are able to navigate the cards and review them.

I have an iphone, ipad, and a windows laptop, so anything for those platforms.

Hi, so i already know more than 1500 words and my listening is quite good but i still struggle to speak and can't say more than 3 sentences about the same point. someone said to me before i should memorize sentences not words, so my questions is that true or not and how to find sentences to memorize or should i use ai?

So i almost finished hsk5 上 and yet can't hold a conversation longer than 5 seconds, my speaking, writing, reading all are bad, like too bad. so i guess I've been learning in a wrong way. i decided unfortunately to start from the beginning so i need someone to recommend a curriculum for me because there are a lot of, like practical chinese, boya, developing Chinese. and i hope some one tells me how to actually study the lesson to it's fullest. and thank you for reading.

Hi, I'd like to know about your way to study for hsk4+, how do you study and what resources do you use.

大家好, I came across 没准儿 and remembered I already studied 可能 and 也许 which all have the same meaning: maybe, probably. What's the difference between them, besides their formal/informal and oral/written use?

I have been studying from HelloChinese, DuChinese and Skritter these past two years. I don’t have time after work to study intensively, so I have focused on learning to write basic characters and reading stories for interest.

I have finished HelloChinese, I’m pretty comfortable with Intermediate level stories on DuChinese now and I have started the HSK3 deck on Skritter.

Would I be ready for the HSK3 exam after finishing the HSK3 deck on Skritter as well as regular DuChinese practice at Intermediate level? Or would you recommend I use some other resources as well?

I know this title might sound a bit strange, but it’s honestly how I feel.

A while ago, I posted in another group looking for language exchange partners. Some people added me, and I really appreciate that they’re interested in Chinese or Chinese culture. But I quickly ran into a problem: I have no idea how to teach people who are completely new to Chinese.

As native speakers, we already knew how to speak quite a bit before we started learning pinyin in kindergarten or primary school. Teachers only had to correct our pronunciation, not teach us from absolute zero.

Teaching someone Chinese pronunciation from scratch is really difficult for me. I can’t even explain how to make certain sounds over the voice chat.

Because of this, the exchange usually stops after our first chat. I feel guilty, like I might have turned someone off from learning Chinese just because of me.

Maybe I should only practice with people who already know pinyin and have some basics from now on?

Does anyone who’s learning Chinese have advice for me?

My English is not good so I used AI translate.

They seem interchangeable as far as I can tell, and the dictionary lists 理解 as "to comprehend / to understand" while 了解 is "to understand / to realize / to find out".

So very similar. But it sounds like 了解 should be used more to indicate that you understood something new, while 理解 is for understanding in general? Could anyone help explain please?

Is there a number code for 我是你爸？

Hi everyone 21f from Nigeria I want to start my journey in learning Chinese mind you I'm just a beginner I have no Chinese foundation anyone willing to teach me please don't hesitate to reach out to me and anyone who wants to learn to let me know so we can learn together I just downloaded hello Chinese an app to learn Chinese

A long time ago, one of the main ways kids in China learned to read and write was through a text called 三字经, or the Three Character Classic. It dates back to around the 1200s and was widely used during the Ming and Qing dynasties as an introductory text for children starting their education. Apparently its been reported that it was still in use in some placed up to the 1960s.

The whole thing is written in short three-character lines that rhyme, which made it easier for kids to memorize. It wasn’t just about literacy either — the text also aimed at teaching a bit of morals and general cultural knowledge.

When I was a kid and tried learning Chinese, this was actually one of the things my parents suggested I try. I quit after 3 weeks tho because I couldn't sit still lol.

Funny thing is, I still remember the opening lines by heart:

人之初 (rén zhī chū) — People at birth
性本善 (xìng běn shàn) — Are naturally good
性相近 (xìng xiāng jìn) — Their natures are similar
习相远 (xí xiāng yuǎn) — But their habits grow different

Even though I never got very far with it, it’s kind of cool that something written 700+ years ago is still recognizable today.

I've seen some similar posts about how to learn the language "fast" or what could be accomplished in a set amount of time, but none seemed to be in the same situation as me.

I'm a native English speaker, monolingual, but with a very good understanding of how language works. I was "taught" Spanish in school but retained almost nothing, I can't understand even basic phrases, and HATED learning it. Since Spanish is supposedly the easiest I figured Chinese would be near impossible, however, since starting, Chinese just makes sense to me in a lot of ways. Tones make sense, grammar feels more natural than English, it just clicks in my head for some reason.

I had zero prior Chinese experience but enrolled in the minor at my college. My teacher is from China, and we meet for 50min 4x a week. We don't follow HSK but rather the "encounters" textbook. We practice speaking, have oral exams, and practice reading, creating sentences, and writing, in both pinyin and characters. I began this course in August 2025, and am about halfway through my second semester, and, if I added <100 vocabs words could pass HSK1.

I just joined preply and am about to begin working with tutors, one tutor once a week, the other tutor starting at four times a week and possibly moving up to every day. Each session is 50 minutes. With the classes, and tutors (once a week and four times a week) I'd come up with 7.5hrs of face to face instruction per week, plus a few hours a week for written/oral homework outside of that.

I'm hoping to get to HSK6 or professionally capable, and am focusing on learning vocab for my major (supply chain) where a lot of jobs require frequent contact with China.

The program is only three years long, and I can take more tutoring time over the summers, even with internships. Is it possible to get to professional "fluency" by spring 2029 (my grad date)? What should my expectations be?

TLDR: native English speaker, monolingual, highly motivated, about HSK1 level in six months, practicing with face to face instruction from native Chinese speakers 7.5hrs a week (from ~3.3hrs). Possible to be professionally "fluent" to work in China/with Chinese suppliers for work in about three years?

大家好

I’ve been using the xiehanzi deck on anki and it’s been pretty good, but I always find some hanzis that is so hard to remember how to write it.

Ive been using anki + good notes to try to write the characters

Is there any better way that you guys recommend?

Hi, I am currently a high school student and I have a lot of trouble with Chinese. I am doing well in my other subjects, but Chinese is the only subject that is dragging my grades down. Heck, have even failed it three times before, although I am passing now.

However, now that I am in my senior years, the exams are going to get harder. This makes me worried because my scores are only slightly above the passing mark. I have always struggled with learning Chinese, even though I am Chinese myself, mainly because I do not know where to start.

For example, when I try to read essay books, I often struggle with pronouncing the words and understanding their meanings.

My question is: how can I improve my essay writing, classical Chinese, and modern Chinese?

(My exam is in 30-40 days btw for anyone wondering, but I'm willing to put in the effort to improve my Chinese.)

Not learning apps, but places to interact, even talk to people who speak Chinese. Looking for answers other than “set your vpn to China.” Any good Chinese meme pages?