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Lets share our favorite studying resources weather it be books, websites, flashcards or software list them here and tell us your study plan if any.
My tools include:
Online:
Flashcards:
Software:
Pleco Dictionary for iPhone
Audio:
Pimsleur
Books:
I don’t have a strict study plan, I’m horrible at following any study plans I set out for my self so instead I surround my self with these study materials and make use of them when I have down time. When at work I might be on Skritter or reading my Phrasebook to learn how to do something I need to do like deposit money. I’m leaving the more serious study for school this Fall.
Great list Carl – I’m working on writing a post about study routines, because I’m pretty terrible at staying consistant, personally. I’ll study an hour a day for a few weeks and then fall off completely for months at a time, only to pick it up again in another season. Daily practice of ~15 minutes has a lot of benefits though if you can develop a daily routine, like flipping through flashcards at intervals or learning a few new words or characters per day and putting them into use.
I use a lot of the tools that you listed, especially Nciku, Lingt, and Skritter. I use an iPod Touch for a lot of my daily routine stuff, here are the apps that I’ve found helpful:
iPhone / iPod Touch Apps I use for Studying Chinese:
KTdict+ ($5 dictionary with flash cards)
Chinese Flashcards I & II ($5 each, thousands of characters)
Nciku (dictionary + tons of example sentences, although admittedly rather bare bones compared to the Nciku website)
I will definitely check out the books you recommended!
I used KTdict (free version) during my first year in Tianjin and it was extremely helpful. For flashcards I used a program called StudyArcade which can be downloaded through Cydia or the app store but it had some organizational issues, I mainly used it because I could sync my Anki deck with it. I stopped all that because I would spend more time adding cards and trying to get them to work on the phone than I did actually studying.
I’ll check out the Panda and Chinese Flashcards, I really like Nciku because they have a very large word database so if the iPhone version is lacking in that department its a deal breaker.
I think I learn best by sticking with a few new words a week, say 3 or 4 that way I have a chance to use them enough so I don’t forget them later.
so far this week its ma2fan (to trouble)
xi1yao4 (western medicine)
wo3 chi2dao4 le (I’m late)
I use two flashcard apps called “Chinese Flashcards” and “Chinese Flashcards II” which are pretty great. They both cost $5 I believe, but they’re really good. The first one is HSK characters and the second is HSK words and short phrases. It’s an intelligently-spaced algorithm, a la Anki, so it tests you most on the characters that you’re weakest at.
I’ve tried out a lot of other flashcard apps, the problem is usually that the flashcard interface sucks, or the wordlist is too short or cannot be changed.
The Nciku app is good because it provides a lot of example sentences, which nothing else I’ve seen does. For $5 it comes up a little short considering it doesn’t even have a wordlist or flashcard feature, but I’m hopeful that they bring it up to the Nciku.com level of quality.
http://www.ichineseflashcards.com will help you learn Chinese (Mandarin) faster by using flashcards with pictures, thanks
I just found this today, which has literally hundreds of links to learning resources, including data sets for software/application programmers.
This one is great, too: Zhongwen
Great thread though, I had forgotten about this. Wonder what happened to Carl…
Quote:If you guys allow torrents to be linked, i got rosetta stone and fluenz mandarin off demonoid.Are those working for you? I tried Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone years ago and neither of them worked well for me. What has been working for me is writing down characters in a notebook (by hand, the old school way) and SRS intelligent flashcards on iPhone, made up of words that I’ve encountered in everyday conversation or on the street.
Also I think Demonoid requires a VPN (Demonoid actually blocked China, not the other way around).
Just got an email about this app: Chinese Flash
It’s awesome. Using it more than Pleco at the moment.
Just got an email about this app: Chinese Flash
It’s awesome. Using it more than Pleco at the moment.
for android users: Hanping Chinese Dictionary pro app
it’s for offline use so looking up words is quick and offers several related phrases.
you can search by pinyin, eng>chinese, or writing the actual character.
you can save custom lists and download character lists, HSK, and idioms.
also has additional links for every word to other resources like nciku
for android users: Hanping Chinese Dictionary pro app
it’s for offline use so looking up words is quick and offers several related phrases.
you can search by pinyin, eng>chinese, or writing the actual character.
you can save custom lists and download character lists, HSK, and idioms.
also has additional links for every word to other resources like nciku
For the newbies among us: as the numerous tools provided above are excellent for expanding your vocabulary, I strongly recommend trying out the Pimsleur audiobooks for learning your first sentences and expressions. This is not something you learn if you’re just practicing seperate words. Pimsleur seriously helps getting a hand of the grammar and the pronounciation. If you wanna start speaking Chinese tomorrow when you get outside, I think this is one of the fastest and easiest way to do so.
If you know the word “beer” and “two”, sure, you’ll get two beers. But you’ll sound so much cooler if you put it in a sentence that actually sounds Chinese, lol. “Wo xiang you liang bei pijiu!”
The only downside is that people think you can speak Mandarin, so when they answer or ask you a question – you’ll have to be creative. I’m looking for a solution for this myself haha.
Oh and I guess another downside is the fact that it’s not accompanied by a pinyin textbook. You can however find a transcript somebody made somewhere on the internet. Haven’t tried it myself though, I just Pleco my ass off while listening and save the words I’ve learned while listening.
I think it’s pretty expensive if you buy it off Amazon, but if you’re somewhat creative I’m sure you’ll find a cheaper source somewhere else.
Also +1 on Rosetta Stone btw, it’s one of the only tools that makes studying Chinese kind of fun 🙂
For the newbies among us: as the numerous tools provided above are excellent for expanding your vocabulary, I strongly recommend trying out the Pimsleur audiobooks for learning your first sentences and expressions. This is not something you learn if you’re just practicing seperate words. Pimsleur seriously helps getting a hand of the grammar and the pronounciation. If you wanna start speaking Chinese tomorrow when you get outside, I think this is one of the fastest and easiest way to do so.
If you know the word “beer” and “two”, sure, you’ll get two beers. But you’ll sound so much cooler if you put it in a sentence that actually sounds Chinese, lol. “Wo xiang you liang bei pijiu!”
The only downside is that people think you can speak Mandarin, so when they answer or ask you a question – you’ll have to be creative. I’m looking for a solution for this myself haha.
Oh and I guess another downside is the fact that it’s not accompanied by a pinyin textbook. You can however find a transcript somebody made somewhere on the internet. Haven’t tried it myself though, I just Pleco my ass off while listening and save the words I’ve learned while listening.
I think it’s pretty expensive if you buy it off Amazon, but if you’re somewhat creative I’m sure you’ll find a cheaper source somewhere else.
Also +1 on Rosetta Stone btw, it’s one of the only tools that makes studying Chinese kind of fun 🙂
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