Motivation and Strategies to learn Chinese for busy people

Archive for the ‘Learn Chinese’ Category

My Single Most Effective Learning Recommendation

Monday, May 26th, 2008

Previously I have given You a whole bunch of learning methods, I also recommended You to go to a Chinese university to learn Mandarin and encouraged You to talk to Chinese persons. However I wondered what method is useful in particular. Which one has the best ROI (Return of investment)? ...

How To: Using Wikipedia to translate difficult terms

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

Sometimes we come across a very specific word which is not in our dictionary. We need a translation anyway. So what can we do? Wikipedia rescues us, at least in many cases. This How To is written for the English -> Chinese translation, however it can be applied for almost ...

Is it still worth learning Chinese with the current visa policy?

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Recently I heard this this dialog: - Hey man, I want to invest in China, I want to settle here, can I do that? I mean because of visa and stuf... - Sure You can. The law states You can. But we don't know if this law still exists tomorrow. Two weeks later, ...

Putonghua enlightenment

Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

Yesterday I've been to the Hump Bar, which is a popular foreigner hangout. After a while I recognized a girl sitting lonely at some table so I went to her table and started a conversation in Chinese. Well I can practice my Chinese every day, but this experience was total different. ...

16 Chinese learning methods

Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

Today I wanted to wash my clothes, but the weather is cold and cloudy, so there is no way to dry them until evening. So instead of going to the laundry I answered a post of Rainman on the CL forum. He said that it is important to speak some ...

Do You have a Chinese name?

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

I just got my Chinese name. It has been a long journey, but now my girlfriend gave me my new name. jùn jié. Which could be translated as very talented person. However jùn has more meanings beside talented. It also means smart or handsome. I'll go with these 2 instead of ...

What is Your Chinesepod listening level?

Thursday, January 10th, 2008

I just found this Chinese Listening Test over at Chinesepod.com. You are being presented a few sentences. You may listen each sentence twice. Then You have to decide if You understood or not. My level is elementary(low). I didn't really expect this, but this test made me realize my problems. While my ...

Learn to hear and speak tones

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

When You are starting out with Chinese, tones are quite a difficult task. You can listen to a native and feel like, that person doesn't use tones at all. But this is only half of the truth. Natives actually do use tones. They just don't overdo it like Your teacher ...