Social Mandarin Excellent Website

Recently I found an interesting Chinese learning website.  Social Mandarin 

Social_汉语

The site's aims are;

Social Mandarin is a social bookmarking site that aims to collect and bring together the best Mandarin learning resources online. In doing so, it enables other learners to share the same resources with each other. An online Mandarin resource, can be anything from a music video to a word list. It is defined, by how you learned Mandarin from it. So as long you can let us in on how you learned something from it, you can post it here. So join in!

It certainly does all this and more. There are four main content sections, Beginner, Elementary,  Intermediate and Advanced.

Other divisions of the site include;

1. Speaking
2. Vocabulary
3. Learning Tools
4. Culture
5. Writing
6. Listening
7. Reading
8. Grammar
9. Pinyin
10. Characters
11. Music
12. Film
13. Art
14. Other
15. General

The site certainly includes every sort of content a Chinese learner could need. There seems to be something for everyone on Social Mandarin. 

Skritter + Wacom Tablet = Faster Hanzi Learning

Just over a month ago I bought two new Chinese learning resources. These are a subscription to Skritter and a Wacom Touch Tablet.

   += Faster Hanzi Learning

Things I like about learning with Skritter:

• Keeps me interested and motivated 
• Allows me to track progress and time spent learning 
• Makes learning Hanzi enjoyable 
• Allows me to focus on words I need or want to learn 
• Integrates with MDBG allows lookups and adding 
• Allows me to add new words from websites with one click 
• Helps me revise 
• Gives a sense of satisfaction and achievement 
• Has ready made sets of vocabulary for NPCR texts 
• Can work on computer or iPad 
• iPad App allows offline practice and syncs when connected Am able to use my Wacom tablet to write hanzi with a pen
• Plus many more reasons to use Skritter

The Wacom tablet allows me to write hanzi with a tablet pen. I feel that this to be better than writing with a mouse. I can also use the tablet to write hanzi in Evernote, Windows journal, Photoshop and other programmes that use ‘Ink’ input.


The only disadvantage the tablet is quite sensitive and I feel it makes my hanzi 不好看Bù hǎokàn (unattractive) Looking at my sample tablet written hanzi below I think you will agree. 

我的汉字不好看。Wǒ de hànzì bù hǎokàn. 

Still it gives me satisfaction to be able to use technology to learn and practice hanzi.


I am interested to know how others are using Skritter. It is has many features and I am not sure that I have found them or use them all yet. I know that Skritter is a very popular hanzi learning tool. I wonder how many people are using it?


It would be good to know if anyone else is using a tablet to hand write hanzi on computers.


Does anyone use iPads for hand writing hanzi? I have not been able to find a satisfactory App to do this properly.

As I prepare for my looming CHIN201 exam...

Dropbox

As I prepare for my looming CHIN201 exam I am using every moment of my time to prepare. Something that is helping me a great deal is a free app called Dropbox. This is helping me automatically sync my flashcards, study notes, books, audio, video and other Chinese resources. It is able to sync between my home and work. It is also syncing all my files between my computer, iPod and iPad. If you sign up and install Dropbox you have 2GB of free online storage. So as long as I have placed things in my Dropbox folder I have access to my study material. I think this has helped me a great deal as I have no excuse not to study. 

Have a look at Dropbox.

我每天使用Dropbox的。

Wǒ měi tiān shǐyòng Dropbox de.

Try Dropbox

Dropbox

新实用汉语课本 New Practical Chinese Reader 3

I have just started a new text book 新实用汉语课本 New Practical Chinese Reader 3. This is a sort of milestone in my learning. I think this is the last in the series that my University uses. Having started learning the first lesson there doesn't seem to be the sudden rise in difficulty that I found between the first and second text. Perhaps I have just become used to the methodology in the texts.



New Practical Chinese Reader: Textbook Vol.3

I really have only one crtiticism of these series of text books. I think that sometimes the books are not very practical. Vocabulary and conversations in the set text about Beijing opera, Shaoxing opera and classical novels I personally do not find very practical. I suppose that last sentence makes me sound like a Philistine, however I do not think I will have many opportunities to use 红楼梦 Dream of the Red Chamber (first completed edition 1791) by Cao Xueqin, one of the four great novels. Despite this the text is mostly practical and challenging enough to make learning Chinese interesting.

Study More Chinese

Visit Study More Chinese

控 kòng 'control', is character of the year in China

 控    kòng    
to control / to sue/ to accuse / to charge

BBC News - Kong, or 'control', is character of the year in China

Electric Things

A long long time ago when I learned Japanese, I started to become very interested in kanji. The first one that fascinated me was 電. I liked the story of the rain and rice field with the bolt of lightning (natural electricity). Now that I am learning hanzi and simplified Chinese the character looks like this 电 and loses much of the original story. However I have realised that this character is turning up again and again in my vocabulary lists. Here are some examples with literal translations;

电视 Electric Look - TV

电影 Electric Shadows - Films

电梯 Electric Stairs - Escalator

电脑 Electric Brains - Computer

电车 Electric Car - Tram

电邮 Electric Post - Email

电话 Electric Voice - Telephone

When I think about these words it makes me think how logical and straight forward Chinese language sometimes is. The literal translations act as automatic mnemonics so that I can easily remember them.

NPCR1 to NPCR2

Recently I reached a milestone in my learning. I finished New Practical Chinese Reader and began New Practical Chinese Reader Two. There are some noticeable differences between the two texts. The most obvious is that there is no longer any pinyin with the dialogues that begin each lesson / chapter. The idea is that the text will gradually ween us off the use of pinyin. According to the introduction in NPCR1 this is part of the methodology of the series of books. A more subtle change is that the grammer, sentence patterns, questions and answers have become much more complex. I expected the texts to become more difficult, but there seems to be quite a jump from simple Chinese to more complex Chinese.

Here is something I did not expect. There are many suplementary resources for NPCR1 across the Net. As for NPCR2 there seems to be very few resources available. I can't understand this. It is as though learners had very good intentions to begin learning Mandarin, worked their way through NPCR1 and then stopped. Alternatively many of the supporting web sites seemed to have given up creating media that would help learners who choose this text. There are a few websites where I can still access some resources, but others finished with Lesson 14 of NPCR1. So this makes working through NPCR2 for me a bit more dull and less of a rich learning experience. I have searched for suplementary materials for NPCR2 and found nothing.

I still have access these sites;

Chinese Character Writing Exercise Sheets

Quizlet

YellowBridge

Hanlexon

I should mention that my university UNE does supply me with multiple resources to support my learning. The lesson guides are very detailed, well written and support my studies. There is much to do and much to learn in my course of study. 

So onward and upward using NPCR2. If anyone has a NPCR2 related resource or resources I would be very pleased to know about it.  

Chinese Character Etymology

When learning characters I often find one of the best ways to remember is by learning the etymology of the hanzi. This method helps me a great deal. By looking at how the characters have changed over time and seeing their original forms creates links in my memory. I much prefer this to rote learning the hanzi.

I have found three sites that are useful to look up hanzi etymologies.

YellowBridge has a Etymology Explorer which allows you to draw the character (using a mouse) to aid lookup. There are other methods of lookup too; English, Pinyin and others. After finding the hanzi, the explorer can then show the formation method, simplification method and character decomposition.

Hanzi Etymology Explorer

 Another site Chinese-Characters.org has a Pinyin index and a Radical index. Unfortunately the last entry into the weblog was in 2009 and the home page explains that it was a huge project and a labour of love. Do not expect this site to have everything. 

Chinese-Characters.org

Chinese-Characters.org

Third site that you can find much detailed information on hanzi etymology is 中文.com. While I like this site it does look very busy and complex. It displays the hazi with every associated compound. It does have multiple ways to lookup. You can even make quizzes with the learn page. 

Hanzi Etymology Explorer

Hanyu.com

So three very useful sites for etymology look-up. 

Does anyone know of any others? Leave a comment if you have a similar site to recommend.

MDBG English Chinese Dictionary

MDBG English Chinese Dictionary is the best online dictionary I have found so far.  The dictionary The word dictionary contains information about Chinese words, consisting of one or more Chinese characters. Results of searches in the word dictionary will show the following;

• Simplified / Traditional Chinese, the Chinese words matching the query
• Mandarin, the Mandarin pronunciation in Pinyin or ㄅㄆㄇㄈ (Zhuyin Fuhao)
• English, the English definition
• Traditional / Simplified Variant, the Traditional / Simplified variant if available
• HSK, the HSK level(s) in which this word occurs

I find it very useful as it has animated stroke order and you can hear the hanzi pronounced.   It will break the hanzi into character composition. The interface is very easy to use. So a very useful tool for a Chinese Mandarin Learner. Have a look for yourself MDBG Character Dictionary

The most common Chinese characters in order of frequency

The most common Chinese characters in order of frequency is an interesting website. The 汉字 hanzi are listed according to falling statistical order.

The tip from the web page introductions states that the list could be used;

"Students can use the character list to create flashcards in order to train Chinese. Teachers can aslo make such cards to use in their teaching. Write the Chinese characters (possibly both simplified and traditional forms) on one side of a little piece of cardboard. Write pronunciation and explanations on the other side."

The list has 2700 hanzi. It has the first 2400 hanzi and then there are gaps. I like the look of this web site and the list. It has hanzi, pinyin and examples of usage and sentences. Quite a useful resources. Here is an from the beginning of the list.





The most Common Chinese Characters in order of Frequency

The Most Complicated / Difficult Chinese Character

I found this on YouTube. According to the comments it is;

Biáng biáng noodles

• The most difficult in contemporary usage
• A traditional character
• It means Biáng biáng noodles (noodles found in Shaanxi Province)
• Not found in modern dictionaries
• Can’t be entered into computers
• Not used as a Kanji in Japan

 See it written here

Even more information found on Wikipedia Biángbiáng noodles