Tools for Chinese Language-Learning

Given that it’s already June, and many schools are closing up for the summer, it’s definitely time to keep practicing and learning Chinese! Whether you’re just beginning to learn Chinese or have been learning Chinese for years, here are some awesome Chinese language-learning tools.

Since I live in a family where my parents and siblings don’t speak Chinese, finding resources for independent study has been essential for me to maintain and improve my Chinese reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. For practicing Chinese writing, I’ve found that Skritter is a fabulous tool to practice writing HSK vocabulary and any other words of choice. One of the most intimidating parts about learning Chinese, at least for me, was and is writing Chinese characters with correct stroke order. Skritter is a great tool for this because Skritter helps you practice writing and stroke order with lists of words you desire to learn to write correctly. This summer, my goal is to learn how to write the major HSK vocabulary words, ideally through HSK 6. Currently I’m working on HSK 2, so I have a ways to go!

When it comes to reading Chinese, although you may utilize Chinese news outlets, The Chairman’s Bao is a wonderful resource for reading news articles at different HSK levels. Chinese articles straight from Chinese news outlets tend to have more advanced vocabulary and sentence structures that can make reading those articles rather difficult. The Chairman’s Bao articles range from HSK 1 all the way to above HSK 6 and provide vocabulary and grammar lists for each article. Additionally, each article has an accompanying quiz, which allows you to test your knowledge of the article’s content, grammar, and vocabulary.

For practicing listening Chinese, I found this great podcast called 听故事学中文 Learning Chinese Through Stories, which is available on Spotify. Each podcast episode provides stories, news, and/or songs with a following podcast episode explaining the previous content shared. All of the episodes have their difficulty level written with 1 being novice, 2 being intermediate, and 3 being advanced, and .1 being low, .2 being mid, and .3 being high. For example, a 3.3 level podcast is designed for advanced high Chinese speakers/listeners.

When it comes to speaking Chinese, I don’t have any special apps or websites I utilize. I often speak to myself when I practice speaking Chinese, which may seem a little weird. Another way to practice speaking Chinese would be to talk to native Chinese speakers on the phone or over Skype. I’ve done this a few times before, and it is certainty an engaging way to practice Chinese speaking.

Happy Summertime and Happy Chinese Language-Learning!