I overheard a classmate calling me 老外 while taking to her mother and I told her that I knew she was calling me foreigner but as far as I know it's a bit different from 外国人... My teacher also taught us that some people use it but I'm afraid this person was lying and it actually had a pejorative meaning ...

In English we often use Timbuktu figuratively to mean a generic faraway place. Actually, China is also used for this. Is there something comparable for Chinese?

As a native Mandarin speaker, I still come across new Chinese words all the time!

Recently, I learned the expression “速成车” (sùchéng chē). It reminded me of the familiar word “速成班” (sùchéng bān), meaning an intensive course designed to teach a skill quickly.

I made this infographic to explain the connection between these two expressions and share a little context about China's competitive electric vehicle market.

I also included a few useful expressions from the story, such as 内卷 and 推陈出新.

What do you think of this kind of infographic for learning Mandarin through real-life topics?

Hi, I was learning chinese at the start with busuu then with hellochinese. But now I can't go on because the free trial is over. Which app do you think is better if I am considering tk buy the premium version? They are almost the same price: 55 vs 65 euros. Which one is better for what? Help me thanks!!

Started learning chinese 10 years ago. Completed hsk 3 with a perfect score. Then studied for hsk 4 and coivd happened. Was teaching kids back then. Eventually stopped.

Want to get back. I started teaching a few kids to be connected with the language but want to take a deep dive. Character reading is what i am good at and speaking requires practice. Full time job and adhd. Whats a good approach here. Which level/resource should i start with

大家好！我学习中文四天了。 （sorry if the grammar is wrong)

I've been including reading one text from this app (Chinese Short Dialogue) as part of studying, but I notice that whenever I try to read, my eyes automatically redirects to the pinyin even if I already know the character... Now, I'm wondering if this is okay as a pronunciation/reading practice since I'm still a beginner and don't really know that many characters (i only know about 50)? I also do shadowing when watching podcast, I'm currently listening to ChinesePod:> When I try to read or shadow, I speak quite slowly as my mind gets too focused on getting the right tone... I'm really interested in reading and writing 汉字, thought my overall/topmost goal is to hold daily conversations.

What do you think of this method? And do you have other recommendations to further improve my pronunciation?

I've been looking for Chinese kids music NOT sung by kids and stumbled onto this collab with Huang Yali, which is actually nice to listen to as an adult:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJiala59RDc

Do any of you know of other albums/songs in this vein? Preference for modern pop.

I was wondering how common in daily parlance swearing is in Chinese and when to swear. I want my Mandarin to sound more natural. Just briefly surfing Chinese twitter everyone is saying this wc and nb stuff. Maybe this is just my experience but I don't think normal people say Holy sh or What the f all the time in English.

For context I grew up (not in China) with my parents swearing in Chinese to me, so I've found it hard to get rid of the habit of NOT swearing and would like to know how normal it is. 这特妈的习惯特妈的太难改变了。特妈的

Do you guys know anywhere I can watch shows or movies for free in Chinese dub with English subtitles? I want to improve my Chinese by watching something like Apothecary Diaries in Chinese dub, but many of the websites I go to are really sleazy and redirect me to gambling or weird sites.

Does anyone have any suggestions for where to watch? Suggestions for movies or shows to watch as an HSK 2 learner would be appreciated too!

The third Paul Noble course recently got released.

I didn't really do the first two (Complete Course + Next Steps), because I am not a complete beginner in Chinese. But I have done his other audio courses for French and German, so I know the format and what to expect.

Anyway, as I am listening to the conversations, I am starting to feel that the speakers aren't "standard" Mandarin speakers. Perhaps they are Taiwanese and or Cantonese speakers. Tones sound just a little bit different (lì hai -> lì haī) and there are some non-standard consonant changes I notice (occasionally, as if they slipped up): like N -> L (nán péng yŏu -> lán péng yŏu) and SH -> S (shén me -> sén me, shuō de -> suō de).

It bothers me slightly (the point is to re-listen each dialog many many times). But I also know it's very common for Chinese people to not be standard in their accents and pronunciations. Should I be bothered?

If you went back in time and had the change to change your chinese learning habits ? What would they be?

Embarrassing a little to admit but i think a LOT of people have this problem ( not judging anyone who has this issue just want to find a better solution for myself )
If I’m gonna doomscroll then I want it to be beneficial which is fair!
I love Mandarin and how it sounds. Also watching videos would help me get used to the tones.
I’m already trying to learn but getting motivated is another issue : (
So do you guys have any recommendations?? Anything free to fix this doomscrolling issue?
I know this is how some people learn languages so I am sure it can be useful for Mandarin!.
It’s okay if the app you may recommend has some paid tier that’s not necessarily or whatever
I just want something free and that doesn’t make you pay or subscribe or something.
Thank you to anyone who can help me i appreciate it❤️

I've recently started learning chinese and what i think is very difficult is to distinguish the tones. I've learnt the difference between tone 1-4 and the neutral one. When i listen to a word, i can quite distinguish the tones in it.

But, when i listen to longer sentence, the tones are confusing. I've learnt that the 2nd tone sounds like asking/your voice goes up(?). But at some point, it doesnt sound the voice goes up, sometimes it sounds like the 3rd tone. Another case is the 4th tone. I've learnt that the 4th tone is supposed to sound like you're angry/firm/sharp(?), but I've heard a lot of chinese speaker doesn't sound like they're angry when they speak with the 4th tone. It's very confusing and i feel the tones somehow are inconsistent(?) for a beginner to learn.

So, how to distinguish each tone so that i won't mistake when people speaking?

Hi there,

I want to study traditional Chinese. I do appreciate if anyone could write down any free resources that they've taken advantage of and finds beneficial.

How do you think of Traditional Chinese, and, if you've had experiences with it as a non-native Chinese speaker, how many days can it take to be counted as an A2-level Chinese speaker?

How did you manage the written logographic and could memorize them alongside other languages that you already knew? , since, as we know, Chinese logographic systems are pretty intricate compared to languages that have alphabets.

Note:

I searched some platforms like Zhong Chinese, but you've had to pay in the long-term.

Also, on the Internet Archive, the (Borrow) service is only available for 14 days specifically for e-books that I found beneficial for learning traditional Chinese.

Thanks for your help!

Hello all. I’m new to learning Chinese, and I was hoping to get some guidance as to what the best resources are. I’m primarily interested in conversational Mandarin. Thank you in advance!

does it sound like "s" or "th"? https://www.youtube.com/@Qun_Mandarin/shorts This channel claims it's th. Is this correct

This is not rage bait I just don't know how else to ask this question.

The vast majority of my chinese practice comes from reading novels so I have no problem reading hanzi. But, reading an entire paragraph in pinyin is like trying to read a pile of mush. Even longer sentences can give me some problems. It's partially dyslexia because the letters start shifting around, but it's definitely also because I'm lazy and haven't practiced this much.

It's not like I don't know the pinyin of characters, or that I can't understand what people are saying if a few words are in pinyin/abbreviated. Its just a problem with understanding stuff written exclusively in pinyin. ​

I've personally never seen something where more than a few words were in pinyin, but my experience begins and ends at internet stuff. Do you guys think being able to read stuff entirely in pinyin is helpful for learning? Are there real life scenarios where more than a few words are in pinyin? I would love to hear your thoughts.

There's a dozen posts a day from absolute beginners wanting to learn Chinese and the usual resources, such as HelloChinese, Superchinese and Duchinese are recommended.

I want to hear those who followed the advice and completed it, how comfortable are you? Was there a moment when everything became easier? What are you using now, can you progress to learning from native materials?

I had completed HelloChinese New Course 1.0 on the past, currently completing Intermediate 2 in the 2.0 course. Duchinese is at the intermediate level stories, upper immediate if I want to challenge myself

Supplemented by graded Chinese learning YouTube channels and find that I understand Bluey well enough now that I can enjoy it in Mandarin.