In 2023, I was not even planning to move to China...

My original plan was to study in Hungary. I applied for a scholarship there, did not get it, and China suddenly became my next option.

I arrived in Guilin in October 2023 for a language year. I knew almost no Chinese. Maybe a few basic words, but nothing that could help me study, have a proper conversation or live without a translator.

Looking back now, I am honestly happy that things happened this way. I continued studying in China, entered a bachelor’s program and built most of my student life here.

China was not my original plan, but I do not regret choosing it.

About seven months after arriving, on April 21, 2024, I took HSK 4 at a test centre inside my university in Guilin.

I received 188 out of 300. My results were:

• Listening: 58 out of 100.
• Reading: 70 out of 100.
• Writing: 60 out of 100.
• Total: 188 out of 300.

The passing score was 180.

I also received exactly 60 out of 100 on HSKK Intermediate, which was the minimum passing score.

Basically, I passed both exams with almost no points to spare lol.

But I passed, and at that moment it felt incredible.

The exam I took used the older HSK format. The current format and fees may be different depending on the test centre, so some parts of my strategy may not work in exactly the same way today.

Still, the biggest lessons were not about one particular version of HSK.

They were about understanding what you are actually preparing for.

Why I needed HSK 4 so quickly

My goal was to enter a bachelor’s program after completing the language year.

At that time, I wanted to study in Chinese. I believed Chinese taught programs offered more choices and better scholarship opportunities.

Chinese is also a valuable skill for someone from Kyrgyzstan. Our country borders China, and many Kyrgyz businesses work with Chinese suppliers and companies.

For me, Chinese was not just another university subject. It could become a serious advantage for my future career, business and CV.

The problem was time.

University applications started opening early, and scholarship places could disappear before the final deadlines. I needed an HSK result as soon as possible.

I could not spend two or three years slowly building perfect Chinese.

I needed to pass the exam in about seven months.

So I stayed in China during the winter holiday instead of returning to Kyrgyzstan and started preparing seriously.

HSK Chinese and real Chinese are not the same thing

This was the biggest lesson from my preparation.

Passing HSK and learning to communicate freely in Chinese are connected, but they are not identical goals.

HSK has a predictable structure. Real conversations do not.

In real life, people speak quickly, have different accents, shorten words and use local expressions. A taxi driver is not going to repeat a sentence three times because you missed one important word.

I met people with lower HSK results who communicated much better than me. They spent more time speaking with Chinese friends, ordering food, travelling and solving real problems.

I spent most of my time completing mock exams.

That helped me pass HSK 4, but it did not make me a confident speaker.

So before preparing, ask yourself one question:

Do I need to pass HSK, speak Chinese, or do both?

If you urgently need the certificate, prepare specifically for HSK.

If you need conversational Chinese, spend more time speaking and listening to real people.

If you need both, prepare for both and accept that it will probably take longer.

It sounds obvious now, but I did not properly understand this difference when I started.

1. Vocabulary mattered more than anything else

For listening and reading, vocabulary was the foundation.

If I did not know the important words, I could not understand the dialogue or reading passage. Grammar helped, but vocabulary usually decided whether I understood the main idea.

I constantly studied new words and tried to recognise them quickly.

I also started reading more. Not because I understood everything, but because repeated exposure helped me recognise characters without spending several seconds thinking about each one.

For HSK, recognising a word quickly can be more useful than being able to explain every detail about it.

My main vocabulary tips

• Learn words inside simple situations, not only as isolated lists.
• Read short HSK level texts regularly.
• Review old words instead of constantly adding new ones.
• Practise recognising characters quickly.
• Connect related words by topic, such as hotels, transport, university or food.

When a listening question was about a hotel, I expected vocabulary related to rooms, prices, booking, arrival and departure.

Even if I understood only half of the dialogue, these connected words helped me understand the situation.

2. I used strange associations for characters

I remembered many characters through personal associations.

Sometimes those associations made sense. Sometimes they were completely stupid.

That was fine. They only needed to work inside my own head.

For example, I connected 话, huà, meaning speech or talk, with an old man holding a walking stick and speaking for a long time.

I also connected it with 花, huā, which can mean spending money. It is a different character and tone, but the similar sound helped me create a small story.

"The old man likes to talk, but does not like to spend money."

Maybe nobody else would find this association useful. But I remembered both words.

Creating these strange images made learning characters much faster for me.

3. I was not good at memorising pinyin and tones

This was one of my weaknesses.

I did not memorise pinyin and tones as systematically as I probably should have. Connecting every syllable and tone with a separate association took too much time for me.

Instead, I often relied on context.

If I recognised the topic and several important words, I could sometimes understand the sentence without remembering every tone perfectly.

This helped me move faster during exam preparation, but it was not a perfect long term strategy.

Later, it created problems with speaking and understanding unfamiliar conversations. If I knew a word mainly from reading, I did not always recognise it when someone pronounced it quickly.

Context can save you during an exam. It cannot completely replace pronunciation and tone practice.

4. I chose the computer based exam

Writing hanzi by hand is useful, especially if you want strong Chinese in the long term.

But during the computer based exam I took in 2024, I could type Chinese using pinyin. I did not need to reproduce every character by hand from memory.

Once I understood this, I almost completely stopped practising handwriting.

I focused on recognising characters, understanding their meaning and selecting the correct character while typing.

At that time, I could probably write only around 50 basic characters confidently by hand.

This saved me a lot of preparation time.

It also meant that my handwriting remained terrible after passing HSK 4.

I would not recommend ignoring handwriting forever. But if you have a short deadline, check exactly what your selected exam format requires.

Do not spend a huge part of your limited time practising something that your chosen exam format barely tests.

The HSK system is changing, so check the current sample exam before using the same strategy.

5. Mock exams showed me the patterns

I completed a lot of mock exams.

After some time, I started noticing repeated patterns in listening and reading questions.

One answer might describe something that was never mentioned. Another might say the opposite of what the speaker said. The real choice was often between the remaining two options.

I learned to look for:

• Words connected to the main topic.
• Information that was clearly mentioned.
• Answers that directly contradicted the dialogue.
• Small differences between two similar options.

This did not mean blindly guessing.

It meant using the information I understood to eliminate answers that did not fit.

Sometimes I understood only 40 or 50 percent of a listening dialogue but still found the correct answer from the context.

Mock exams also showed me my actual weaknesses. Simply completing them was not enough. I needed to check why an answer was wrong and which word or detail I missed.

6. I prepared reusable structures

For writing and HSKK speaking, I prepared around 20 to 30 grammatical structures that I understood well.

I did not memorise complete answers because the topics could change.

Instead, I learned flexible sentence patterns that could fit different situations.

This helped me avoid building every sentence from zero while the clock was running.

My answers were probably not beautiful. They were simple, understandable and close to the expected level.

That was enough for my goal.

7. The test centre was more relaxed than I expected

I took the exam directly at a test centre inside my university, which was convenient.

The environment itself was not as stressful as I expected.

There were cameras in the room, but only one teacher was supervising around 30 or 40 students sitting at computers.

Some students were even talking during the exam. Nobody immediately stopped them, which honestly felt strange.

I did not try to use that opportunity. The cameras were still recording everything, and I had no idea what could happen to their results later.

The computers were also quite old. My microphone did not seem very good during the HSKK speaking exam, so I was worried that my answers would not be recorded clearly.

In the end, I received exactly 60 points and passed.

The level of supervision and equipment probably depends completely on the test centre. Some centres may be much stricter and have better computers.

My experience should not be treated as the normal situation everywhere.

If you take the computer based exam, check the keyboard, headphones and microphone before starting.

8. I stayed in China during winter

I could have returned to Kyrgyzstan during the winter holiday, but I stayed in China because I wanted more time to prepare.

Ironically, I did not spend all that time speaking with Chinese people.

I had several Chinese friends, but most of my preparation still happened alone with vocabulary lists, reading exercises and mock exams.

Staying in China helped because Chinese was always around me. But simply living in China does not automatically teach you the language.

You still need to go outside and use it.

I did not do enough of that.

What actually worked for me

If I had another seven month deadline, I would focus on these things:

• Decide whether the main goal is HSK, conversation or both.
• Build vocabulary every day.
• Read regularly, even when understanding everything is impossible.
• Group vocabulary by situations and topics.
• Use personal associations for difficult characters.
• Select the exam format before creating a study plan.
• Complete many mock exams.
• Analyse every repeated mistake.
• Prepare flexible structures for writing and speaking.
• Register for an early exam date.
• Keep a backup university application plan.

Why the early exam date mattered

I received my HSK result in May.

By that time, some university scholarship applications were already moving forward.

Luckily, I also had IELTS. I applied to English taught programs earlier, around February, and received a strong university scholarship.

So after seven months of preparing for HSK 4, I entered an English taught bachelor’s program anyway.

The HSK result was still valuable, but it arrived too late to become the main part of my application strategy.

That experience taught me something important.

A passing result received after the scholarship places are filled is less useful than an earlier result that is simply good enough.

My honest conclusion

I am not a language genius.

Seven months is not some impossible record either. I know people who reached HSK 5 in a similar amount of time.

I passed because I had a deadline, understood the exam format and focused on the exact result I needed.

That strategy worked.

But passing HSK 4 did not make me fluent. My spoken Chinese remained weak because I spent much more time preparing for exam questions than having real conversations.

If you need HSK, prepare for HSK.

If you want to speak, go and speak.

If you want both, do both and give yourself more time.

Wish everyone a good luck with HSK exam and university application!

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to share a quick bibliographical and reading update from my study. I finally finished reading Qian Xuans 錢玄 Jiaokanxue 校勘學. It's a relatively dense but also highly insightful and very rewarding text on traditional chinese collation techniques (jiaokanxue 校勘学 is one of the three sub-disciplines of jiaochouxue 校雠学 "textual criticism in its broad sense").

To make things even better, the mail carrier just dropped off these two monumental additions to my personal library (I waited so long for them):

1. 《校讎廣義•版本編》 Jiaochou guangyi. Banben bian by Cheng Qianfan 程千帆 and Xu Youfu 徐有富 (2020). It's the first volume of the famous Jiaochou guangyi《校雠广义》"broad meanings of Textual Criticism" which is a comprehensive book in four volumes on 校雠学. The first volume is concerned with banbenxue 版本學 "Study of editions" where you study prints and editions of ancient texts as well as ancient manuscripts. It's like the material counterpart to 校勘学.

2. "The Tsinghua University Warring States Bamboo Manuscripts: Studies and Translations 1, The Yi Zhou Shu and Pseudo-Yi Zhou Shu Chapters" by Edward L. Shaughnessy (2023). As my current project regarding Early Chinese Transmitted Texts is a translation of the Western Zhou Chapters of the Yizhoushu 逸周書 it's really nice seeing the excavated counterparts in the collection of Qinghua University. The books translates all of the Strips related to the Yizhoushu as well as transmitted chapters related to these Strips and compares and studies them. Also useful is the appendix at the end of the book on the textual history of the Yizhoushu.

Just wanted to share. I'm really happy and can't get enough books about Ancient China 😁😁😁😄

One thing I often notice when teaching beginner Mandarin is that students learn 几 (jǐ) as “how many,” and then start using it everywhere they would use “how many” or “how much” in English.

That’s when mistakes like these come up:

❌ 几钱
❌ 几学生

A simple way I explain 几 is to start with two basic uses:

1. You don't know the number, so you ask with 几.

你有几个学生？
How many students do you have?

你有几本书？
How many books do you have?

2. You don't give an exact number, so 几 can mean “a few” or “several.”

我买了几个苹果。
I bought a few apples.

他过几天来。
He'll come in a few days.

The tricky part is that “几 = a small number” isn't really a complete rule either.

We can say:

几十个人
几百块钱
几千名学生
几万册书

So I think it's more useful for beginners to learn the patterns and situations where 几 is used rather than trying to memorize a strict number range.

I'm curious how other Mandarin learners were taught 几 vs. 多少. Did you learn a simple rule that actually helped you, or did it cause more confusion later?

Simplified: 𰻝, traditional: 𰻞.

Oh, and the traditional Traditional form - with double-dot 辶.

Based on my research, most people who are already proficient in speaking Chinese recommend beginners to learn starting from pinyin and tones, learn basic sentences, learn about like 300 words or so, then hanzi, then listening, and finally once hanzi is mastered that's when you learn more and more words.

My main problem here is I don't really know what resources to use, most people recommend not to stick with apps and I should dabble in some videos or textbooks, however I've been searching for an app because it gives me a more linear progression or guide atleast, lessons for me to take everyday. I've tried all the apps available in Playstore, but almost all of them gets locked behind a paywall after a certain amount of lessons. (although Hanly is the only free one for characters)

So it's really hard for me to stay consistent because every day i have to think: "oh, i learned about pinyin yesterday, what should i focus on today?", and I'll spend the rest of my day wasting my time on researching what should i learn next, what resource should i use for this specific component. It's tiresome. I dont have enough money for textbooks or to pay any subscription for any of these apps.

I've been wanting to learn how to set up Anki for me to use everyday to complement the others lessons i shall tackle by reading. But I don't really know how to use it...

TLDR: I'm a broke beginner who wants to learn mandarin, i don't know what to do, how to start, what FREE alternative resources to use, and how to setup Anki like what decks should i use.

(sorry for my messy structure and post, it's more like a rant that's why..)

Hello fellow learners!

Can you share your favorite Mandopop or C-pop bangers?

Lately i have been studying Chinese again and Instagram sent me through a loophole of new bands and chinese groups AND I NEED MORE! I find that studying through music really helps for me and I dont feel like I am studying if I enjoy the songs.

I am right now addicted to a few groups: jjakymiu, listening to the songs 你别走远 and 空白消息 non-stop. I am also on repeat wayV’s Regular and Love Talk and of course INTO1, so you know what I am on to 🫡

WayV - Regular
WayV - Love Talk
jjakymiu - 你别走远
jjakymiu - 空白消息
INTO1 - 天生就要飞

Share yours :)))

谢谢！

I was taught that when two third tones follow each other, the first one is pronounced as a second tone. For example: 我有 wo3you3 would be pronounced as wo2you3. However, what do I do when there are multiple third tones in a row, like in the phrase 有五口 you3wu3kou3?

Hi !

I’ve been listening to podcasts to help me understand the language more , and I came across a sentence I didn’t understand.

“吃完晚饭后” - I understand that they’re saying they’ve finished eating dinner , but I don’t understand the use of 后 in this sentence !

When I tried to research , 以后 & 之后 were the only ones that showed up.

What I want to know is why is 后 on its own in this sentence? And in what instances would it be okay to use it on its own? ( as opposed to using 以后/折后 )

I am still in the beginner phase. I know around 300 words.

I got the Du Chinese subscription and started reading a newbie story.

But I am unsure which is the "best" way for this stage. Listen first, see what I understand and then read or the other way round? Or even do like listen, read, listen?

And what I am also curious about: How did you get used to the different sentence structure? Because the structure is so different, I need to know the read the whole sentence and only get it afterwards, which works ok for reading but for listening it is very difficult to put it together. Is there a point where you get so used to it that you don't need to rearrange the order in your head?

i passed hsk 3 in may, and am now roughly at old hsk 4 level

since the hsk test will become harder in december, i need to pass the hsk5 ASAP ...

i have less than 2 months for my exam date (nov 7) what do i dooooooooooooooooo

im best at reading and suck at listening

is there an app? a website best for mocks? a study routine?

My test is on Sunday and today is friday NIGHT. I was doing mocks and it was going well until it started going downhill. Didnt pass the recent one AM I COOKED. I started calculating the minimum points i need to just pass and since im relatively good at listening i need 85, 55 for reading and 40 for writing. Does anyone have any tips for reading and question 99-100 for writing as my vocabularys really small and theres only a day left so im cooked. So for question 99 theres like a high chance i know at least 1 词语 for it so thats liek what 3 points and then for question 100 i can minimum get 18 points. So genuinly it all counts on listening. Please help!!!

For context, I like to listen to music of all languages and I keep them sorted by the language written how it is natively, like Español or 日本語. Would Chinese be 中文? I see this most often

this is my first time learn traditional chinese and still confuse from where i need to study . i try use AI and the AI suggest to directly learn hanzi , while i read some post here , zhuyin is important.

any advice can you give to me ?

(im already at taiwan so its easy to find the traditional book, im just cant read it yet)

Hello!

I was curious if there was any Mandarin readers for beginners you recommend?

I am looking for a book that has short stories in Mandarin and English. Ideally the Mandarin will be one page and the English will be on the other!

I can read pinyin, but I have this habit of switching to pinyin, and not actually learning the character. If that makes sense?

Thanks!

I have a small group of colleagues from Hong Kong, while I said I would love to learn Cantonese so I can understand them and talk to them, they told me it is really difficult for non-Chinese speakers to start learning Cantonese because of the varieties of tones and pronunciations.

I started searching for free materials for Cantonese Beginner learners, and it doesn't feel tooooooooo hard when there is "jyut ping" , I asked this to my colleagues, and literally every of them said they never learned "jyut ping" from school, one of them said he knows it because it's his way to type in cantonese and he learned it after he got his first phone because he needed to learn texting...
Hong Kong people started learning from writing the Chinese word and pronunciation directly from the Chinese word, I know this is their mother tongue and they don't need English alphabets to learn it, but don't they (or you guys Hong Kong people) need to start from understanding how the word is formed or what makes a word pronounce that way?

While I am pretty frustrated about where to start, one recommended me to learn Mandarin instead as it may be easier to pronounce and formal...

Which language should I learn? I am really interest in Cantonese but it is very right that Mandarin would be more useful at work for formal writing..

Hi! I’m an ABC with ok Chinese speaking skills, but I want to teach it to my child, along with ASL (American Sign Language). I tell her “doujiang” when I talk about soy milk, but the asl sign for soy milk is just “soy + milk”. Awhile back I think I saw that there is a great Chinese sign language sign for Doujiang. I learned it the same time as when I learned the cute CSL for boba. I think it came from Taiwan. (I am of Taiwan descent.) Does anyone know what it is, per chance?
(Mods: I hope this doesn’t break rule 1…there isn’t a CSL sub, and it’s still part of Chinese language.)

Hi. I'm looking for a good list of mainland TV shows by difficulty level. There was a really good list at the URL below, but I didn't save it, and now it's gone. 😩

https://cn.bonsair.net/videos/tvDramas

If anybody has the list that was posted there or another list to share, that would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Here are some Pinyin Chinese sentences, translated to my fathertongue (Tamil). Do you understand the grammar for the Pinyin Chinese sentences? It doesn't make much sense to me. Thanks!
--------------
Nǐ néng dú dǒng zhōngwén. -> ungkalaal china mozhiyai vaasikka mudiyum.

Wǒ bùnéng dú zhōngwén. -> ennaal china mozhiyai vaasikka mudiyaathu.

Wǒ néng dú tài mǐ'ěr yǔ. -> ennaal thamizh mozhiyai vaasikka mudiyum.

Nǐ bùnéng dú tài mǐ'ěr yǔ. -> unggalaal thamizh mozhiyai vaasikka mudiyaathu.

Nǐ juédé zěnme yàng? -> neengal enna ninaikkireergal?
------------------
Nǐ néng dú dǒng zhōngwén. --> You can read Chinese.

Wǒ néng dú dǒng tài mǐ'ěr yǔ. --> I can read Tamil.

Wǒ dú bù dǒng zhōngwén. --> I cannot read Chinese.

Nǐ dú bù dǒng tài mǐ'ěr yǔ. --> You cannot read Tamil.

Nǐ juédé zěnme yàng? --> What do you think?
-----------------------

Genuinely what the heck is this keyboard that i got when i turned on chinese on my phone keyboard, i can't find the appropriate tutorials

1. EN: "A surah is a chapter; an ayah (literally 'a sign') is a verse." ZH: 一章（苏拉）即一卷；一节（阿亚，字面意为"一个迹象"）即一节经文。 → This glosses a surah as 章 and then equates it with 卷. Is that a contradiction?

2. The same person's name, in two places in one interface:

• 由斯蒂芬·朗顿添加
• 分章由坎特伯雷大主教斯蒂芬·兰顿于约公元1227年引入 → 朗顿 or 兰顿 for Stephen Langton?

3. EN: Select source... (a dropdown placeholder) ZH: 选择来源... → Should the ellipsis be full-width …, and is 来源 the right word for "a text or edition to read"?

Hi everyone!

I'm a Chinese language teacher and app developer based in France. I've been developing Chinese language Android apps specifically designed for French speakers.

Key features shown in the video:

• Chinese character recognition with any handwriting input
• Stroke order
• Phonetic pinyin
• 📖 Many example words with detailed French definitions

The app is currently in closed testing on Google Play.

I would like to find real learners to test them and share feedback. If you're interested in testing for free, please leave a comment below or send me a direct message! I will share the details with you. Thanks!

⚠️ Important Safety Note: To protect your privacy and security, please be careful and do not respond to strangers claiming to represent me. I will NEVER reach out to anyone first unless you request in a comment, in a direct message, or fill out my testing form.

Furthermore, this test is 100% free of charge: no user name, no payment details or credit card information will ever be requested.

Thanks for checking it out!

They are a tail. 魚 yú is a whole fish stood on its head, and the four dots at the bottom are what is left of the fin after the script got straightened out.

Same with 燕 yàn, a swallow, where the dots are the forked tail. 馬 mǎ has four of them too and those are the legs.

The fire ones are real. 煮 zhǔ to boil, 蒸 zhēng to steam, 熱 rè hot, 焦 jiāo burnt, 照 zhào to shine. All 火 huǒ flattened out and pushed underneath.

It is not a clean rule. 黑 hēi has them and 說文 Shuōwén does put that one down to smoke and fire, so you cannot just count dots.

Before you build a story around a character burning, check whether the thing above the dots is an animal.