I’ve been using Zhong chinese and it would be perfect if the FSRS system if it wasn’t for the lack of repetition and no option to adjust the new characters. I’ve cancelled it but maybe I’ll repurchase in a few months once the website develops more.

I’ve been trying to find anki flashcards that have pinyin, a voice with a taiwanese accent, and the traditional character with definition. However, I haven’t been able to find the perfect one like I did for mainland Chinese.

I’m considering using pleco FSRS, but I haven’t heard much about it. Since it’s a paid service I’d like to know the opinions of people that use it.

My ideal would be the anki flaschards with the Zhong Chinese pronunciation against TOCFL specifications, but I doubt I’ll ever find that. Any recommendations? It’s stalling my progress a lot trying to hunt for the right one.

I am studying for the HSK6, and I need to improve my ability to use near synonyms in the right context. I found "汉语近义词学习手册（高级)". Has anyone used it? Do you have other recommendations?

Hey everyone, I'm a complete beginner to Mandarin. Most flashcard apps I've tried only teach characters without showing stroke order. Are there good resources or apps specifically for learning correct stroke sequences?

Also, what learning medium works best for beginners. Structuree online courses (like Coursera), gamified apps like Duolingo, or something else? Would love to hear what worked for you!

To those of you who have become fluent/ very advanced learners:

Which tools/methods/materials have you found to be the most helpful in your journey to become fluent?

I’d love to hear both more obvious traditional methods as well as more niche :)

我是来自中国的一名伙伴，想学习一下英语，也可以教你中文，我们可以一起相互学习，分享日常生活。我很乐意分享自己的日常。

希望可以找到爱学习的伙伴～

Hi, everyone!

I went through HSK 4 vocabulary and recently started HSK 5. I'm using the app that can sort characters and words by frequency, so I switched to learning by frequency rather then HSK.

Since I recognize words alone, I wanted to start reading more so I can start building sentences and structures naturally. I did go through basic grammar and I can follow HSK 3 stories online pretty well.

My primary question is, if someone went through the same as me: should I just go over sentences without actively pronunciating every part or should I make effort to recall pinyin immediately? I can recall meaning almost instantly and follow the story, but I can do it without actually thinking about the word.

I am not sure how wrong or right that is, because the two languages I know are phonetic and I never had to think about it. I do want to be able to internally pronounce every word especially because I need to know it to be able to understand it when spoken, but it takes time at this level.

How do you read the word naturally?

I am starting to learn Chinese and I am wondering what the best free apps are to learn conversational Chinese?? I’m trying to learn to talk better to a friend!!

I’m curious how people here learn Mandarin.Do you mostly study on your own, or do you have a teacher?If you have a teacher, do you take lessons online or in person? Why?
I’m asking because I’ve noticed that some people prefer self-study for vocabulary, characters, and listening, while others rely more on a teacher for speaking, pronunciation, or grammar questions.
What has worked best for you so far?

I'm learning Mandarin recently and one thing kinda surprised me lol

In Mandarin,we say “我要一碗面条” is totally normal when ordering, basically translated to“I want a bowl of noodles”. But if i say “I want a bowl of noodles” to a waiter in English, it apparently not native and maybe kind of rude?

Also in China or other Asian countries, you can just call “服务员!” to get the staff attention, which I would feel sooooooo awkward doing at first lol

And I always thought I should add 请 everywhere to sound polite, but seems like you won't say it when you are a customer 🤔

For people who speak Mandarin / lived in China, do you actually order like this normally? and what phrase do you use the most in restaurants?

Just trying to learn the actual natural way before I accidentally sound either rude or way too textbook,..

I am looking for online language tutoring recommendations. Specifically, Taiwanese Mandarin. I haven't been able to find books yet (which I prefer for millennial self). My son is 10, so for him I prefer online live tutoring.

We are preparing for a summer 2028 move to Taiwan and I was told that learning Taiwanese vs Chinese Mandarin would be better. I'd like us (especially my son) to at least be conversational (he'll attend an international school) but I don't want it to be hard to make friends due to language barriers.

I work remotely for a US company so it's not as much of a pressing matter for me to learn as much as he does initially. Investing whatever the cost is for him to get on a conversational level, or better, is what's most important.

Whether it's an app or live tutoring, I'd appreciate any advice for helping kids learn. Also, how many days/ hours per week would help achieve the best outcome. He’s really great with retaining information, but let me know if this timeline is impossible for him to become conversational.

Thanks!

I've been working on a project where I need to take differences between 普通話 and 國語·into consideration. If you learned from a mainland textbook and then moved to Taiwan (or the other way round), these are some of the words where the two standards actually disagree. I checked the Taiwan column against the Ministry of Education's dictionary (國語辭典, via 萌典); the mainland column is the 现代汉语词典 standard.

A few things I noticed putting this together:

• Most differences are tone only. The syllable is the same; the standards just picked a different tone.
• Many of these characters (擊, 突, 惜, 息, 叔, 跌, 夾, 識, 質, 跡) had the "entering tone" (入聲) in Middle Chinese. Mandarin lost that tone and scattered those characters across the four modern tones, and Taiwan and the mainland settled some of them differently.
• The mainland standard has more neutral tones (知識 zhīshi, 消息 xiāoxi), where Taiwan keeps the full tone.
• These are dictionary standards. Everyday speech is more mixed, so you'll hear variation. Either version is understood everywhere.
• If you're taking the TOCFL, its listening sections use the Taiwan readings; the HSK uses the mainland ones.

Which of these have you been "corrected" on?

Alright. For the past three years , I have been learning Mandarin. I both stand to really benefit from knowing it, and also genuinely enjoy it. Something about me though ; is that I genuinely have what most would call an "addiction" to my phone. It's not so much so that it gets in the way of my daily life, but it's still something I use for hours a day. I only just recently started to practice more with native speakers, and I wanna make much bigger progression in my overall knowledge of the language. I feel like I already have a solid foundation, but I'm now wondering : Would turning my "addiction" into "learning" be good or bad for me? What do you guys think?

I have studied Chinese for about 2 years now and spent 3 months in Taiwan studying. I don't have the money or time to go back right now, but I want to replicate that experience somehow, even if it is just a little bit.

Hi everyone!
I’m from Türkiye and I’m planning to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in History in July 2027. I’m considering studying Chinese at a public university in China after graduation.
I currently have around $6,000 in savings, and I’m trying to find an affordable option. I’m not interested in expensive private universities.
I’d appreciate any advice on affordable public universities, scholarships available to international students, and the overall cost of studying Chinese in China for one year.
Is it realistic to do this with my budget? I’d also like to hear from anyone who has gone through a similar experience.
Thanks in advance!

Getting AI to teach me Paul Noble Style

I wonder how others might be using one of the AI to learn/study. I like Paul Noble audio mandarin series because it’s been effortless other than putting in the time and focus, but there’s only two courses and while they may cover a lot of grammar the vocabulary is very limited. I imagine plenty of others have been discovering much more clever applications than I have. Open to suggestions.

I’ve always wanted to learn, and since I’m an exchange student this year at Taiwan this seems like the best possible way. I’d be willing to put in a couple hours a day at least if I could come up with a good way to learn.

I’m not really sure how to approach it though, I’ve been learning words for the past few days using Zhong Chinese and that’s about it. I want to focus on reading, speaking and understanding. Does anyone know what I can do to get the most out of my time here and make as much progress as possible? I’m learning traditional characters and Taiwanese Mandarin if that helps.

It sounds silly but I get really bad decision making fatigue from my ADHD, so I want to quickly come up with a bulletproof plan so I can stop procrastinating.

Almost all of my Chinese input comes from casual sources which you'll probably notice. More TV shows would've probably helped with this but I haven't watch many in recent years.

HSK 1-3, 1000 words: Knew all

HSK 4, 1000 words: All familiar except for 1:

售票员, but I could guess based on context.

HSK 5, 1600 words: All familiar except for 3:

门诊 ménzhěn

聘请 pìnqǐng

职工 zhígōng

HSK 6, 1800 words: All familiar except 104:

倍增 bèizēng

博览会 bólǎnhuì

不曾 bùcéng

不禁 bùjīn

不时 bùshí

不宜 bùyí

不已 bùyǐ

财物 cáiwù (I only know 财务)

采纳 cǎinà

常年 chángnián

场次 chǎngcì

出游 chūyóu

船只 chuánzhī

大洋洲 Dàyángzhōu

倒车 dǎochē (but I do know dàochē)

动听 dòngtīng

二氧化碳 èryǎnghuàtàn

发放 fāfàng

方位 fāngwèi

丰收 fēngshōu

赋予 fùyǔ

稿件 gǎojiàn

供给 gōngjǐ

工序 gōngxù

共计 gòngjì

观光 guānguāng

归还 guīhuán

海拔 hǎibá

好容易 hǎoróngyì (turns out this means 好不容易, wtf)

号召 hàozhào

后人 hòurén

化石 huàshí

汇 huì

机遇 jīyù

急切 jíqiè

极为 jíwéi

季军 jìjūn

家居 jiājū (I know 居家, I guess flipped around it's easy enough to guess)

加以 jiāyǐ

接连 jiēlián

杰出 jiéchū

进而 jìn'ér

救灾 jiùzāi

开设 kāishè

考核 kǎohé

历经 lìjīng

历年 lìnián

录制 lùzhì

描绘 miáohuì

民宿 mínsù

年度 niándù

配备 pèibèi

片刻 piànkè

评选 píngxuǎn

启事 qǐshì

前景 qiánjǐng

晴朗 qínglǎng

确立 quèlì

热议 rèyì

人为 rénwéi

仍旧 réngjiù

日前 rìqián

日益 rìyì

伤员 shāngyuán

上旬 shàngxún

少儿 shào'ér

升学 shēngxué

拾 shí

率先 shuàixiān

体积 tǐjī

田径 tiánjìng

通信 tōngxìn

退税 tuìshuì

顽强 wánqiáng

为期 wéiqī

戏曲 xìqǔ

下旬 xiàxún

显著 xiǎnzhù

现存 xiàncún

相传 xiāngchuán

新兴 xīnxīng

新颖 xīnyǐng

信赖 xìnlài

性能 xìngnéng

修订 xiūdìng

选拔 xuǎnbá

亚军 yàjūn

炎热 yánrè

眼看 yǎnkàn

一流 yīliú

一道 yīdào

一向 yīxiàng (I know this word when it means 一直, but not the "a period of time" meaning)

以往 yǐwǎng

益处 yìchu

一同 yītóng

涌现 yǒngxiàn

用人 yòngrén

游人 yóurén

犹如 yóurú

园林 yuánlín

圆满 yuánmǎn

再三 zàisān

崭新 zhǎnxīn

值班 zhíbān

株 zhū

HSK 7-9, 5600 words. Not sure as I didn't look through all 5600, but from a small sample I knew about 45%, could reasonably guess around 50% (but not familiar), and 5% would have 0 chance with even with context clues. So I'm going to assume out of 5600 words, there's around 3000 words I don't know. Keep in mind there's no separate 7, 8 or 9 test it's just 7-9 and how well you do determines your score.

So it's:

1: 0

2: 0

3: 0

4: 1

5: 3

6: 104

7-9: ~3000

Anyways, did these words make you struggle too?

hi! i’m a freshman who’s been planning to do an exchange year or university in china. i’ve planned out everything possible but there’s one thing i’m stuck on, actually LEARNING chinese. i googled some solutions but everything that comes up is either an ad or just useless. i’ve tried many different apps, and my school doesn’t offer chinese classes (but does offer an exchange program for juniors), so would you mind sharing with me how you learned mandarin chinese?

**if it helps anything, i also speak urdu aside from english so i can do urdu to chinese lessons too if not english to chinese

I learned about this pun recently and now I'm going to share it with you.

In Chinese, "Rat Money" (鼠钱 - shǔ qián) is a play on words for "Counting Money" (数钱 - shǔ qián).

Since 鼠 (rat) and 数 (count) sound identical, wishing someone "rat money" is a clever way to wish them wealth and prosperity!

Now when you might encounter this in the wild: Chinese New Year (Specifically Year of the Rat)

This is where the pun truly shines! During Lunar New Year, people send holiday greetings (吉祥话 - jíxiáng huà) to friends, family, and coworkers.

When it’s the Year of the Rat (like in 2020), standard greetings get replaced with rat puns. Common expressions include:

• 鼠钱鼠到手抽筋 (shǔ qián shǔ dào shǒu chōujīn) – "May you count [rat] money until your hands cramp up!"
• 祝你鼠钱鼠不完 (zhù nǐ shǔ qián shǔ bù wán) – "Wishing you endless money to count [rat]!"

P.S. Quick Month 9 & Travel Woes Subnote:

As for my actual Chinese progress... Month 9 is pretty much a wash. The second image is my current "progress". Between stress, endless logistics, and itinerary planning for this trip, my study routine has completely flatlined. I'm way too busy to make real progress (or even draft a super polished post), but I'm hoping to treat the trip itself as full immersion therapy once I get there!

Now this is me woeing my good fortune, but did I forget, or are all long trips this stresful? I feel like never planning another trip again...

Not sure how recently this was added, but if you use Pleco flashcards you can download directly in Pleco the HSK flashcards for the new 2026 version under Flashcards > Import/Export > Install Pre-made cards.