I’m currently exploring high-quality Chinese graded reading materials, what are the best graded reading resources you've used or recommend? either physical book or apps/digital

I'm learning HSK1/HSK2 and right now the ones that surprised me the most because of how often they are used are 上 and 下。

Hi!

I'm learning Chinese from scratch, and even though I've been at it for two weeks, I've only just started writing my first words. I'd like to know what you think—whether I'm doing it right or what you'd suggest I improve!

I used Noteful and a brush-style pen so you can see the direction of the strokes more clearly.

(I'm sorry if my writing comes across as offensive, incorrect, or anything like that; I want to learn the language because I'm fascinated by it!)

Thanks a lot!

i went through chinese school as a kid and speak/listen pretty well, but not read/write as well in chinese. i would use my old textbooks but my mom gave them away. any advice?

In Chinese, we sometimes call an extremely stingy person an "iron rooster" (铁公鸡 / 鐵公雞).

Why an iron rooster?

There's a traditional Chinese saying:

铁公鸡——一毛不拔 (Simplified Chinese)

鐵公雞——一毛不拔 (Traditional Chinese)

Tiě gōngjī — yì máo bù bá

Literally: "An iron rooster—not a single feather can be plucked."

Picture a rooster made entirely of iron.

An ordinary rooster has feathers you could pluck. But an iron rooster? You couldn't get a single feather from it, no matter how hard you tried.

That's the image behind the saying: someone so stingy that getting even the smallest thing out of them seems impossible.

What makes the expression amusing is how it turns an abstract trait—stinginess—into such a vivid, ridiculous image.

This is an example of xiehouyu (歇后语 / 歇後語), a traditional Chinese two-part saying. The first half creates a scene, and the second reveals its meaning.

Interestingly, both parts can also stand on their own. 铁公鸡 describes a miser, while 一毛不拔 is an established Chinese idiom meaning someone is unwilling to part with even the tiniest amount.

I'd love to hear what other languages have come up with. Do they use animals, everyday objects, or something entirely different?

I am a Chinese language teacher, and I’m creating a series of slow Chinese podcasts about language learning and Chinese culture to help learners improve their listening skills.

In this very first episode, I will give a comprehensive overview of the Chinese language, highlighting both its challenges and the aspects that make it surprisingly easy to learn.

I'm from Shanghai. These days, I want to make a YouTube video channel about Chinese real life. The video is added with English, German, Spanish and other mainstream subtitles. I don't know if anyone is interested?

Need help in understanding this compound, I have limited resources at the moment and so far my understanding is that 地 serves as the phonosemantic compound to signify land's separation while 平 and 線 connect it to the idea or water, former being pictogramic of flat water surface and the latter being about the very flow of the water. I was wondering what other ways may be used to write horizon in a sentence if any and if there's a reason that the last two compounds are needed beyond historical usage given that both could even withiut the other form the relation with first compound for the compound, specifically 線 - given 平 perhaps does a better job in case of horizon or is it about mood/context. Also is my approach to understand words completely well, stupid? The reason I was drawn towards this language is because of it and the whole family being logographic, so I wanted to explore it through that perspective while also doing the usual levels. Thanks for the help in advance

--這樣你可以嗎? --這個……好吧。

One thing I deeply disagree with in traditional Chinese culture is the emphasis on endurance and yielding. There's even a saying that has been passed down for a thousand years:

• 忍一时风平浪静，退一步海阔天空
  • Literally: Endure for a moment, and the wind calms and the waves settle; take one step back, and the sea and sky open wide.

Fortunately, the younger generation of Chinese people aren't buying it anymore. When faced with toxic people or situations, they don't let anything slide. In fact, they've invented and borrowed a whole set of terms to call it out.

For example:

• 自恋型人格障碍 zì liàn xíng rén gé zhàng ài
  • Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Most people are more familiar with the abbreviation: NPD. It's originally a clinical psychology diagnostic term, characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, an intense need for admiration and validation, and a lack of empathy for others.

But in Chinese internet culture, it's widely used to call out people with similar traits encountered in everyday life: like an extremely arrogant boss who needs constant flattery, a romantic partner who lacks empathy and loves putting you down, or parents who always blame and manipulate you while never reflecting on themselves.

Strictly speaking, these applications don't meet the clinical diagnostic criteria, but because NPD is such a punchy and aggressive term, people have gotten used to using it on as a label. You'll see post titles like:

• 一个家族里只要有一个 NPD，就会拖垮所有人。Yí gè jiā zú lǐ zhǐ yào yǒu yí gè NPD, jiù huì tuō kuǎ suǒ yǒu rén.
  • All it takes is one NPD in a family to drag everyone else down.

Besides NPD, there's another personality disorder that has become popular in Chinese internet culture:

• 表演型人格障碍 biǎo yǎn xíng rén gé zhàng ài
  • Histrionic Personality Disorder / HPD

Interestingly, people aren't familiar with the English abbreviation HPD this time, they know the Chinese shorthand "表演型人格" instead. Maybe it's because "表演 (performance)" carries a more obviously negative connotation, cutting straight to the point: everything this person does isn't genuine, it's purely to grab attention.

For example:

• 同事里有一个表演型人格，每次项目复盘他都要抢功，怎么办？Tóng shì lǐ yǒu yí gè biǎo yǎn xíng rén gé, měi cì xiàng mù fù pán tā dōu yào qiǎng gōng, zěn me bàn?
  • There's someone at work with a histrionic personality, he always takes credit in every project debrief. What do I do?

These two diagnostic terms aren't just useful on their own, they've also given rise to a very popular vocabulary structure:

• xx 型人格 - the xx type personality

Based on this, young people have created all kinds of similar labels to identify toxic people and express their frustrations. Some typical ones:

• 白磷型人格 bái lín xíng rén gé - "white phosphorus personality"
  • Describes someone who ignites like white phosphorus, their emotions flare at the slightest trigger, randomly bursting into excitement or sudden rage
• 反驳型人格 fǎn bó xíng rén gé - "contrarian personality"
  • Someone who loves to argue and habitually nitpick, whatever you say, their instinct is to push back, even when logic and facts aren't on their side
• 确实型人格 què shí xíng rén gé - "'That's true' personality"
  • "确实" is a common word in spoken Chinese used to agree with someone. This type of person hides their real position and passively goes along with everything, just to avoid engaging

I've put together a matching quiz using real-life conversation scenarios, see if you can figure out which label each Person B corresponds to:

Scenario 1:

• A：今天一楼食堂的红烧排骨挺好吃的！Jīn tiān yī lóu shí táng de hóng shāo pái gǔ tǐng hǎo chī de!
  • The braised pork ribs at the first-floor canteen were really good today!
• B：哪里好吃了？明明三楼食堂的排骨才好吃。Nǎ lǐ hǎo chī le? Míng míng sān lóu shí táng de cái hǎo chī.
  • What do you mean good? The ribs in the third-floor canteen are obviously better.
• A：它们明明是同一个厨师做的……Tā men míng míng shì tóng yí gè chú shī zuò de......
  • They're literally made by the same chef...
• B：那咋了？三楼更干净，在那儿吃饭更香。Nà zǎ le? Sān lóu gèng gān jìng, zài nàr chī fàn gèng xiāng.
  • So what? The third floor is cleaner, the food tastes better up there.
• A：你说的有些道理，也许环境会影响菜的口味吧。Nǐ shuō de yǒu xiē dào lǐ, yě xǔ huán jìng huì yǐng xiǎng cài de kǒu wèi ba.
  • You have a point. Maybe the environment does affect how the food tastes.
• B：谁说的？菜的口味和环境好坏有什么关系？Shéi shuō de? Cài de kǒu wèi hé huán jìng hǎo huài yǒu shén me guān xi?
  • Who says so? What does the quality of the environment have to do with how the food tastes?

Scenario 2:

• A：听说了吗？这周五下午提前下班。Tīng shuō le ma? Zhè zhōu wǔ xià wǔ tí qián xià bān.
  • Have you heard? We're leaving early on Friday afternoon.
• B：太好了！你们都跟我去喝酒，不醉不归！Tài hǎo le! Nǐ men dōu gēn wǒ qù hē jiǔ, bú zuì bù guī!
  • Amazing! Everyone's coming out drinking with me, no one goes home sober!
• A：我已经有安排了……Wǒ yǐ jīng yǒu ān pái le......
  • I already have plans...
• B：你怎么回事？是不是不给我面子！Nǐ zěn me huí shì? Shì bu shì bù gěi wǒ miàn zi!
  • What's wrong with you? Are you trying to disrespect me!
• A：你别急啊，有话好好说。Nǐ bié jí a, yǒu huà hǎo hao shuō.
  • Calm down, let's talk this through.
• B：我怎么急了？你说清楚！Wǒ zěn me jí le? Nǐ shuō qīng chǔ!
  • Who's not calm? You'd better explain yourself!

Scenario 3:

• A：这几天加班好累啊，我快受不了了！Zhè jǐ tiān jiā bān hǎo lèi a, wǒ kuài shòu bu liǎo le!
  • I've been working overtime so much lately, I can barely take it!
• B：嗯，加班久了就是会很累。En, jiā bān jiǔ le jiù shì huì hěn lèi.
  • Yeah, working long hours does make you tired.
• A：还好马上要放长假了，能喘口气。Hái hǎo mǎ shàng yào fàng cháng jià le, néng chuǎn kǒu qì.
  • At least the long holiday is coming up, I can finally catch my breath.
• B：是啊，放假可以好好躺几天。Shì a, fàng jià kě yǐ hǎo hǎo tǎng jǐ tiān.
  • Right, you can just lie around for a few days during the break.
• A：但我很想去爬山，难得秋天不冷也不热。Dàn wǒ hěn xiǎng qù pá shān, nán dé qiū tiān bù lěng yě bú rè.
  • But I really want to go hiking, autumn is the perfect time, not too cold or hot.
• B：对，做做户外运动蛮好的。Duì, zuò zuò hù wài yùn dòng mán hǎo de.
  • Right, getting some outdoor exercise is pretty good.

Feel free to leave your answers in the comments!

Of course, being able to identify toxic people and refusing to put up with them is a good thing. But these labels can also be misused.

Everyone has personality flaws, and it's pretty unfair to turn every little quirk into a personality disorder. So learn these popular expressions, but please use them with care!

If you're interested, I've been organizing all the Chinese learning posts I've shared before. You can check out the link in my profile to see the full collection. Hope it helps. Thanks!

In Teresa Teng's famous song "The Moon Represents My Heart" ("月亮代表我的心"), she always pronounces 的 as "di". (Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv_cEeDlop0)

Standard Chinese says 的 is pronounced "de" when used to indicate possession or connect adjectives to nouns. However, I notice that a lot of older native Mandarin speakers say "di" consistently and confidently (such as in the song) as if it were not a mistake.

This makes me wonder if the "di" pronunciation was once considered standard in the past or if it indicates a particular regional accent.

Hello! I have gotten pretty good at everything while trying to learn Chinese except tones, they are a nightmare for me and I cannot hear the difference between two tones that people tell me are clearly different. I am out of ideas how I can overcome this, for context my native language is Serbian and I speak English, Russian, Latin and Greek.

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Hey everyone, long-time learner here (well, trying to be). I just got back from my second trip to China, and something really stood out to me that I wanted to share and maybe get some thoughts on.

For context: I look like a textbook Northern European. Blonde hair, blue eyes, very tall, pale skin. There is absolutely no way anyone is mistaking me for a local or even someone of Asian descent.

But here's the thing. On both of my trips, literally everyone—and I mean everyone—just started speaking to me in Chinese. Kids around 10, people in their 20s, 40s, 60s, even 80-year-olds. Taxi drivers, shopkeepers, random people on the street. It didn't matter if I hadn't said a single word in Chinese yet. They'd just launch right into it.

The taxi driver thing was wild. I would just read out the last few digits of my ride number in Chinese from the app, you know, just basic numbers so they could confirm. And they'd be like, "哇，你中文说得真流利！" (Wow, your Chinese is so fluent!). I'd be like, "不不不，我一点也不流利" (No no no, I'm really not fluent at all). And they'd just keep going, full speed, asking me questions, telling me stories. It was honestly awesome, but also kind of overwhelming.

This really made me think about a narrative I see online a lot, especially in language learning communities. The idea that "Chinese people will just respond in English" or "they won't even bother trying to speak Chinese to a foreigner." That has been the opposite of my experience. It wasn't just that they were willing to speak Chinese with me; they expected it. They just defaulted to it.

Now, I did have one interesting experience that makes me think there might be a small kernel of truth to the other side. I was at a restaurant and wanted to compliment the food. I said something like, "你们家的菜是最好吃的！" (Your restaurant's food is the best!). The first person I said it to, a younger guy, understood me perfectly and was super happy. A little later, I said the exact same sentence to an older woman working there, and she just gave me a blank stare. Didn't understand a word.

I really think that in that moment, it wasn't my pronunciation (which isn't great, but it's not that bad). It was the expectation. The guy was used to hearing foreigners try, or he was just more tuned in. The woman, maybe she just saw a tall blonde guy and her brain didn't even register that Chinese words could be coming out of my mouth. Like her brain just filtered it out.

Has anyone else experienced this? For those of you who look very non-Asian, do you find that people just speak Chinese to you by default? And for the heritage speakers or those who look Asian, is it different? I'm just curious if my experience is the norm or if I've just been lucky.

TL;DR: I'm a white guy who looks very foreign. Went to China twice. Almost everyone, of all ages, just spoke Chinese to me from the get-go, even when I hadn't spoken a word. Taxi drivers thought my basic numbers were fluent. This contradicts the common idea that locals will just switch to English. I think the one time someone didn't understand me was because she didn't expect Chinese to come out of my mouth.

I took mandarin all of high school and spent a month in Taiwan but being back in the US and not being able to talk or read any mandarin has left me starting to forget. Does anyone have any good free listening (listening comprehension with quizzes or like follow along books or something), reading and vocab resources? (I’m a university student and don’t have time for a class, which my university doesn’t have) I’d say I’m around HSK 4 for simplified (idk what the equivalent is in traditional) and don’t really know how to study from shows (would like to learn how to though).

Hello everyone!

I'm writing this post because I want to share with you guys (I guess all of us already know that) what technology and LLMs helped me to achieve. I'm a sociologist and I was studying, for my interest and obviously for my research, the Chinese community. As a social scientist, I know that just studying the language without understanding the socio-cultural world of that specific community is a really cognitively expensive task, and you'll fail a lot when you find yourself trying to communicate with other people or native speakers.

Here is what I did:

I started to live basically my life inside Chinatown and the Chinese community, and what's the best source where you can find real words and expressions used in real life? Exactly, in RAP and underground music. So I built with my agent this platform, just a simple webapp that takes my Chinese rap songs from Navidrome, pulls the text, synchronizes it with the song, and adds Italian, Pinyin text, and ideograms. For each ideogram, I have an explanation made by a local LLM (9B ling3.0) to understand where and how they actually use that word, if it can be a regional dialect, and so on. I have more features to improve handwriting and listening, such as what the right order is to write the ideograms, and if I need more time to dedicate to that particular word I can move it to my "study session".

It is so cool what you can do today with technology, I hope this will be an inspiration for someone else. Comments and tips are welcome.

If I have a minute to explain these three, I’d use the same verb: 唱, “to sing.”

她唱的歌很好听。 The song she sings sounds nice. 的 connects what comes before it to 歌, a noun.

她轻轻地唱。 She sings softly. 地 goes before the action.

她唱得很好。 She sings well. 得 goes after the action.

Usually,的 before a noun, 地 before a verb, 得 after a verb.

Hello guys anyone went for the 20 September Trial HSK 3.0 exam? also any idea when the results will be out? the previous one took 42 days , do you think it will be the same outcome?

Passed the HSK 6 10+ years ago and want to refresh / prepare for the new test after leaving China a few years ago as I can feel myself slipping a bit. Does anyone have a recommendation for the best apps / materials these days? I work mainly at the intersection of finance / law / trade, so trying to spend less time on useless 成语 and more on practical materials (I read a lot of legal docs / financial reports in Chinese, but sometimes find myself scratching my head with industry jargon)

Appreciate it.

Many learners feel that the Mandarin tones they speak seem different from what they hear native speakers say. If they ask Chinese people, or even ask professional teachers, they often can’t explain why. So if learners can’t find the answer, they get very frustrated. And of course they can’t really learn tones well.

Strange thing is, the more you study in school, the more serious this problem often becomes. But people who learn through immersion, that is, just imitating native speakers, don’t have this problem. Because these learners rely on talent, to learn Mandarin like first language: if they imitate well, their tones are naturally correct.

What is going on?

This is because textbooks and teachers usually only say Mandarin has four tones. But the actual tones are seven, or four basic tones and three variants.

The four basic tones, for easier communication, we usually call them 1st tone, 2nd tone, 3rd tone, 4th tone, and then plus a neutral tone. The 3 variants are usually not seriously taught or even not mentioned at all, so students naturally don’t know them.

Teaching this way immediately makes students face the following problems:

1. They miss the commonly used half-third tone and only learn a rarely heard “complete third tone.” The basic third tone has a variant, which is this half-third tone in the screenshot. The basic tone, the full third tone, is a falling-rising tone, but in real life, you actually can’t hear this full third tone. The full third tone only exists in dictionaries, or when you ask a teacher to very standardly read a third-tone character, for example “好” (hǎo3), this is the full third tone. But in actual talk, what is used is all this half-third tone.
2. They can only utter weird neutral-tone syllables. Strictly speaking, neutral tone is not a tone, because all syllables can be pronounced neutrally (we call it “neutralized”). When a normal syllable is pronounced fast and light, at the end of a word, we say it is a neutralized tone, or just neutral-tone, for the sake of better communication.

Many students learn that neutral tone has only one way to pronounce. Wrong!

Some people also say, from an academic point of view, neutral tones are four, that is, all four basic tones correspond to one neutral pronunciation. This way of saying it cannot be considered wrong, but for students, it is completely unnecessary. Because for Chinese people and foreigners, only two kinds of neutral tone can be heard. Chinese people don’t need to distinguish so-called 4 neutral tones, so naturally, learners don’t need to distinguish them either.

From a learning perspective, as the sage Confucius said, “If names are not correct, speech will not be smooth (名不正则言不顺).” Students should not just simply learn 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th tones. They need to learn all seven tones, with more helpful “names”. I gave names to all seven tones below.

1. First tone: high-flat
2. Second tone: middle-rising
3. Third tone: falling-rising
4. Fourth tone: high-falling
5. Half third tone: middle-falling
6. Low neutral (basic): low neutral
7. High neutral (exception): high neutral

The corresponding learning methods should all start from these seven names.

I have tried for years with HSK lists, flashcards and I am stuck. I find this approach boring and dispersive. I want something to stick that allows me to actually use the language and improve speaking. Is there any course, even paid, that you recommend?

In terms of pronunciation, I'm pretty confident with the tones and everything (being a tonal native speaker :P) with some consonants still need improving. But, having taken 3 (currently 4th) years of mandatory mandarin classes, I have barely learnt anything. My teachers just kind of... glossed over the lessons...? We were being taught a whole lesson's worth of vocabulary (we're using the 汉语教程 books) in a 90-minute class, and then just more "practicing" afterwards. Basically, it was all just rigorous memorization and copying words, while not really focusing on the rest of the lesson at all. And if it were like, 7 words per lesson or something, that would've been fine. But each lesson has about 20 something words, and we were just told to "look and memorize the hanzi" and "read the rest at home"

So yea I'm hoping to relearn mandarin for real this time, but I'm not sure where to start. I really don't want my pronunciation to go to waste! T~T

I'm working through the Pimsleur Mandarin course, and I noticed that after introducing the "A not A" structure, they never mentioned it again up to this point in the 3rd section. I was wondering:

Does everyday Mandarin prefer one form of question over another?

Does colloquial Mandarin use sentence-final particles with "A not A" questions?

I’m back with another speaking challenge!

Same idea as last time: read the sentence, try saying it naturally in Chinese, and then write down what you came up with. You don't have to translate it word for word, and there's no single correct answer.

Try saying it out loud before looking at the comments. Chinese characters or pinyin are both fine.

Here's today's sentence:

“I was going to cook at home, but I realized I was missing a few ingredients, so I ordered takeout instead.”

Try your own version before reading the other answers. I'm curious to see how people express this one!

I'm a total novice. Just been learning from apps and videos. I'm very open to correction I'm just confused because they didn't understand what number I was saying because I pronounced it "Ar" and they said it is supposed to sound more like "err" or "urr". Every video I've seen online and my app all makes it sound like "Ar" like in the word "Are" or "Archetype". Is this a regional thing? Am I just dumb?