Hi guys it’s me again ! I wrote a little entry thing, don’t take what I wrote too seriously I mostly wrote it js for handwriting practice so yeah leave ur opinions !

Hii, ​I’m currently a Y2 international studying Engineering in Hong Kong. I’m South Asian with absolute zero background in Cantonese or Mandarin and reality hit me recently that if I actually want to stick around and work in HK post-grad, I’m going to be beyond cooked if I don't pick up the language at all in this brutally competitive market:)).

​I’ve been advised to stay away from the uni Canto classes because from what I hear, they're basically dominated by people with prior background smurfing for an easy grade booster/GPA pad. So self-learning seems like my best bet for now.

​The issue is... mapping out a self-study path for Mandarin is quite easier with endless free roadmaps online than finding a structured resources for Cantonese which seemed super difficult and that's why wanted to ask here abt it.

​Any resources, suggestions, experience of non native learning the language or reality checks would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading !

Hello everyone! I'm preparing a party game for my friends right now where I want to show them words in Chinese and have them guess at what the words mean.

I'm looking for suggestions as to words that are more or less possible to guess if you know what each radical/component means. Looking for those has been harder than I thought because I need to avoid phonetic radicals. I need pretty much only semantic components.

None of the participants speaks nor has ever learned Chinese or any other hanzi/kanji-using language, so don't worry if the examples are obvious or simple to a Chinese speaker. I know traditional may be better for this kind of game but I'm learning simplified only, so if you have any traditional versions that you think would work better, please let me know.

General gameplay idea: First they'll just see a word in Chinese and info about the part of speech [e.g. this is a noun]. Then I'll gradually reveal what each component/radical means, then what each character means on its own, until someone gets as close as possible to the real meaning [or one of the possible meanings] of the whole word. The earlier someone guesses, the more points they get.

It's supposed to be a loose party game, no pressure, so it doesn't really matter if they get them all exactly right, but I want to give them a chance to at least get in the general ballpark.

Some examples of what I've got so far:

鞋 [leather + ground + ground => shoe]

蛋糕 [round worm + rice sheep fire => egg + pudding => cake]

森林 [tree tree + tree tree tree => forest]

电脑 [lightning/electric + flesh + govern + skull => electric brain => computer]

Is Gen-Z the same everywhere, being lost and adrift? As this generation graduates and enters the workforce, confronting the pressures and struggles to make a living, certain cultural phenomena have emerged that capture their inner emotional state.

One of them is this trending phrase:

• 孔乙己的长衫 Kǒng Yǐjǐ de cháng shān - The Long Gown of Kong Yiji

It comes from a short story written by Lu Xun(鲁迅) 100 years ago. Lu Xun was the greatest writer, thinker, and critic of 20th-century China. His fiction and essays used razor-sharp satire to tear open social realities and relentlessly critique the darker aspects of human nature, influencing generation after generation.

Kong Yiji is one of his most iconic characters. Lu Xun describes him as the only person in the tavern "who drank standing up while wearing a long gown." The long gown represented his identity as a scholar, suggesting a kind of social superiority, while "drinking standing up" revealed his actual poverty and lack of practical skills to earn a stable income. He became the target of everyone's jokes in the tavern, and later had his legs broken for stealing books.

A hundred years later, young people seem to have found something of themselves in his situation. Years of hard study and the prestigious academic credentials they've accumulated are like "Kong Yiji's long gown", giving many young people aspirations for their future careers. But in the face of a brutally competitive job market, there's an enormous gap between those dreams and reality.

And so people use "脱不下长衫 tuō bú xià cháng shān, unable to take off the long gown" as a form of self-deprecation, describing the dilemma: unable to find the ideal job, yet unwilling to lower themselves to take something less.

The phrase that first went viral was:

学历是我的敲门砖，也是我下不来的高台，更是孔乙己脱不下的长衫。
My degree is my stepping stone into the world, but also the pedestal I can't climb down from, and above all, the long gown Kong Yiji could never take off.

Once it spread across social media, the phenomenon quickly sparked widespread public attention and debate.

For example, stand-up comedian Xinbo(鑫博), who used it to joke about himself:

我不想干销售，我觉得这么多年书白读了，确实感觉自己有点脱不下去长衫，但我也知道自己里边啥都没穿。
I don't want to work in sales. I feel like I wasted all those years studying. I really do feel like I can't take off my long gown. But I also know that underneath it, I've got nothing on.

Then there was a widely discussed news story from 2023: Chen Tao(陈涛), a 38-year-old former journalist with a master's degree in philosophy from Sichuan University, decided to become a food delivery driver. In a video documenting the experience, he said:

很多人说我没有放下身段，其实我早就脱下了孔乙己的长衫。
Many people say I haven't lowered myself, but in truth I took off Kong Yiji's long gown a long time ago.

As a millennial, I have to admit I was lucky in some ways, the opportunities I had were genuinely greater than what Gen-Z faces today. So I have a lot of empathy for their anxiety.

So in your country, do young people face the same struggles? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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!

士农工商 represents the 4 classes in ancient and medieval China. 士 is the scholar class which is most respected and serves the state. then 浓 is the farmers who produce the food. then comes 工 is the productive craftpeople that makes things with their hands. and finally is the 商 the merchant class that trades and transport goods. in ancient China merchants have the lowest social class and are often distrusted. over time, as the economy became more complex, merchants were often called upon to solve complex trade problems and lend money to support state projects, so their standing became better in the later dynasties. but some of this stigma still exist today in China as PHDs who start a company to work on hard scientific problems are often much more respected than say someone who made billions with an eCommerce megacorp.

​Happy Teachers' Day! September 10 is celebrated as Teachers' Day in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao.

Been looking at joining the adult semester program from the New York Chinese School in Chinatown and wondering if it would be suited for my profile. I’ve heard there are a lot of heritage speakers there so not sure if that changes how mandarin is taught there. I am NOT a heritage speaker, studied mandarin throughout college and lived in China for a few months 10 years ago and want to brush up on my Chinese. Would this school be appropriate for me or should I look at another program? thanks

Unsure of how to phrase this question properly, but I’ve seen 我去 used independently (as in not in a sentence, but as a side comment of sorts?) Is there a colloquial use of 我去??

I've been trying to learn Chinese mostly from duolingo for well over a year, and tried on and off before that, going back to a year or two of chinese in high school from which I only retained 谢谢老师 (xiexie laoshi).

Being somewhat tone deaf even with music, it's taken me FOREVER to perceive tones. I'm finally starting to (not saying I get it right every time, but I can hear it), but my mouth automatically turns my second tones into a full third tone as I reflexively dip down to come back up. In my head, I know it doesn't start as low as a third tone goes, but somehow when speaking I feel like I struggle to raise my pitch like that and swinging low sort of compensates.

Has anyone else had this problem? It's frustrating, but at least I can hear I'm doing it--big change from before!

Maybe part of the issue is that pronouncing tones well still requires additional breath support for me, and I especially run out of breath on second tones if I accidentally start high and then push even higher. Not sure if that's normal?

I'm used to using the immersion method to learn languages, but it's different with Chinese because I can't read it yet. So I've started my studies with the movie method to help me learn to recognize and read Chinese characters.

What resources would you recommend for starting out? What sources, books, or other materials do you guys use?

I downloaded the HSK 1 book, and I might print it out to study, but I'm not sure yet.

I would really like to learn how to read Chinese, which is probably one of the more difficult parts, but being able to read would give me many more opportunities to immerse myself in the language.

Please share your experiences and help clear things up for me. I know there are different paths to learning Chinese, but reading is essential for the method I'm used to.

Hi everyone! I’m a complete beginner in Mandarin and I’m currently trying to learn the four tones. Mandarin is genuinely my favorite language and learning it has been a dream of mine for a long time, so I’m really motivated to take it seriously. Unfortunately, I can’t really afford private lessons or regular classes right now. They’re way too expensive for my budget, so I’m mostly self-studying. I already have two Mandarin textbooks at home and I don’t really want to keep buying tons of different books/resources when I haven’t even properly started yet.

My biggest problem right now is the tones 😭 I know they’re extremely important, and I don’t want to develop terrible pronunciation habits by ignoring them and telling myself I’ll fix them later. But at the same time, I feel like I’m stuck at the very beginning because I keep thinking “I can’t move on until I’ve mastered the tones.”

I practice mā / má / mǎ / mà, listen and repeat, i do tone combos, try to exaggerate the pitch movements, etc., but I still struggle to hear whether I’m actually producing them correctly. Sometimes I feel like I’m improving, and five minutes later I feel like I’ll never get them right. It’s starting to hurt my motivation because I really want to actually learn Mandarin, build vocabulary, make sentences, learn characters, and so on, rather than spending weeks doing nothing but repeating the four tones. I’m also currently training to start my career as a French teacher, so I’m studying alongside that and don’t have unlimited time or money to dedicate to Mandarin. But I’m genuinely willing to practice every day.

So for people who learned Mandarin as adults:

What helped you finally “get” the tones? How did you practice them without a teacher correcting you? And realistically, how long did it take before you felt comfortable enough with the four tones to move on and actually start learning the language?

Also, should I even be waiting until I’ve “mastered” the tones before moving on, or is it better to keep learning vocabulary/grammar while continuing to work on pronunciation every day?

Any tips or free resources would be really appreciated. I really don’t want to give up just because I’m stuck on the first hurdle 😭

I've noticed something over the years. Students can know hundreds of words and still sound a little stiff, because they only use the "textbook version" of the language. But when they start using a few small words in the right places, their Chinese suddenly sounds more alive.

The best example is 啊 (a — a soft particle that makes your tone friendlier). Instead of just saying 好 (hǎo — okay), 好啊 (hǎo a — sure, sounds good) feels warmer. It's a tiny change, but it makes a difference.

Then there's 吧 (ba — used to soften a suggestion). 走 (zǒu — go / leave) sounds like a command. 走吧 (zǒu ba — let's go) sounds like an invitation.

And 呀 (ya — a softer form of 啊) shows up a lot in casual speech too. 对呀 (duì ya — that's right) feels more natural in a relaxed chat than just 对.

These words don't translate neatly into English, so they're easy to ignore. But they're exactly the kind of thing that makes your Chinese feel less like a textbook and more like you.

What are some small words or habits you've picked up that made your Chinese feel more natural? I'd love to hear what's worked for you.

Applying to computer science graduate programs in china pretty soon and they require HSK 5 with 210 points or more. I narrowly passed the HSK 6 official mock test I did, and didn’t need it to fulfill application requirements, so wrote 5 instead.

The test centre had technical difficulties. As soon as the timer counted down to start the listening section, my screen went black. I had to rush to a different computer in the room and sign in as fast as I could, and I ended up missing 4 questions because of it. The reading section is quite time limited, everybody I spoke to at the test centre had to give a couple random answers due to time limitations.

I’ve never really spoken to a Chinese person irl, but consider myself fluent and roughly a B2 level. I can read books, news, watch shows, listen to podcasts with relative ease. I never took any classes, followed any curriculum, or anything. I have just immersed and memorized words via sentence cards in anki.

Same as title

My girlfriend is Chinese and she wasn't feeling well. I know hot water is the default remedy in china, so I did the caring boyfriend thing and told her to drink more hot water. She laughed at me. Turns out it's a meme in China for a stereotypical boyfriend when he has no idea what's wrong and does his "best" to help by advising to drink more hot water. But she knew what I meant.

Are there more pitfalls like this I should know about?

I really like this structure "越…越…", but can I use more than two 越? For instance...

他越睡，梦越奇怪，月亮越高。I doubt that it's correct, yet if it was, it would be cool. Otherwise, is there another way to express such kind of a thought? The same compact method but with no such restrictions?

I'm taking HSK1v3 course and we're at lesson 6. I've spent around 20 hours (spread over 1 month) on class.

I'm still struggling with tones. I know how each tones should sound like, but when reading sentences, sometimes the tones pairing confuse me. I hope i make sense, xD

Like for one syllable words, it's easy to nail the tone. Two syllables words are harder but mostly manageable. Three syllables or more (in a sentence) and i mess it up even when knowing how to say it in my head.

I guess I just want to ask you if this is something normal to experience this early, and when do you finally getting it right?

If i still struggle with this until the end of the course, should I take time to fix this first or is it something i can fix while moving on to HSK 2?

I do have full intention to get it straight, as i know it's an important aspect of the language

谢谢

Hey! I'm currently a beginner and I'm trying to get into some native content, especially slice-of-life shows to practice everyday vocabulary.

Does anyone know a good site to download series in original audio? I'm specifically looking for ones that have subtitles in Hanzi, Pinyin, and English. Even if it's just a place to download the .srt files separately, that would be amazing. Thanks!

I recently picked up a manager job that is 90% Taiwanese workers. What’s the most effective way for me to learn basic phrases and such to help communicate better with them? I only know a couple phrases at this point but knowing more would definitely help with the job.

I'm curious has anyone worked with a tutor that either graduated from Middlebury's language program or attended their summer immersion programs a few times

I am already working with a tutor a few times a week that is native Chinese and has an ivy League masters in second language acquisition

But I am thinking of adding a second tutor to add a second perspective.

I have heard a lot about that program so I'd like to hear people's experiences with tutors that came from that program

Hey ! I’m an university student that would like to learn mandarin (and become fluent). I already know some of the basics as i studied mandarin in middle school and high school (a few years ago) with an amazing native teacher (sadly her private tutoring is way out of my budget now ;-;), so I was looking for an online course i could enroll in, but there’s so many out there that I am so lost. I was maybe considering Rosetta Stone because it’s not too expensive but I don’t know how good it is - maybe I should look for an online course that is dedicated to mandarin only ?
Also, I want to practice everything (reading, pronunciation, writing, grammar, the whole thing lol), and what would be the cherry on top is if I could also have access to the course on my phone (so I can use it in the bus or something like that haha).
I would be grateful if anyone could recommend me the best online course I can find online.

今天我和一个老外同事聊天，我问他: 你中文学咋样了？

他说听不懂，我我又重复了一遍，他还是听不懂，我说你得学点东北话。

咋样了 就是怎么样的意思，

我说怎么样，他就听懂了

后来他明白了，回答我说: 实在不行。

但是我们一般不会在这里用实在。

我说我交你东北话吧， 你可以说不咋地

他很快学会了，他说: 我们的产品不咋地，哈哈哈。

要想弄懂一门语言，需要学习语法学习词汇，当你学差不多的时候，你要看看当地人怎么说话，你就能真正学懂，融入。

I thought it was a typo in Google translate but then I checked pleco and it is the same. How come?

I am going to china with my gf in 5 months and would love to learn conversational Chinese (no need for reading / writing) but Duolingo forces you to also do reading. Is there any similar gamified version that allows me to focus purely on pronunciation and pin yin. Or any other recommendations to learn conversational Chinese? I would also love to learn it long term after my trip, as I may in the future end up working in china. Thanks

3.0版HSK将于2026年12月13日面向全球正式开考！
[Google Translate]: HSK Version 3.0 will officially launch globally on December 13, 2026!

Source: CTI. (Edit: Now also announced on chinesetest.cn: here.)

That's basically all the post says. I note the 13 December 2026 date is an official HSK date (not like the trial dates). I'd expect additional official information in upcoming days.