Here I’m going to introduce some well-known cities in China (in no particular order). This might help tourists who are planning to travel to China, and give them some general information about the city they will visit.
Related or not so related posts:Here is an overview of some common types of Chinese dictionaries. While you are learning Chinese, you may have to use one or another so I hope this helps you to find out which dictionary you need to use (or buy…).
What everyone who is learning a foreign language needs: a dictionary for two languages. For example 英汉/汉英词典 (english-chinese/chinese-english) or 德汉/汉德词典 (german-chinese/chinese-german). It contains translations for the characters as well as for words and expressions.
The standard Chinese dictionary. Very compact and handy for looking up words. Note however that it is a 字典, which means there are explanations for characters and some common expressions, but there is no specific list of all possible compound words and expressions. In order to use it, you already need to have a certain level of Chinese so that you understand the Chinese explanations.
This dictionary is more detailed than the previous one. This means you will find less common characters in it, too. In addition there is a list of many possible expressions and compound words with the current character. The one I’m using and recommend is 现代汉语词典.
Chengyu are Chinese idioms, one which I focus on my site, too. There are so many of them, that an entire dictionary exists. It contains their explanation, as well as their origin, an example sentence and synonyms, antonyms.
As the name already says this dictionary is for schoolchildren. Nevertheless, I believe it is very helpful for language learners, too, because it also contains the stroke order for each character and the most common expressions. Furthermore it is compact and clearly structured, because it only contains important, easy and commonly used characters. And maybe the illustrations in it will improve your learning experience…
As the name already says this dictionary contains synonyms and antonyms. It is often used by students and comes handy for writing an essay or expanding your vocabulary.
Related or not so related posts:This is a follow-up to the repetitive methods. Again, don’t forget the three aspects of a character you have to learn:
Now, here are some creative learning methods for learning new characters.
When you encounter a new character, this is something you should always do! Ask yourself: Is there a radical? Where is the radical positioned? How could I divide the character? Left - right (左右结构) or top - bottom (上下结构) or even left - middle - right or top - middle - bottom or is one part surrounded by another part (包围结构)? Before you get all confused and wonder what I’m talking about, here are some examples:
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One of the biggest pain of learning Chinese is memorizing all these characters. There are a hundreds, even thousands of characters one needs to master, in order to read a normal Chinese text. When you are learning a new character, always remember there are three independent aspects you have to learn:
This is a main difference to English, where you can usually write words you know the pronunciation of. So make sure you covered all three aspects when you are learning a new Chinese character.
In this post I will cover repetitive methods, meaning they are rather monotonous or “traditional” if you want. If you are looking for more creative methods read my follow up. However, these are all methods with which I learned most new Chinese characters:
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An essential skill for learning Chinese is to be able to look up Chinese characters in a dictionary. There are two possible scenarios:
In this article I will discuss the second scenario, because the first one is like using any other dictionary: the characters in the dictionary are in alphabetical order and you can see the pinyin at the top of the page. However, you have to be able to read through the explanations of the different characters with the same pronunciation, in order to find the character you are looking for.
The second case is more difficult, because you have to know how to break down a character and know the various steps for looking it up. Moreover, there are some basic skills, you need to learn first: (You can skip this section if you already know all this)
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When showing numbers with our hands, we usually employ one or both hands and count the fingers. The Chinese people use a slightly different system. Its main difference and advantage is that you only need one hand. So even when you’re busy holding a phone, or a pencil, or chopsticks, you can still communicate numbers from 1-10. And of course it just looks way cooler than the “normal” way ;-) There are also some funny drinking games were you use these number gestures… it looks a lot like Rock, Paper, Scissors then.
Let’s take a look at the gestures:
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You registered for the HSK and start to feel nervous as the test is drawing nearer and nearer? Or you consider your Chinese acceptable, but you believe that you are a horrible test taker? Here are some advices and test taking strategies to succeed during the HSK. This post is not about the preparation work before the test, but rather the strategies to use during the test! I will focus on the elementary-intermediate HSK, but most of it also applies to HSK basic and HSK advanced. I personally believe that a test can never fully measure a person’s ability or knowledge and in the end it’s all about beating the test. So the most important strategy you need to learn is how to beat the test. But enough ramblings…moving on:
Please know the directions for the different components of the HSK from your practice tests. This means that you know in which order the different parts (listening, grammar, reading) come and what type of exercise it is on one glance. So during the actual test, you don’t lose valuable time reading through the large box of directions or listening to the unimportant explanations plus examples. They are really not important and just like in your practice tests and it is much smarter to focus on the coming questions.
This part exists in all 3 tests and always comes first which is of advantage. When you ripped open the booklet and turned to page 1 听力理解 the teacher will usually explain, check and help quite a while and then it will take quite another while until the sound works and the directions and examples were played through. I found it very helpful to use this time to look through the possible answers of each question and brainstorm what the question could be, because you will listen to the text and corresponding questions only once and only the answers are already in your booklet. Then I’d note down my anticipated questions in a very brief manner, often just one keyword.
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Since I just took the HSK elementary-intermediate test, I will write an article to give you a general idea of what this test is about. First of all HSK stands for 汉语水平考试 (hàn yǔ shuǐ píng kǎo shì) and is a Chinese proficiency test. It is comparable to the TOEFL, as it tests the proficiency level of Chinese learners whose first language is not Chinese. This means most test takers are:
The HSK offers three different tests and is scored overall on a scale of 1-11:
Note: Confusingly, level 3 is both the highest basic level and lowest elementary level.
