Questions tagged [chinese]

Questions about learning or teaching the Chinese languages and their dialects, including, but not limited to, Standard Chinese, Mandarin, Wu, Yue, and Min. General questions about Chinese can be asked on our sister site Chinese Language Stack Exchange.

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Online course or resources on speed reading in Chinese

In a comment to my previous question about the transfer of speed reading skills to other languages, someone wondered whether this would be affected by the writing system. This is very plausible. In ...
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I want to train myself to use the Chinese grammar particle 了 correctly: how do I go about doing that?

Motivation: In Chinese grammar, there's a particle 了 which has two main uses: completion 了 (post-verb) and change-of-state 了 (end of sentence). I'm bad at using this particle (see How does someone ...
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6 votes
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What is the proper etiquette for a nonnative speaker who wants to practice Mandarin at a Chinese supermarket in the US?

There is a Chinese supermarket in the US I often shop at. I often hear the staff speaking Mandarin or Cantonese, and occasionally Hakka or Fujianese, amongst themselves and to Chinese customers. I can ...
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High-qualilty videos for New Practical Chinese Reader

新实用汉语课本 or New Practical Chinese Reader is a series of textbooks for learning Standard Chinese published by Beijing Language and Culture University Press. There are six textbooks, containing 70 ...
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What are general cognitive principles that could explain why Heisig's method works?

This is a follow up to this question on Remembering the Kana. James Heisig is author of a famous series of books involving learning Chinese and Japanese characters. These books are Remembering the ...
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How to overcome language learning fatigue when learning Standard Chinese?

An acquaintance of mine has been learning Standard Chinese in his spare time for a number of years. He passed the HSK3 test with a very high score and started preparing for HSK4. However, he recently ...
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What can teachers do to promote or increase mastery of 把 structures in Standard Chinese?

Each lesson in the Chinese series of texbooks New Practical Chinese Reader contains a section entitled "Master the following phrases". Below are a few examples from lesson 16 (in volume 2): 现在就去 - ...
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How many words give 98% coverage in Mandarin?

For Chinese characters, Jun Da's dataset implies 1566 characters gives 95% coverage, 2285 characters gives 98% coverage, and 2838 characters gives 99% coverage. I'm wondering if there's a similar ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
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Resources for teaching children Chinese

My nine-year-old son is bilingual English/French (British father, French mother) and absolutely devours books for his age in both languages (ie his reading age in both languages seems roughly equal), ...
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Practice AP and WebCAPE Exams and study guides

I'm creating a language teaching curriculum which will follow ACTFL and World Readiness Standard guidelines. My end goal is for students to pass the US domestic AP exam (with a 4 or better) and/or a ...
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What level of schooling does it take for a native-Chinese speaker to understand CCTV news?

One of my iTalki teachers and I study China Central Television (CCTV) news. The hosts are noted for the extremely fast pronunciation (sometimes 280+ characters per minute) and their use of precise, ...
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How does the proportion of Chinese-language students who learn handwriting change with level?

Many students of Chinese as a second language opt out of learning handwriting characters. My impression (from my personal experience) is that the proportion of beginner students who learn handwriting ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
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Is the HSK exam easier outside of China?

It's been known (at least in Confucius institue in my country) if you take HSK test outside of China, it's easier and the grading is pretty lenient. u/Marizza_Tan, comment on "hsk 6", Reddit ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
3 votes
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What scores should a student get on the Chinese HSK(x) exam before moving onto HSK(x+1)?

Disappointingly, I recently failed the HSK6 (listening: 52; reading: 63; writing: 55); usually 60% is considered a pass. (Yes, I'm quite aware it's insanely hard.) I previously did well on the HSK5 (...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
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1 answer
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How similar are the "faulty sentence" sections of the Chinese Gaokao 高考 exam and the HSK6?

I recently learned the Chinese Gaokao 高考 exam includes a 病句 ("faulty sentence") section. This has piqued my interest as I prepare for the HSK6 which includes the notoriously hard HSK6 语病 (&...
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For those who didn't blindly guess on the notoriously hard HSK6 语病 ("faulty wording") section, how did you prepare?

The first 10 questions of the Chinese HSK6 reading section are notoriously hard. Each question gives you 4 sentences and the task is to choose the one containing some kind of error. This part is so ...
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On the HSK5 exam, if you're asked to use a separable verb in a sentence, can you separate it?

Question 99 on the HSK5 exam asks you to write an approximately 80-character snippet using 5 given words. A typical example looks like this: Here, we see the separable verb 结帐, so we can write ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
3 votes
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Which romanization system is closest to native pronunciation of Standard Mandarin?

The most commonly used Mandarin romanization systems are Hanyu Pinyin (most common by far), Gwoyeu Romatzyh (GR), and Wade-Giles (more common in Taiwan than China). Based on your experience, and ...
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How long between each TOCFL level for learning Mandarin?

This is the same question as How long between each HSK level for learning Mandarin? but for the Taiwanese test rather than the mainland one. A common question among language learners is how long will ...
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Beyond taking the test itself, what use is preparing for the HSK6 writing section?

Now that I've taken the Chinese HSK5 exam, my mind is turning towards HSK6. However, I find myself lacking motivation to study for this exam, and one of the main reasons is the writing section (also ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
39 views

For Mandarin, are there estimates on how many repetitions it takes to remember a word through reading?

Nation (2014) (pdf) discusses English vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading alone. While reading at a 98% comprehensible input level, the learner will (probably) remember a word ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
43 views

How can I improve the sophistication of my Chinese grammar usage?

I'm starting to become aware of a weakness in my Chinese grammar. While in my speaking and writing I'm generally grammatically correct (of course, not always), I don't often use more sophisticated ...
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How can I improve my listening for a selection of Chinese HSK6 words?

I downloaded Mandarin Corner's mp3s where, for each of the 2500 Chinese HSK6 words, Teacher Eileen says the word twice, then its example sentence twice. I note down the words which I don't near-...
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1 vote
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Are essential Chinese study tools, like Pleco or browser popup dictionaries, mentioned in any Chinese textbook?

If you study Chinese, there are some essential tools, like the Pleco dictionary or a browser popup dictionary. Curiously, I don't recall ever seeing them mentioned in any textbook I've studied. The ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
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3 answers
49 views

Where can I get Chinese reading materials to copy/paste into LanguageCrush?

I'm trying out LanguageCrush which tracks your vocabulary while reading and watching videos (kind of like LingQ, but I'm able to use the free version). The feature I like is how it keeps track of how ...
Rebecca J. Stones's user avatar
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General subject publishers of cheet-sheet-style reference material

For the purpose of studying subjects of interest in target language(s), I want to discover any other publishers of cheat sheets or reference material similar to those in the links below; that is, ...
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How additionally useful is HSK6 over HSK5 for reading Chinese native news and opinion pieces?

When deciding whether to study Chinese, students often state two goals: (a) to pass a HSK test, and (b) to read Chinese news articles. I'm towards the end of HSK5, and I already read some news-...
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