Online Resources for Teaching and Learning Chinese

In an era of instant commentary and social media noise, Sunzi’s ancient wisdom remains one of the clearest filters for truth.

No matter how powerful a state may be, a long war without decisive victory invites decline.

In both nations and individual lives, genuine security is earned through foresight and disciplined effort.

Cantonese or Mandarin? Traditional Chinese or simplified Chinese? Get your answers here.

There are excellent choices for students to begin reading Chinese. Children’s books may not be the best option.

When twenty Chinese words share the same pinyin, we’ll have a maddening vocabulary list.

Start learning Chinese characters? Recognise some common Chinese fonts too!

Five effective ways to improve Chinese pronunciation. Some will improve your pronunciation without you knowing it.

Cantonese has some unique characteristics which are different from Mandarin. But they also have a lot in common.

There are so many dialects in China, and Mandarin is one of the many dialect groups of Chinese.

It is a cliche to say being persistent is the secret of learning Chinese. But it is the secret.

Beijinghua is not Putonghua. I felt so and linguists said so. That’s what makes learning Putonghua interesting.

Learn about the principles that were applied to traditional Chinese characters to simplify them.

There are disadvantages of learning Mandarin in Hong Kong, but the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Instead of spending thousands of dollars, a virtual learning tour to China is cheap, and provides many benefits for students to learn Chinese.

Learning Mandarin can lead to anxieties. Overcoming these anxieties requires understanding them first. 

Cultural differences and different upbringing environments lead to tensions in classrooms. Here are some turn around strategies for teachers.

Ten arguments for learning Mandarin are analysed and find out which one can drive students to the ultimate success.

There are many ways for a foreign word to enter the Chinese language. Some of them are simply brilliant!

Dragons are magnificent, but students don’t talk to them. Let’s think again what make great covers for Chinese language textbooks.

Strokes, components and radicals are all building units of Chinese characters, and each of them functions differently.

Many resources are there for listening training. Understand them better and use them well.

This article offers actionable advice for non-Chinese students’ to train their ears.

Chinese radicals are interesting, versatile and flexible, and absolutely refuse all rules of thumb.

Understand what IBDP Chinese curriculum requires and tests, and get help with choosing the appropriate level of IB Chinese to study.

A new version of HSK is in place. Find out what the new requirements are, and our take on it.

Although pinyin is useful to learn Mandarin, it also has some inherent problems, which Chinese language learners must be aware of.

Chinese characters are visual, like paintings. But using pictures to teach Chinese characters has its limitations.

For people who start learning Chinese late in their teens or adulthood, the difficulty of memorising Chinese characters is real.

For a meaningful grasp of Mandarin, students must look beyond pinyin. It is not a long term solution.

Stroke order is not the most important thing in learning Chinese reading and writing. Find out what really is.

The process of learning Chinese is also an internalisation process. And learning how learning Chinese takes place helps learning.

Pictures, stories or radicals, there are a few ways to learn Chinese characters. Learn which one is the best.

This beginner’s guide to pinyin helps students pronounce and understand pinyin in the right way.

English-Chinese bilingual books are good for children, but offer limited benefits for adult Chinese language learners.

There are different ways to address father and mother in Chinese. And different names carry different connotations in Chinese culture.

Books printed in both Chinese characters and pinyin have little to offer in terms of developing Chinese reading skills.

There is a connection, but a weak one, between radicals, pronunciations and  meanings of picto-phonetic characters.

Beautifully designed flash cards are promoted to students who are learning Chinese. Let’s take a look at their problems.

Chinese characters, the sounds and the tones all can make a Chinese name beautiful, meaningful, and unique.

One does not need to be fluent in Chinese to enjoy a trip in China. A bit knowledge goes a long way. 

A few things students can do to improve their Chinese reading skills. Learning more Chinese characters is the last of them.

Tons of new words in each lesson are difficult for both students and teachers. Here are some suggestions on how to deal with them.

Memorising tons of new words won’t help you speak fluent Chinese. But speaking Chinese helps grow your vocabulary.

When speaking Chinese as if speaking English, Englinese happens. Take a look at some common errors.

Bland, boring and uninspiring Chinese classes lead to bad learning experience. Know how to recognise them.

Movies are lots of fun and are great resources for students to learn Chinese. Here are some ways to use them in a class.

If you have learned 2000 frequently used Chinese characters, you probably still can not read Chinese newspapers. Let’s find out why.

The best way to learn Chinese grammar is to ignore it. Understand the origin of modern Chinese grammar and why it’s so confusing.

Pinyin itself is not Chinese. Learning pinyin is learning tool that helps students learn how to speak Chinese.

English appearing in Chinese textbooks is inevitable. But putting English translations next to the Chinese texts is not a good idea.

When written well, Chinese characters became art, and poems pushed up the price of paper. Learn how to write good Chinese.

Radicals used to be very important in learning Chinese. Today it’s better to think studying them as a hobby.

Reading Chinese requires a skill of deconstructing Chinese texts into words. Different word boundaries create different meanings.

Copying texts is a fundamental writing practice of learning Chinese. Copying the best makes us better.

Get high marks in HSK is nice. But learning Chinese should be more than passing a test.

In Hong Kong, Cantonese and Mandarin are political issues and occupy different places in the society.

Many Chinese textbooks require students to study hundreds of grammar points. Try to ignore them.

Understand the difference between spoken Chinese and written Chinese, and improve Chinese reading skills.

Sometimes, only sometimes, we can use radicals to explain some Chinese characters. Know where the boundaries are.

There are two advantages that a Chinese kid has but a non-Chinese speaking student doesn’t have.

Have you ever worked through a grammar book and only to realise that you’ve forgot everything? It’s not your fault.

Children learn differently from adults. However, there are many children’s Chinese programs that look like adults’.

Chinese learning APPs have been developed rapidly and nicely. Some cool features can definitely replace teachers.

Artificial Intelligence is such a hot technology that it is no surprise that it is used for learning Chinese.

Hokkien is the oldest Chinese language. It has been spread far and wide, and branched into many different varieties.

For beginner students, we set that number at 320 Chinese characters. 

There are many different kinds of books for people to learn Chinese. Some useful, some not.

It's nice to know about etymology, but the focus should be on good reading and writing skills first.

There are no “correct tones” in an absolute sense, because tones are a fluid and a dynamic concept. Learn what it means for teaching and learning Chinese.

Self-study is a good way to learn Chinese. Understand some problems that hinder you from making progress.

“Repeat” and “talk back” are great when listening to audio lessons. But there are more to be considered.

Learn about those fantastic Chinese names in outer space, their origins and folklores.

Tea is a wonderful drink enjoyed by Chinese people. Read some wonderful stories about tea in China, starting with its origin.

Read a few wonderful stories starting from the beginning of the universe to the beginning of Chinese as an ethnic group.

If learning Chinese is considered as an investment for high returns, the risk of losing is high.

There are good translations and there are bad ones. For Chinese language textbooks, it seems that both will do a disservice.

Not all castrated males ended up as eunuchs. Read three highly respected, admired, and also castrated males in China.

Learning Chinese at different levels is, in its essence, to learn the Chinese language with different textures.

Chinese teachers have more jobs to do than teaching. They are also information controllers, time keepers and more.

Students are not passive in Chinese classes. They own their success.

Teaching Chinese is a serious job. The right approach matters and it is best defined by the final outcomes.

Adult students have their strengths and that’s why they’ll succeed in learning Chinese.

Mistakes are bound to happen. The trick is to know the best way to address these mistakes.

Instead of analysing the rules of pinyin or tones, there is a better way to sound native-like when speaking Chinese.

A small number of Chinese characters are made up with the same components twice, three times, or even four times. It’s fun to take a look at them from different angles.

Have a pleasant reading time is essential. The key is to find good Chinese reading materials, or, to write some.

Using Green Eggs and Ham, let’s take a look at how a simple English book turned into something not so simple in Chinese.

Shakespeare was a grand master of English language for two reasons. Could he achieve the same stellar result if he could write in Chinese?

Some Chinese characters look like a sandwich, but none of them really mean “sandwich”. These characters have two identical sides enclosing a middle part.

There are “hard goals” and “soft goals” for learning Chinese. Hard goals bring nothing when achieve them, while soft goals create rich inner wealth.

Master says, “Don’t jump to conclusions”. However, when learning Chinese, there are a few conclusions that many are likely to jump to.

Using pinyin to input Chinese characters is prevalent among students. Let’s encourage them to write Chinese by hand as often as they can.

Some jobs require candidates to study Chinese, while other jobs benefit from candidates who have studied Chinese.

Human beings have always been searching for orders and trying to identify patterns. Chinese have definitely found some of their own.

Eleven teaching skills that are essential for current and soon-to-be Chinese teachers, including non-native Chinese speaking teachers.

6x Ironman World Champion Mark Allen can teach us a lot about learning Chinese. Let’s heed his advice.

If speaking fluent Chinese is your goal, make sure you approach it topic by topic, task by task.

Let us try to decipher a couple of ancient drawings and connect them with current Chinese characters. The result is surprising!

Use this Chinese Learning Pyramid to inform yourself where to spend your time and energy effectively.

Time is the currency. When self-study Chinese, it is important to manage your time the right way.

When setting up a plan for self-study Chinese, many students neglect three important factors.

For nearly 1500 years, Chinese people used carved wood block printing to produce books.

Get to know some traditional food gems that you can’t find anywhere else but Hong Kong.

There are certain mindsets that get Chinese language learners further and faster.

There are some small details that, if you get them, you’ll appreciate the novel a little bit more.

Why people fail in their attempts to do more exercises, eat healthier, or learn Chinese? Because we’re scared.

A troll in the park offers a magnificent first-hand experience of Chinese culture.

Using the opening lines of The Analects of Confucius to antidote some of the ills that have traps us in this tech-powered world.

One line from The Analects of Confucius helps us understand why there is a lack of trust in society and what we should do.

At a time when the future becomes unpredictable and jobs become obsolete, we need to read Confucius to be better prepared. 

We are naturally different. That is not the problem. The problem comes when we begin to attack those who are different from us.

Confucius taught us that true wisdom comes from knowing the boundary between what we know and what we don’t know.

Confucius taught us that economic foundation has a decisive role in shaping a society, and a prosperous society is the foundation for further development.

Confucius teaches us that both pragmatic excellence and heartfelt pursuit lead to prosperity. And the deeper gift is ourselves.

Confucius taught us that excellence is a relative term. Both the poor and the rich can pursue it, with one happily and the other graciously.

At this era of unprecedented transformation, I Ching offers a different lens to understand change and how to apply to our own situation.

Use I Ching’s eight trigrams to understand your current position and grasp what is your strength and how to avoid pitfalls.

From rookie to reformer, learning about the hexagram of modesty allows you to gain a stealthy tool to stay steady amid chaos.

I Ching teaches us that true waiting is never passive. High-quality waiting is active, disciplined, and extraordinarily difficult.

Classmates make a beautiful starting point. Family feels safe. But I Ching teaches us to seek partners in the wilderness. 

I Ching teaches us to stay sensitive to small wrongs and what it takes to avert the final systemic collapse.

In contrast to today’s obsession with quick profits and fame, the true great power begins with patience.

Let’s walk through Mangione’s case using Mencius’s principle of four hearts, a clearer explanation than legal framework.

Mencius taught us how to spot and disarm four word traps that are meant to deceive, to incite, to corrupt, and to fool people.

Returning to our hearts — knowing our gifts, limits, and benevolent nature — is the most forward-looking strategy in the age of AI.

Understanding the constant is not passive fatalism. It is the first step to align with the Dao.

Laozi teaches us: Add knowledge and tools to expand understanding. Subtract mental dust to restore clarity.

Laozi urges us to examine our priorities and behaviour, warning that extreme brings great cost and heavy ruin.

Laozi teaches us: beginnings are exciting, but endings define the legacy. This continues to be relevant to us today.