Hi all, once again I have a great infographic from Learn Mandarin Now. I remember when I was asked about my top resources and I am glad my feedback was used for this work. I must also add that I am still a defender of the basic vocabulary/ character flash cards hand written (by my wife…)! But I also like to use other means to study as well in order not to get stucked with just one source.
Learning Mandarin Chinese is becoming more and more popular—and can be very rewarding. To help you along your way, we recently asked 50+ bloggers about the top resources they use to Learn Chinese, via our blog Learn Mandarin Now. Amazingly, we received so much feedback that we’ve put together a colourful Infographic of the results—and we’re happy to share this with you today.
But, firstly, thanks to Timo for his contribution and for letting us sharing the Infographic with you in his blog: Crazy Chinese family. If you’d like to know about Timo’s suggestions and get an insight to other tips about learning Chinese from 50+ top bloggers, check out our post: How to learn Chinese: 50 blogger’s top resources.
We hope you enjoy our Infographic and our post, and that they help you learn better Chinese!
What are your methods to study Chinese or any other language?
Be sure to follow me also on Facebook and on Twitter as I will post there occasionally pictures which do not find their way into my blog posts.
Crazy Chinese Family 
These are great methods. I would also suggest audio books in Chinese and HSK study books, particularly the ones published by the Beijing Language and Culture University Press. These books include a CDs for audio practice, essays, and writing practice.
Audio study material is also very good. I had once a testing chapter of a study program and it was fairly good especially because you could learn the proper pronounciations
I just read how you learn Chinese and I think the method you described suits me as well. I went to cram school for a while to learn the basics and I think the extra push from the teacher plus having exams helped me improve at a faster rate as I was held accountable.
I used to go to language classes but they were only once a week…they were really useless. THe best I learned through self studies 🙂
The infographic is a great idea. I don’t plan on learning Chinese but I tried to learn an African language (Twi) – one day I will go back to it! – and I’m planning to learn French the second half of this year. My plan for french is a combination of classes and the Duo Lingo website, or something similar. It’s great that you are learning your partner’s language, I think that’s so important, even though I haven’t really achieved it.
Reblogged this on Takeshi's Flight and commented:
My second parents happened to be Chinese, and both of them are residing in Chengdu, China currently. Two years ago, they wished for me to stay and live with them, but I cannot simply do so because I have my own family — and parents — here in my country of residence and also because of language barriers (I do not have any difficulty communicating with my second parents, but I know it will be tough for me to communicate with the community).
So right now, I am willing to study Mandarin Chinese, but I find the classes very costly. It is good to know that some apps and materials like those mentioned in this post come in handy — and never costly!
Second parents? As English is not even my first or even second language I got some trouble to understand this term.
Studying Any language is always a difficult task as you need to involve yourself daily with it in order to advance further. I study Chinese in my own for several years now, I don’t know how successful I am but I am making slow progress 🙂
Yes, I have ‘second parents’. They are the ones who ‘adopted’ me when I fled away from home because of family issues and my identity crisis. They were still in the Philippines back then, living in a executive village. Anyway, I only created such term. I miss them a lot. 😥
Yes, I know how difficult it is to study other languages. Aside from commitment, one needs to have focus in whatever he/she is studying. My first language is Filipino, and I find it very comfortable in using it in daily conversations. However, I am more comfortable writing everything in English, especially in essays and fiction write-ups.
Moreover, I studied a little bit of Asian languages — Thai, Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese. Of all these three, I learned how to communicate well in Thai by just self-studying. But the other two, I am really having a hard time, especially in understanding the ‘characters’ that represents syllables or letters.
Oh, well, you will have the opportunity to visit them at some point again and again and again, life is full of opportunities when you open yourself to them. Right now I am in some kind of a crises myself which lead already to many problems. However due to the help of my wife already I do not fear the outcomes anymore because I know that I am able to start something new if I put everything behind it. Anyways, more about that probably in some future blog post when I am ready to write about it 🙂
I also prefer writing in English as well, though I am in no way an author (actually have some scraps written of a novel but never got around to complete it…). I just have too much problems expressing myself in my native languages, German and Finnish.
Thank you for the piece of advice. Yes, I know that someday we will meet again; in fact, after my college graduation I will be going there to spend a year with them before I enter medical school.
Haha! In terms of writing novel, we are on the same page! I currently am in the process of writing a novel … but I think that I would never complete it because of time-constraints.
Wait, how come you are not able to express yourself in your native languages? Did you grow up away from your homeland? 🙂
I grew up between two countries, Germany and Finland. I never got completly fluent in German and Finnish is just passable to have some conversations :p