Playing games, especially with other people in a situation of friendly competition, is a great way of boosting motivation. I’ve wanted to find a...
Category: Chinese
An introduction to comprehension-based Chinese teaching and learning
The more I teach and learn Chinese, the more convinced I become that mainstream classroom teaching focuses too much on low-volume, high-difficulty...
An introduction to extensive reading for Chinese learners
This is the first scene in the adventure text game Escape. The characters marked with red make up 5% of the text. Part of the goal with this game is...
Is Chinese difficult to learn?
The most common question I receive about learning Chinese is how difficult the language is. Most people assume that it’s hard, but they want to...
Is it necessary to learn the stroke order of Chinese characters?
Stroke order example for the character 顺, “sequence”. I remember learning to write Chinese characters for the first time. It was difficult to get...
Do you have to learn to write Chinese characters by hand?
Chinese characters can be magically beautiful and mysterious. I still remember what it feels like to look at them and be attracted by them without...
Is learning things by heart good for improving your Chinese?
Learning things by heart used to be a mainstay of language education but is now often frowned upon. Approaches to learning and teaching languages...
Is speaking more important than listening when learning Chinese?
What languages do you speak? Do you speak Chinese? We often let speaking ability stand for overall language skill and usually don’t inquire about...
Is taking a Chinese course that’s too hard good for your learning?
Chinese has a reputation for being hard to learn, which is true depending on what you mean by “hard”. Learning Chinese can be even harder if you...
Is your flashcard deck too big for your own good?
I didn’t use spaced repetition software for my first year of learning Chinese (I didn’t know what it was back then). During my second year, I sort...