When I tell people that I study Chinese, the reactions usually involve equal amounts of awe and curiosity. “I’ve heard Chinese is the hardest...
Year: 2026
Learning Chinese in the shower with me
Today, I have the pleasure of inviting you into my shower and show you some neat ways of improving your Chinese. I promise I will keep my clothes...
Learning Chinese through comprehensible input
There are two ways you can get Chinese into your brain: through your ears by listening and through your eyes by reading. You can only say and...
The building blocks of Chinese, part 3: Compound characters
In the previous article in this series about the building blocks of Chinese, we looked at basic characters and how to learn them. We saw that most...
Learning Chinese characters through pictures
If you think this is a good way of learning characters, you should definitely read this article. When starting to learn Chinese characters,...
Learn Chinese by playing Mahjong (麻将, májiàng)
Why learn Chinese by playing Mahjong (麻将, májiàng)? Because it’s both fun and effective! One of the most important pieces of advice I give...
Learn Chinese by playing Mahjong (麻将, májiàng)
Why learn Chinese by playing Mahjong (麻将, májiàng)? Because it’s both fun and effective! One of the most important pieces of advice I give...
8 tips for learning Chinese as an introverted student
Introverts learning Chinese dismay when we hear advice about speaking from day one, preferably with any and all Chinese people you encounter. Great...
Learn Chinese character meaning and pronunciation together
It becomes increasingly common to argue that it’s okay that the knowledge of written Chinese lags behind that of spoken Chinese for beginners. This...
Learn by exaggerating: Slow, then fast; big, then small
Source: [email protected] Many years ago, I practised taichichuan/taijiquan (太極拳) daily, but even if I’ve since found other physical activities I...