Measuring language ability is notoriously difficult, but can be important. It’s difficult because it’s hard to nail down what “language ability” is...
Year: 2026
How to find out how good your Chinese pronunciation really is
Something that have made me very frustrated throughout my Chinese language studies is the way my own Chinese ability has been evaluated by teachers...
What you intend to write is more important than the character you actually write
When learning to write Chinese characters, we need to remember that what we have in mind and what we actually write aren’t necessarily the same...
How and why to use television to learn Chinese
This is the first guest article by Luke Howard, whom I met on one of the Hacking Chinese meet-ups here in Taipei. He speaks Chinese well and when he...
How and why to learn and teach Chinese through games
This article was written as a follow-up to a keynote presentation and a workshop held by me at the 15th Annual Chinese Teaching Conference organised...
Horizontal vocabulary learning in Chinese
When learning characters or words, or when failing to remember a character or word we have already learnt, most sensible teachers will urge you to...
Hone your Chinese writing ability by writing summaries
What should you do if you want to improve your writing ability in Chinese? The answer is two-fold. First, you should start reading more. Without a...
Learning Chinese the holistic way: Integrating knowledge
Looking back at all the things I’ve learnt in school throughout my life, what strikes me is that a very tiny fraction was focused on the most...
Into the Haze: A new text adventure game for Chinese learners
I think games have huge potential for language learners. This is true of most games, even if the games themselves have nothing to do with language...
Have fun learning Chinese or else…
Source:sxc.hu/profile/armzak In numerous articles, I’ve stressed the importance of finding ways of studying Chinese that you actually enjoy. This...