Spoken Mandarin can feel like an onslaught of similar sounds, half-recognised tones and unknown words. To add insult to injury, it’s often too fast!...
Year: 2026
Chinese listening challenge, February 2026
Hacking Chinese Challenges is about building language skills through daily practice and friendly competition. By focusing on one specific area of...
Which Chinese learning resources are worth paying for?
You can learn Chinese entirely for free, but paid resources can sometimes make the process more efficient and enjoyable. Sometimes, investing...
Chinese language logging, part 3: Tools and resources for keeping track of your learning
Logging your language learning not only allows you to verify that you’re doing the right things, it also makes learning more visible and helps...
Chinese language logging, part 2: A healthy, balanced diet of Mandarin
In the previous article, we started with the basic question of why logging your Chinese learning is a good idea. We saw that it has a number of...
Chinese language logging, part 1: Why and how to track your progress
How much time are you investing into learning Chinese? Or is it maybe better to talk about it using a unit other than time, such as how many books...
Chinese language learning in the twenty-first century: Towards a digital ecosystem? Interview with Julien Leyre
Digital tools have had an enormous impact on Chinese language learning. If we take something as simple as looking up an unfamiliar character in a...
Chinese Language Learner Interview Series – Olle Linge
I’m happy to announce that an interview with me have been published over at FluentFlix. To see what other things I’ve written elsewhere...
Chinese is fascinating and exciting, not weird and stupid
Setting out on our Chinese-learning journeys, most of us feel positive about the language: the characters are beautiful and the sounds exotic! Word...
Chinese input methods: A guide for second language learners
Making Chinese characters appear on the screen of a phone or computer is second nature to experienced users, and most people don’t think about input...