I am just now returning to my studies in Chinese, and one thing I have had the most problems with in the past was grammar. I recognize many on this website don’t like studying grammar, but I know from past experience that I personally need to review grammar and become a little bit more familiar with it before I advance much in a language. I am currently “LingQ-ing” phrases with unfamiliar grammar on LingQ, but I was wondering if anybody could point me to a direction that has Chinese grammar practice prompts etc. I would like to start thinking using Chinese syntax, and I have learned that by practicing with grammar tools, I tend to do better with a language. So if someone could point me into that direction, who has some experience I would greatly appreciate it.
PS: And, sorry, but xuanfu’s anti-grammar-post is complete bullshit. This is a website to help language learners, not to discourage them by posting such nonsense.
If you have the time and a bit of money, I would go with yoyochinese.com. I did that two years ago, one month into my Chinese learning and it was the best thing to do in retrospect. I finished the beginner and intermediate courses in around 1.5 months (both necessarily contain grammar explanations, and there is a dedicated grammar video series as part of the courses). Then I moved to chinesepod.com, they also have fairly good explanations of the grammar concepts contained in each lesson. The same with thechairmansbao.com.
I would recommend those three plus Pleco dictionary (I bought the professional bundle plus all the major additional dictionaries like KEY, ABC, Oxford…, there are good explanations through example sentences).
When I think about it, after finishing yoyochinese and continuing with chinesepod and thechairmansbao, I never really had much trouble with grammar, because in all of them the necessary grammar is explained as you go. And that’s the best strategy in my opinion, look up the grammar that you encounter in real articles/situations. Those 3 resources do that for you and where they don’t, you can always refer to Pleco.
Thank you very much for the response. I have come across her youtube channel in the past and forgot about how wonderful she was as a teacher. So thank you. I will look further into her website as well.
Yes, I appreciate someone understanding what it is I am trying to do. I see nothing wrong with wishing to understand someone else’s syntax. Thank you for these websites. I will look further into each of them. I have actually been playing around with some of Wikipedia’s website. It really does have a nice outline of the different grammar. These websites are exactly the type of stuff I am looking for. So thank you.
Wonderful Branicek. I may not be made of money, but I am wishing to further my language study, and spending money on something you love is not necessarily a bad thing. So thank you for these sources. I also agree that Pleco’s dictionary is invaluable. I have used it, and it is a fantastic little tool.
Just as a quick question, how long have you been studying Chinese?
Yeah, I feel the same way, it was all money well spent.
I started in March 2015, when I moved to China. I have been here since then. My journey was what I described above, 1.5 months with yoyo, around 2 months chinesepod, then 8 months of the two Heisig’s ‘Remembering simplified hanzi’ books with memrise revision, I finished that last year in March, then started practicing reading with ‘du chinese’ thechairmansbao, and since October last year full time here at Lingq. I am enrolled at a language school here, but it’s not efficient for me, in the same time I can learn much more and don’t have to listen to other foreigners’ pronunciation… and certainly my Chinese girlfriend has been of great help, not in the least because since the beginning she’s been too lazy to speak English.
Anyway I still have a long way to go, I guess at around 50000 words here it will get much more comfortable, now I still struggle and have to plow my way through the articles.
What’s your story, coming back to Chinese after how long?
I started studying Chinese in my undergraduate ~6 years ago, I didn’t think I could learn a language back then. I studied Modern Chinese (Mandarin dialect) for a year and a half and did horrible in school. I stepped away from Chinese language classes, became more immersed in the culture with classes and more friends at my university. I started having to learn other languages (they are on my profile if you are interested) and realized I could actually learn a language effectively. I decided to take Classical Chinese at my university, I was the only non-native speaker of Chinese in the class and the entire class was taught in Mandarin. It was about that time I started working here on LingQ on my own. Most of my classmates thought I was going to be left behind because of not knowing enough modern, but I ended up having one of the highest grades in the class because I wanted to actually learn the language. I started dating a Chinese girl as well, and my Chinese drastically improved, and I was at about 2600 words on here at LingQ, but then reality hit me. I am currently in Grad School, and I needed to take my Comprehensive exams in a year, and I knew that although I wanted to study Chinese, I needed to finish have proficient Hebrew for my comps. So I stopped studying Modern Chinese (never gave up Classical), and unfortunately my modern has not held its own entirely. I have studied Mandarin a few times in my life, in the last 6 years, but never more than a year and a half at a time. At the end of this summer, I am traveling to China for three months, and I wish to improve my Chinese enough to try to get around at least. I know I won’t be perfect when I get back, but this is a lifelong journey, that I love traveling down. I now don’t have any obligations to prevent me from studying Chinese, so here I am again back at it, and this time I see no reason to stop both in the near future… or ever. I still try to reread at least once a week a document in Classical Chinese (typically from my favorite book called the Nei-yeh or something from Zhuangzi, or even Mengzi), just so I don’t lose my Classical Chinese.
Anyways, the day I finished my comps, I was so excited and motivated for two things, to go back to my martial arts school, and to return to my Chinese studies, so since then, I have returned to both. It has been so refreshing (and also slightly frustrating) to return to this beautiful and vast language. I reset my account on LingQ so I could see my progress, and not base my knowledge specifically on what I used to know. It is like working out, don’t start lifting the weights you lifted last year when you were in the best shape of your life when you haven’t worked out in almost a year. So, I decided to return with a semi-fresh tablet.
Are you still studying in Mainland China right now? I ask simply because I hope I can still use LingQ when I run off to China for a few months in August. What areas did you travel while you were in China?
P.S. Kudos to you if you end up reading that entire “essay” haha, I appreciate it. I didn’t realize I was going to write you my full life memoir in that comment.
I’m more impatient/practical with language learning, so I haven’t really delved into classical texts yet. But it’s interesting how the two worlds are so different.
I’m one year after graduation, came to China when I was supposed to write my thesis, that took me one year since most of the time I dedicated to studying mandarin:D but it’s great now, no obligations and full time language study. I have been living in Kunming the entire time, travelled through basically the whole Yunnan (Dali, Lijiang, Xishuangbanna, Shangrila the worthiest to mention). Then, before I came to actually live in China (March 2015), in May 2014, I took a trip with my friend who at that time was doing an exchange year in Beijing. We travelled for two weeks from Beijing to Pingyao to Xi’an to Suzhou and Shanghai. I was really impressed by him being able to fluently communicate in Chinese so as soon as I could (March 2015) I came back here with him to Kunming and started learning it full time as well. I feel I will very soon, if not already, be at the level he was in May 2014:) that time he had been studying Chinese for a bit less than 3 years.
As for Lingq in China, it’s very volatile, some days it works fine, some days not at all, but recently the connectivity has been much better. Anyway I use vpn all the time and with that it works without problems. So I would advise you to buy vpn, I’m using 熊猫加速 on iPhone and iPad, working great, and HotspotShield on pc, but I will change that as soon as my one year subscription expires, because since around October last year it has been very unstable.
That sounds fantastic. I plan to land in Beijing early August and spend most of my next three months mainly in Shandong. I have a friend that direction and that helps on costs. But, I also plan to do some small weekend trips to random places throughout China, including some major Taoist/Buddhist/Confucian religious and historical sites, see some of the beautiful scenery found in the Sichuan among others. I am hoping to see more of the ‘behind the scenes’ China versus the touristy places.
I will be sure to use a VPN while in China, it sounds like it is practically mandatory. I appreciate the info on that as well and using lingq. I have been trying to find that answer actually for a little over a year now. You are the only one who has been able to give me any knowledge on that. How long are you planning to stay in China? Will you continue studying in Kunming?
Thank you Fire! I appreciate it, I used to have that app, so I will redownload it and have some fun. Thanks!
For those of you who don’t know, ChineseSkill is a Chinese app that is similar to Duolingo’s format. So if you like Duo, then you will likely like ChineseSkill.
Awesome. I wish you the best. That sounds totally cool, and I hope you end up finding some more work over in China. What initially started your interest in Chinese?
When I traveled here in 2014, my friend was already fluent so I could see him interact with locals. It was a totally different experience than just traveling/observing
and certainly my Chinese girlfriend has been of great help, not in the least because since the beginning she’s been too lazy to speak English.