I hope this will serve as a useful tool for those studying Chinese. Even though I am talking about my experiences in Singapore, most of the resources and strategies will help students everywhere. As of this moment, I am not taking a Chinese language course, or studying under a tutor. I don’t think I will join a class because it would be really hard to find the proper placement (my vocabulary and knowledge is OK, but I don’t speak as well as the heritage students, so I would fall behind). As for a tutor – I am still looking. I am trying to find a good tutor that is not too expensive…but the good ones usually are! So, this is geared for those studying on their own, or those that want extra practice in addition to their course/lessons.
Singapore
Before I landed in Singapore, I imagined I would have plenty of chances to speak with the locals, and even chat with some of my colleagues. Now that I am hear, I have learned that that is not the case. This is for a couple of reasons. First, most of the ethnic Chinese in Singapore speak their own dialect (Fujian or whatever) at home, so Mandarin is actually their second language (Chinese language, that is, don’t forget English). Most people actually assume my Mandarin is better than theirs (not the case, well, spoken that is). Second, people see me and start speaking English. It is usually pretty good, so there is no reason why I need to switch to Chinese (or is that me being lazy and unwilling to step out of my comfort zone?)
That said, it is still a much better environment for learning Chinese than the US (if that is not obvious….). In Singapore, I have the option of watching Chinese television, listening to Chinese radio, check out Chinese movies (I could do that in the States, but the selection is much better here), read the Chinese paper, and converse with Chinese speakers.
One of the best resources at my disposal is a newspaper called “My Paper” (“Wo Bao). My Paper is bilingual, and has a couple of vocabulary words listed at the end of every article (including the English articles). It is called the “helpdesk”, and it usually points out idioms (cheng yu/su yu/etc) or words that the reader might not know (remember, Mandarin is most people’s second language). In addition to the helpdesk, they also translate some of the words in the article. For example, in an article about the World Health Organization, the text will look like this “…世界卫生组织 (World Health Organization)…”. It is very helpful!
Aside from those resources, there are many others available online. I have made a list of resources that I found are particularly good. Check it out:
Chinese Resources
Chinesepod – this is one of the best resources available. It is totally worth the yearly subscription. If you have already studied some Chinese, the most basic plan is enough. With that plan, you get unlimited access to all of the MP3s and matching PDFs. They have hundreds of lessons, and they cover a wide-range of topics. I have a link to Chinesepod on the right. This is the ONLY program I believe is worth paying for. Everything else you can find for free.
Xuezhongwen.net – another great resource. The dictionary is excellent, and the site has other tools like annotation programs and audio tracks. The main problem with the dictionary is that it does not tell you give you the part of speech for words (which makes it hard to choose which one to use), but it is one of the most complete dictionaries I have found.
Clavis Sinica (http://www.clavisinica.com/home.html) – used by some of the top universities in the US, this site contains a lot of good resources. I have not used this in a while, but I remember liking it when I was in University.
http://www.nciku.com/ – This is AMAZING! If you don’t know a character’s radical or sound (or you just want to save time looking up words), this is the best resource. You can actually write the character (must use correct stroke order!), and it will generate a list of words that you can chose from. In addition to the dictionary, they also have flashcards, quizzes, and other things to help you learn new characters.
Firefox Add-On – If you are studying Chinese, you have to get this program. If you don’t have Firefox, download it. After you have it, go here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3349, and add it. Once it is complete, go to a Chinese website (People’s Daily or BBC Chinese, for example), then go to “Tools” and scroll down to Chinese Pera-Kun. Once it has started, you can scroll over the words and it will give you the pinyin and the definition. If you use gmail, this is great because you can also use it for attachments. All you have to do to use it for attached documents is click “view as html”, and then start the program.
Mandarin Tools (http://www.mandarintools.com/) – this site also has a lot of good resources. It is similar to xuezhongwen.net and Clavis. I have personally used their “DimSum” program, which you can download to your computer. Once you download it, you can copy-and-paste Chinese articles and it will allow you to scroll over words for pinyin and definitions (like the firefox tool). In addition, you can generate a word list (pinyin and definitions), and change characters from simplified to traditional, and the other way around.
TV Shows! – are a great way to keep up with Chinese and learn new things. There are a couple of good sites – crunchyroll.com and mysoju.com, both of which have Japanese, Korean, and Chinese TV shows. If you are not sure which one to watch, I recommend doing a google search for ‘top Taiwanese dramas’, or ‘top Mainland dramas’.
There are a lot of resources out there, but these are the best I have found. Check them out for yourself, and if you have any recommendations, you can leave them in the comments section below.
