I recently received an email from a buddy of mine that is doing an intensive Mandarin program in Taipei. During his studies, he had discovered many of the amazing tools available on the web for those trying to learn Mandarin. He rattled off all the flashcard programs, websites, and textbooks that I have come to know over the past couple of years. After listing all of these great resources, he asked me if I had heard of them, and if I had any recommendations.
The question made me think back to an earlier post about ‘information overload‘ when studying languages. My friend had discovered so many good resources, but did not have the time to test them out and figured out what worked for him. After some quick reflection, I realized that there is one study tool I have decided is crucial to my battle against Mandarin: Chinese-Perapera Kun Plugin for Mozilla.
I don’t think I realized how much I used this program until I was temporarily unable to do so for a short period of time. When Mozilla released an update a few months ago, I installed it, and quickly discovered that this Chinese add-on was no longer compatible. I thought I could deal using another program, but I eventually decided to download an old version of Mozilla so that the add-on would work again.
After following the Perapera-kun blog desperately waiting for an update, the news finally broke that the add-on was approved, and I was able to update all my programs.
So why is this program so useful?
Well, for me it is the easiest way to get a dose of Mandarin everyday. Whether it is an email from a friend, or a news article, I can always learn a new character, or finish a paragraph without moving to a new site to look up definitions.
All you have to do is install the program, enable it on a Chinese site, scroll over characters you don’t know, and the pinyin and definition will pop up.
I use this program so often, and find it so useful, that I think it is the only program I have considered donating to!
If you have gone this far in your Mandarin studies without this add-on, or a similar one, I hope you’ll enjoy it (after you kick yourself for not knowing about it sooner 
). When dealing with the ‘information overload’ problem, I have found that this add-on has been crucial. I can continue to learn new characters – even if it is passively – by simply scrolling over the ones I don’t know. In cases where one or two characters is crucial to helping me understand the main idea, I have been amazed by how easy it is to retain the meaning.
So…check out the add-on, and happy learning!
-Maltzajava
