I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that in order to make a jump in my language abilities I should attempt to do some simple translation or interpretation. I already do this indirectly as an English teacher but the material and examples I am given are extremely contrived and artificial. Every single day we ask the students, “How are you?” and every day they answer “I’m fine, thank you.”
Older students aren’t much better: JHS speeches, for example, sound as if they were written by teenage girls. The textbooks that I am provided aren’t much better.

I see that Skritter is seeking translators but I don’t know what it takes to get to that level.

Try the marco polo project

http://marcopoloproject.org

or Tatoeba

tatoeba.org

Hey there, I'm Julien, the founder of Marco Polo Project. Thanks Nicki for recommending us here!

Icecream, I had the same frustration when I was learning Chinese, and that's partly the motivation behind the website - I wanted to read actual stuff written by Chinese people, not pre-formatted textbook manual about preferring a teaching or banking job.

Maybe you can have a try, and let us know what you think. We don't have a feature to select 'easy' texts yet - but that's in the tube. Though one trick is to use google translate on the side, as a kind of 'reading aid'. This way, you get more familiar with the words you only half know, you get to discover a few new ones, and mostly, you just practice reading Chinese. It keeps motivation up, I found.

Don't hesitate to give us feedback - and if you like the site, please spread the word - the community we're trying to bring together can only grow through word of mouth. Nicki - thanks again for your line here - it's a real encouragement for us to see that people start passing on word!!

Good luck with 学中文!

Wow, thanks for the Marco Polo link. Tatoeba I have been using for a long time but not heard of the Marco Polo project before. This seems very interesting and I have read my first few articles there now.

@ Marco Polo Project

While I have a superficial understanding of kanji, it is not enough to translate genuine Chinese texts! I focus on Japanese, not Chinese. I should have been explicit with the language I was refering to.

Either way, though, the site itself is nice. It is easy to understand and follow. Many texts, though, seem to have a political slant. Many are also a bit long for beginners.

@mandarinboy - I'm glad you're enjoying the website - dont' hesitate to sign up and join our translation team - or just enjoy our translations. You can follow us on facebook for regular updates.

@icecream - good luck with Kanji! And if anyone is interested in setting up a parallel platform for Japanese writing, we'd be happy to see if we can collaborate.

Thanks for the feedback too! We've been toying with the idea of 'categories' on the home page, and sort our contents between more political and more 'social commentary'-style texts - it's just been digged up a few notches.