How to Learn Chinese

Skritter gives you the meaning of hanzi, but when you are learning Chinese characters, it is helpful to see them used in practice. Daily reading, even if it is only for a few minutes can give you familiarly with how the words you learn are actually used. Textbooks, children's books, and easy readers aimed at foreigners in Chinese all provide good practice. Reading Chinese characters in context will make it easier to recall meaning in Skritter and practicing Chinese characters in Skritter will make reading easier.

Since it is easy to mispronounce when reading, it is a good idea to periodically ask a teacher or native speaking friend to listen to you and help you with pronunciation and, for Chinese, tones. Even if you get tones right when you are studying in Skritter you can still make mistakes when reading aloud and it's best to catch those mistakes to avoid ingraining bad habits.

To err is to learn. When you speak or write you will certainly make mistakes but only by making mistakes can you identify and learn from them (with help of course). Writing a diary, a short passage regularly, alternating between handwriting and by hand gets you used to recalling the correct character to express yourself in Chinese and writing has the benefit that you can do it at a slower pace. Speaking, deliberately making sure that pronunciation and tones are correct – even if it is only reading aloud to yourself – will get you used to making the correct sounds and forming sentences quickly to express ideas.

With practice, expressing yourself in will become easier. The most effective practice, of course, is directed practice where you focus on working on specific topics that you want to learn. For example, where you pick a particular Chinese character phrase and try to use it correctly several times.

Practicing listening to a TV show or reading a book in Chinese will just be frustrating for a beginner. Instead, find easy materials (e.g. recordings of textbooks) and try to write out the characters for what was said. Practice with a language partner, listening to him or her speak slowly or find some introductory listening comprehension books. Listening can be frustrating at first if it's a bit above your level, but your comprehension will still improve.

When you get to a point where you have a fair amount vocabulary watching TV with subtitles on can be quite helpful in learning both characters and listening comprehension by using them to fill in the blanks mutually. Watching multiple times and rewinding a lot can help with comprehension (though not always enjoyment). Children's shows can be useful as they typically have simple vocabulary and a fair bit of repetition (though, again, not always the greatest enjoyment values).

There are two main approaches to grammar; the first is to ignore it (directly at least) focusing on applying language to situations and providing feedback on language usage when necessary. The second way is the more traditional way of introducing grammar points in a class or tutorial session from a textbook, doing grammar exercises, and having grammar tests. The ultimate aim in learning Chinese isn't to understand grammar but to be able to communicate clearly – either method requires that you be able to apply the rules of grammar so you aren't misunderstood (or misunderstand others). Some people will find explicit rules easier to understand and use while others will find rule after rule confusing and discouraging, preferring instead to practice and learn them on a more subconscious, automatic level.

When you are specifically studying to learn Chinese characters you might have the option to study traditional or simplified characters. Alternately, your school might have decided for you. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Simplified characters, due to their simplification and fewer strokes, are easier and quicker to write. On the other hand, traditional characters have more radicals (parts of the characters) meaning that there are more clues when looking at a new character that a learner can use to deduce meaning and possible pronunciation. The most important consideration, though, is typically where you will use Chinese – the Chinese mainland uses simplified characters and most other places use traditional characters. Skritter gives the ability to learn Chinese characters in both simplified and traditional form or to pick one or the other. Pinyin, the Romanization system used to help students learn Chinese character pronunciation is a good crutch when you start learning but the sooner you can move away from reading pinyin to reading hanzi the sooner you will be able to read Chinese.

To learn a language, you need to put in a lot of effort at memorization, a lot of effort to practice using the language, and feedback. There is a word 白学 ("báixué") in Chinese which means to study in vain. It is fun to learn new words but once you learn the same 'new words' for the third or forth time it becomes a lot less fun. Whether you learn from immersion and only a pocket dictionary, podcasts, a tutor, or a traditional class, you need to review what you learn regularly. Skritter can help you with vocabulary review but you also need to practice using language, reading, writing, speaking and listening regularly to reinforce what you have learned and get comfortable using new vocabulary and language patterns. The structure of a traditional class can often help me to focus your study energies but some find traditional classes focus too much on grammar rules and prefer more immersive type learning. Skritter is compatible with both methods as either way you need to learn characters and memorize vocabulary, tasks which we built Skritter especially for.

Some of our favourite resources for helping you study Chinese are on our learning resources page.

Feel free to leave your thoughts on studying and Chinese on our forum. We plan on updating and expanding this guide based on the excellent feedback from you, our users.