Learning Chinese

Learning Mandarin Chinese has been one of my hobbies the past few years. It’s a fun and pretty difficult language to learn for english speakers.  Thankfully there are lots of great websites and applications to help.  I recommend starting with the following sites:

Dian Hua iPhone App

DianHua Dictionary is a Chinese-English Dictionary application for the iPhone™. Based on CC-CEDICT, the application provides the end user the ability to search in English, Pinyin (Pin1 Yin1 or toneless), Traditional Characters, and Simplified Characters. Dictionary search results are displayed with tone-marked Pinyin, English definitions, Traditional, and Simplified characters.

EzPinyin – This is a very useful tool for learning the building blocks of the language  In the language words are constructed using multiple syllables, and each syllable is a combination of an initial, finals, and a tone.  With this tool you can construct just about every word in the language and hear the proper pronunciation.  the application also helps with teaching you how/where to place your tongue and lips to make certain sounds

Chinesepod.com  This has some of the best chinese learning podcast on the internet ranging from newbie or advanced lessons.  I of course, still listen to the elementary stuff.  You’ll have to sign up for the online learning center to get all of the many benefits of the website, but all of the lessons are free.

Foreign Service Institute Language Courses  I didn’t know the government provided such extensive and free learning until I found the FSI languages courses.  This site has detailed and practical multi-unit courses on several languages that include workbooks in pdf format, and mp3s to download.  I highly recommend it.

Chinese Phrases for Travelers – If you are interesting in learning situational phrases this the place to go.  The website provides mandarin phrases separated into categories such as Introducing yourself, Hotels, Ordering at Resturants, and shopping.  The site displays the chinese characters, pinyin and will play an MP3 of the phrase.  Here’s a useful phrase to known

 If you really want to be a nerd, you can rip a few chinese phrase for travelers pages using the saveas->web archive feature of IE or a tool like GetRight and practice the phrases offline on the flight over to Asia.