What’s Wordle?

First things first, maybe you’re not familiar with Wordle yet, and that’s 100% okay.  If you are, keep scrolling, you’ll learn about Chinese Wordle faster that way.

Wordle is an English-language word game, where you need to guess a word.

Your clues: it’s a 5 letter word. You get 6 tries.

• Each try, you’re shown:
• GREEN: which letters are correct.
• YELLOW: which letters are in the word, but not in the right spot.
• GRAY: which of the letters you entered are NOT in the word you’re trying to find.

Then you get to try again.
If you run out of tries before having guessed the word, that’s it. You’re done.

And if you find the word before that, congrats!

Guessed the word, with one try to go! Woot

What makes Wordle fun and super popular is the fact you only get one word per day.
And everyone gets the same word to guess.
Ah, competition. The drive to do better than your counterparts.  It never gets old.

Anyways! As a Chinese language learner, perhaps you too were wondering: how can I play Wordle but in Chinese? So, we went searching for a Chinese version of Wordle. And we found one here!

Why play Wordle in Chinese?

Why go looking for a Chinese Wordle?  Well, why not?

First of all, It’s great language practice.
Trying to play a game in your target language, i.e. the langue you’re learning, is a wonderful idea. It makes you actually use the language you’re learning, which is an excellent way to strengthen your learning and maximize retention.

Second, it’s fun to try to guess things in Chinese. And to play in Chinese!

How do you play Wordle with Chinese Characters?

Before you start wondering how it would work with the thousands of Chinese characters out there, let’s set something straight. Pinyin is key here.  Just like in English, pinyin offers a set number of letters, which makes the entire game, well, easily playable.

You’re not guessing Chinese Character Strokes. You play Chinese Wordle with pinyin. UPDATE: for a Chinese character based Wordle, scroll down. 

How Wordle in Chinese works

Now that’s out of the way, how does Wordle in Chinese work?

Same basic principles:

• One game per day
• 6 tries
• GREEN for letters you get right (该字母在正确的位置)
• ORANGE for almost right ((该字母不在正确的位置)
• GREY for those that aren’t in what you’re trying to guess. (当前成语的拼音中没有该字母).
• Everyone gets the same (UPDATE: or so we thought. In the Ninchanese Discord Server, we discovered you don’t always get the same. It changes per region, perhaps?)

The rules for Chinese Wordle are the same

Speaking of which, perhaps you’re wondering: What do you guess? Is it a word like in English Wordle? Nope!

Guess the 成语

In Chinese Worlde, you’re trying to guess … 成语 Chengyus!
That’s right, 4 character Chinese idioms and sayings.

In fact, Wordle in Chinese is called 拼音猜成语 – which literally means Pinyin Guess Chengyu. It’s made by Limboy. Thanks for making this fun puzzle game!

So, in 拼音猜成语 (aka Chinese Wordle), you have to guess the pinyin for 4 Chinese characters, which compose the chengyu. The number of letters for each Chinese character ranges from 2 to 5.  It’s no easy feat, but that’s what makes it fun!

Knowing which letters aren’t in the chengyu and which you haven’t tried yet is very helpful

Gaaah, so close!

The goal of the puzzle game is to get it right before you run of tries!  In both cases, whether you win or lose, you get to see the chengyu in Chinese characters at the end.

Success!

What else is cool about this game?

It’s good pinyin practice. You work on how familiar you are with Chinese sounds, think about syllables in Chinese, common word endings, and common words. This game makes you think about the words you know and recall pinyin sounds you’ve heard before. Excellent training.

Fun fact: if you try to enter a sound that doesn’t exist in Chinese, you get told: this sound doesn’t exist in Chinese.

In addition, all the instructions and comments you get are in Chinese, which immerses you nicely in the Mandarin language, without making it daunting. In context, you always know what they’re telling you.

Lastly, by playing this game, you’re guessing and discovering new 成语, chengyus. 成语 are an essential part of speaking Chinese.

The higher you get in your Chinese learning, the more you realize how important knowing Chengyus is. They are what allows you to show off your intelligence and education, and more importantly, you hear them a lot. In Chinese Dramas, in everyday conversations, in books… They’re also an integral part of the HSK 5 and above exams!  So learn 成语!

Starting at the HSK 5 world on Ninchanese, you’ll be learning 成语 in context. You’ll also be learning stories about what 成语 mean and how they came to be. Sign up to start learning now!

Learn the Chengyus you discover for good

Once you’ve discovered a new Chengyu in the puzzle game, don’t just quit there!
You can…
Look it up on Ninchanese in the dictionary.

For instance, this is a chengyu discovered above:

Look up the chengyus in Ninchanese’s free dictionary!

Simplified Chinese: 方兴未艾 Traditional: 方興未艾
Pinyin: fāng xīng wèi ài

Then you can create a special deck of 成语s in the Nincha Decks

That way, you’re having fun and maximizing what you can learn from the game at the same time!

Happy Wordling and Chinese learning!

Come join the Discord and post your 拼音猜成语 results in the  #游戏-games channel! You’ll find other motivated players there!

Looking for a non-pinyin-based Chinese Wordle? We got you. Here are some based on Bopofomo and on Chinese characters!

New find! Wordle with Chinese Characters and more

Looking for a  Chinese character-based Chinese Wordle? The meowsome community on Discord got you and discovered this other Wordle-like game:  汉字Wordle

The basic principle is the same: guess the 成语. The Twist? Guess it using Chinese characters this time! Using an IME, each time you enter characters, you’re told whether:
– the Chinese character you entered is correct, and if it’s in the right place;
– there are correct letters in the pinyin of that Chinese character and if the’yre in the right spot;
– the tones are correct or not.

Needless to say, this is a more hardcore version of Chinese Wordle. It keeps you on your toes. It makes you think about the chengyus you know, the Chinese characters you’re familiar with, the tones… Give it a whirl, too!

Yeah, it’s not going too well…

This Chinese Wordle is available in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

The nice thing is they give hints!

Here are a few more Chinese Character-based Wordles to explore:

https://bryony.dev/chengyu/chengyu.html
https://allanchain.github.io/chinese-wordle/
https://cheeaun.github.io/chengyu-wordle/
http://samuello.io/jndle/

Chinese Wordle with Bopomofo

Bopomofo is used in Taiwan and is a lot more widespread there than pinyin. It comes therefore as no surprise that a Chinese Worlde using Bopofomo was invented!
Play it here: Bopofomo Chinese Wordle

Poems and Chinese Wordle?

That exists too: you can guess the poem line in Chinese with  https://peotik.com.

Have fun exploring! In my case: I think I’ll stick with pinyin Chinese Wordle though!

And one more thing…

If you want to continue learning Chinese with authentic and entertaining content, then you’ll love Ninchanese.

With Ninchanese, you get a complete method to learn Chinese which has you speaking, reading, writing, and more in Chinese. What’s more, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced learner, there’s content your level on Ninchanese and plenty more!

Start using Ninchanese on the web, with your computer or tablet,

The Nincha Team

Stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Try the best way to learn Chinese today.
Ninchanese is free to use!

Sign up now

The post Chinese Wordle: Play and Learn Chinese (chengyus)! appeared first on Ninchanese.

How to say Christmas in Chinese

First things first, let’s see how to write Christmas in Chinese.

圣诞节
Shèng Dàn jié
Christmas

That’s how you say Christmas in Chinese: 圣诞节 / Shèng Dàn jié.

To talk about Christmas Eve, you say:平安夜, [Píng ān Yè], which literally means: the Safe and Sound eve.
That’s also how you say “Silent Night” in Chinese. And yes, the famous Christmas Carol “Silent Night” is called 平安夜, [Píng ān Yè] in Mandarin!

平安夜
Píng ān Yè
Christmas Eve.

To write Merry Christmas in Chinese characters, you want to add the word 快乐, which means happy.

So to say Merry Christmas in Chinese language, you’ll say:

圣诞节快乐!
Shèng Dàn jié kuài lè
Merry Christmas

Celebrate Christmas in Chinese with a special world!

Christmas in China

Christmas in China is not quite celebrated the way other Christian-oriented countries celebrate it. Still, the holiday is becoming more and more popular in Chinese, so we’ve put together something special for the occasion: a Christmas-centric Mini-Course on Ninchanese!

Spend Meowy Holidays on Ninchanese!

In this special mini-world, you’ll experience how the Chinese celebrate Christmas. You’ll also learn the purrfect words and phrases you need to know to celebrate Christmas in Chinese and enjoy the holidays!

The special world dedicated to the Holidays is now available on the App and free for all Nincha learners (that can be you! Just sign up!). This Merry Holiday world is available for a limited time only: from the 20th of December 2021 to the 3rd of January 2022.

All those that will have finished these Holiday Stages by that date will earn a Nincha Holiday Badge! Make your friends and fellow Nincha learners envious with this exclusive badge! What are you waiting for? Click below to get started!

Or click here to head to Ninchanese if you can’t load the image.

You will be learning these words in Chinese for the holidays

Ooh, you want to know what you’ll be learning in these stages? Here are some of the words and phrases you’ll see:

•  节日 jié rì holiday; festival; holidays;

• 礼物 lǐ wù gift; present;

• 祝 zhù to wish; to express good wishes;

• 快乐 kuài lè happy; merry;

• 新年 xīn nián New Year;

• 圣诞 Shèng dàn Christmas;

• 圣诞节 Shèng dàn jié Christmas; Christmas season; Christmas time;

• 圣诞老人 Shèngdàn Lǎorén Santa Claus; Father Christmas;

• 节日快乐 Jié rì kuài lè  Happy Holidays;

• 圣诞快乐Shèng dàn kuài lè  Merry Christmas;

• 新年快乐 Xīn nián kuài lè Happy New Year.

Discover the rest and learn how to use these holiday words and phrases in Chinese in the Special Christmas World on Ninchanese!  It’s free!

More Christmas in Chinese Words

Want to go beyond the special Christmas Mini-World on Ninchanese? No problem! With the Nincha Decks, you can create as many vocabulary lists as you want about Christmas and the holidays in Chinese to go with it!
Learn Christmas greetings in Chinese, explore more Christmas Words in Chinese, focus on Christmas meals… The World’s your Oyster so go wild!

Here are 16 more Christmas Words to get you started – purrfect for your first Holiday-themed Nincha Deck!

Chinese Words to put yourself in the Christmas Spirit

Enjoy! And hopefully, learning these words will spark a little extra joy these holidays.

On this note,

The Nincha Team wishes you 圣诞快乐!

Have great holidays, everyone!

And one more thing…

If you want to continue learning Chinese with authentic and entertaining content, then you’ll love Ninchanese.

With Ninchanese, you get a complete method to learn Chinese which has you speaking, reading, writing, and more in Chinese. What’s more, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced learner, there’s content your level on Ninchanese and plenty more to discover!

So, whether you already have a background in Chinese or not, you will enjoy a way of learning Mandarin, both enjoyable and effective.

Start using Ninchanese on the web, with your computer or tablet, or, for Chinese learning in your pocket and on the go, download the Ninchanese app from the Google Play Store.

The Nincha Team

Stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Try the best way to learn Chinese today.
Ninchanese is free to use!

Sign up now

The post Christmas in Chinese and Other Purrfect Words for the Holidays appeared first on Ninchanese.

The benefits of learning Chinese are multiple!

More and more students are taking classes to learn Mandarin Chinese, one of the most practiced languages in the world! As you know, China is on the rise, so it’s an understandable trend. Not only because of its booming economy but also because the Chinese language has particularities that make it interesting to learn. Learning a language benefits everyone, you, the individual, the family if you have Chinese relatives and communities in a larger sense.

Now, let’s discover why you should start Mandarin Chinese lessons already!

The multiple and unexpected benefits of Learning Chinese:

Significant advantages for the brain

As you start to learn a new language, especially Chinese, it will benefit your brain in many ways. According to a survey by the Journal of Neuroscience in 2015, bilinguals have better cognitive flexibility. It’s easier for them to do a task than others who speak only their native language.

Specifically, the mandarin Chinese language is a miracle tool to make the brain do its work. The Chinese language helps to activate a specific zone in your brain that other languages do not. That is because characters are graphical in nature, so we need to use that zone in our brain more to recognize them. Need another medical reason? Scientists have discovered that Chinese speakers tend to be less affected by Alzheimer’s or are affected by it later in their life than those who don’t speak Chinese. You know, Chinese is composed of thousands of characters to learn. Practice those, and your memory won’t have a rest! You’ll train your muscle memory more than with other languages. 

Because Chinese characters develop imagination

As you learn to write Chinese, you’ll discover the beauty that hides in the traditional art of calligraphy. You’ll develop your art skills by drawing characters, and so you’ll end up both developing your creative mind and your mental faculty. The fine art of calligraphy helps to build your subtle artistic movement in a good sense! As you discover new characters, you’ll find many ancient cultural meanings hidden in them. It’s almost as appreciating prose poems. also, when you understand the Chinese components, it’s easy to make a story to understand how characters fuze to make new characters and meaning, up to you to make a little story about it.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

Start Learning Now

Discover a completely new language

The Chinese characters

Interestingly, when learning Chinese, you’re learning a diametrical opposite language compared to our familiar Germanic/Latin language. Contrary to French, Spanish, or Italian, where we can guess the meaning of an unknown word, it is almost impossible to guess a character’s definition at a glance.

You must study Mandarin Chinese characters and review them one by one, Ninchanese SRS is made especially to learn better the Chinese characters. Chinese characters are numerous, and even one character can have multiple meanings: these are called polyphonic characters. But no worry, there’s a way to learn them faster by knowing Chinese character components. You’ll find an excellent course on Ninchanese about radicals and components, that we recommend doing when you are learning Chinese. 

A tonal language

Contrary to English, Mandarin Chinese use tones in pronunciation. Tones are pretty powerful stuff that changes the meaning of a word. So you’ll have to know a Chinese word’s form in characters and also their tones. It’s an entirely different way to speak than what we are used to in English. Yes, it’s sometimes frustrating, but it’s also sometimes amusing!

So, take great care of how you pronounce your characters. Depending on your intonation, the meaning will change! Thankfully, pinyin facilitates the learning process and helps you know which pronunciation to use. Also, the ninchanese app has a speech recognition system that understands your tone and analyzes them for you.

Speak Chinese to Visit China

Who doesn’t want to walk on the great wall of China?

China is the 4th most visited country in the world. So, naturally, China has an essential role in tourism, and many people, from all over the world, come to see its beautiful ancient constructions like the Great Wall and temples. More modern constructions also attract a lot, like, high buildings. If you’re going to visit China, then you should absolutely download our Chinese phrasebook app made for Chinese, it will be really handy.

How about immersing yourself in Chinese society to learn their language?

Whether it is for a holiday, staying with a Chinese family, or only for studying Chinese, being in the country is a great way to learn Chinese. Chinese society’s manners matter and they are handy to know when dealing with Chinese people.

It’s not convenient to use a dictionary or a translating app when you’re speaking directly with someone, so speaking the Chinese language will allow you to make direct communication with natives. That way, you’ll make real connections with the people.

There are multiple benefits to understanding Chinese when you are in China. First, you’ll recognize the signs on the road since they are all in Chinese. And so, you’ll be able to visit Chinese cities without the need to ask and bother people to find your road. Then you’ll have access to hidden experiences that other tourists can’t have. A good thing to know is Chinese likes to bargain, and as you buy souvenirs, speaking Chinese will give you a real advantage by getting you the best price possible! 

China’s billion-strong population will likely shape the coming days of the world, and it is indeed a good move to learn to speak Chinese. It’s becoming more and more important to understand the Chinese people and their society.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

Start Learning Now

Knowing Chinese to work in China

Mandarin Chinese is the most widely-spoken spoken language globally and one of the largest marketplaces in one nation with 1.28 billion people. So, knowing Mandarin Chinese opens a learner to many career opportunities. The Chinese language is a bridge between an emerging China and the rest of the world.

More people speak Mandarin Chinese than they speak English! One out of seven people speaks Chinese on earth. Chinese speakers are everywhere nowadays, like China, Taiwan, Singapore, and other Asiatic countries. But Chinese speakers are also present in North America, Europe, and, more recently, Africa.

As you can see from the facts above, it’s no wonder that speaking and learning mandarin Chinese are necessary skills today. By learning Mandarin Chinese, you will be able to communicate with more and more people.

Learn Chinese & Discover an Ancient Culture

China is one of the universe’s oldest and richest continuous cultures, over 5000 months old.

Being skillful in mandarin Chinese allows you to know their society better. Old or recent, you’ll discover many other exciting tales, very different from what you’ve previously learned. You’ll also see films in Mandarin Chinese and play a mandarin Chinese video game. China is opening up and creating a lot of cultural content. Knowing how to speak Chinese is the best way to make sure you’re there to enjoy it.

PS: And on the side, learning Chinese characters will help understand their neighbors, the Japanese. As the Japanese language uses many Chinese characters, even if there are differences, it’s close enough to get some insight.

So all in all, China has a richer culture and a rich language that will benefit you in multiple ways. Have fun learning Chinese with Nincha!

The post Why learn Mandarin Chinese, the language of Confucius? appeared first on Ninchanese.

So, when it comes to counting and juggling with numbers in Chinese, it normally is not that hard as long as the numbers do not go too big. Big numbers are a bit different.

Too big in this case means, let’s say, above 100.000. I think, up to that, everything is still okay. However, even after that, there’s a system behind it, which seems logical as soon as you are familiar with it.

For me, it took quite a long time to understand the logic behind Chinese numbers. Because first, it never occurred to me that I may need this knowledge and therefore wasn’t that interested in it.

Second, in typical Chinese classes or workbooks, the system is never explained properly.

You only get to learn the characters with a simple “it is as it is” because to be honest, the numbers you are mostly using when learning Chinese are Time, Age, Phone numbers, Prices, Measuring, all part of the daily life.  So, let’s start simple and take a look at the base numbers:

This table is the basic simplified way of expressing numbers. Beware, there are already a few specialties which I want to mention:

The number 1 – yī or yao? 

Sometimes the number 1 一 is pronounced “yao” instead of “yi.”

That is the case when the number you are reading aloud has no mathematical meaning, like Phone numbers, ZipCodes, etc. It’s just for combinations of numbers without any deeper meaning, and it makes it more understandable when listening because 1 yī and 7 qī can be confused. But as soon as the number 1 is part of a sequence or an order, it’s pronounced yī — for example, bus numbers, floor numbers, month, age, etc.

The number 2 – èr or liǎng? 

Similar to number 1, there are cases when the 2 changes and becomes liang 两. It’s a bit different because it’s an entirely different word but also expresses two.

二 only can express an ordinal number like in February (二月 second month), 第二 …

The only exception is the time. You also can say 两点钟. 两 can only be used as numeral e.g., 两天 and is generally used in front of a classifier/measure word e.g. 两只猫，两张桌子

When you want to express an approximate amount by using two-three, you should use 两三, but only when the expressed amount is lower than 10. (e.g., I went there 2-3 times / 我去过那里两三次). When the approximate amount is bigger than 20 it becomes 二三 (e.g., Last year I traveled 20.000 -30.000 kilometers / 去年我旅行了二三万公里) .

The number 0 – 〇 or 零 ？ 

The numbers in the table are straight forward, easy to learn and be remembered, but you may wonder why I wrote the 〇 and not the 零 for the zero. The reason is that technically the round circle is the simplified version of the 0, and the 零 you may be familiar with is already the complex (not to confound with traditional) version. 零 is used by banks to make written numbers on bank checks safer, more resistant to fraud, and to avoid mistakes.

These complex forms exist for all the base numbers and even for the characters to do the steps of ten, hundred and thousand. The picture should be obvious which character is which number. The last 4 fields are the zero-characters:

Although the characters are different, the pinyin stays the same. The next paragraph will show some cases where the pinyin also changes a bit.

Number colloquialism 

A bit rarer known is the fact that the basic Chinese numbers can sound different, and the characters can be altered with a radical to express the amount of something. In this case, the number is like already merged with a measure word, so you cannot use another one behind it.

These are more like predefined, so you can’t just add everything together you have in mind, and some of these characters also have more meanings than just the number.

Below are some examples. I think the most commonly known one among Chinese learners is the 俩 – 我俩= Both of us (我们俩 – adding a 们 is more used in written language). Be aware that there’s also this character: 仁 (rén), which logically may fit into the slot for the number two, but keeping the rule for the number 2 mentioned above in mind, this character actually has no numerical meaning so instead it is 俩.

Getting to the big numbers in Chinese

After the basics are settled, let’s take a look at the bigger numbers and the zeros:

From a Westerners’ point of view, the zeros are packed up by thousands, so when a new 1000-package starts, we will get a new word to describe it. As simple as it sounds, looking at the Chinese translation, it seems quite confusing what’s going on there. That’s because, in Chinese, they pack the zeros into ten-thousands so that they will use a new word after every 4 zeros. It’s important to know to understand the Chinese big numbers.

Note: For the naming of these big numbers, I’m using the Short scale naming, which is also used in the US. This scale doesn’t include the words Milliard and Billiard and, therefore, continues with the next word in the row.

Rearranging the big numbers using the Chinese 4-zero-system, it will look like this:

For a better understanding of the logic behind the big numbers in Chinese, the Chinese and pinyin columns are aligned right.

*There are no single words to directly translate a 1 with 8 (or 16, 20 etc.) zeros without already adding a ten or one-hundred which I think would not describe the character correctly then. In general, the rows continue with a new word, then adding a 10, 100, 1000 before a next new word appears.

**When the number of zeroes is divisible by 3 and 4 (10^12, 10^24), the Chinese character becomes the direct equivalent of the western name.

Besides their numeric value, these Chinese characters can also be used to express an undefined quantity:

There are more usages of these characters, and the archaic quantities of those numbers were different, but this would be a different topic on its own.

Final words about big Chinese numbers

No worries if all these zeros and the large numbers confused you. In daily conversations, you rarely use those. Can you recall when the last time was you talked with someone about those quantities, even in your mother tongue? It’s just nice to know these words when you read these, and mostly it’s just to express a massive amount of something instead of an accurate number.

The most important thing to know is the split by 4, which for me was really an eye-opener when I learned that. It also helps to remember the number attached to the characters (also the attentive learner will recognize that the more strokes a big number-character has, the more zeros it has)

Stefan and The Nincha Team

The post Big Numbers in Chinese – The struggle with the zeros and other characteristics appeared first on Ninchanese.

• Do I need to learn to write Chinese characters?
• When is the best time to begin with them?
• Where do you start?
• How do you write Chinese characters? Are there any rules?

With this article, I want to share a bit of my experience in writing characters and maybe a helpful additional way of learning Chinese. To be clear, I’m not talking about the art of Chinese Calligraphy but just casual hand-writing. Handwritten Chinese with a pen a piece of paper.

Do I need to learn to write Chinese characters?

Learning a language, in general, is split into 4 parts. Each with different importance:  Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. I think everyone would agree that Listening and Speaking are the most important. After that comes reading, and at the end is writing as the least important part. Also, if the language is similar to your mother-tongue, then writing and reading becomes just a byproduct, because you already can read and write the words, even if you don’t know the meaning.  

The question if you need to learn to write Chinese characters is the most common one, and honestly, it’s not necessary to learn handwritten Chinese. But learning how to write Chinese characters can help and provide another supporting method to learn them if you are into writing. 

Before jumping into the subject, let’s take a look at the reasons why you may not need to learn to write Chinese characters. 

 When is the best time to start learning to write Chinese characters? 

Since I started learning Chinese, I also started writing Chinese characters every day as an additional way to learn words, after the switch from pinyin only to Chinese characters. For me, all of the above points go very well together. Learning to write Chinese character reinforce my understanding of characters.

So, I would say this is also the best time to start writing Chinese characters: right from the beginning. Everyone has to go through the elementary pronunciation- and pinyin-only classes before entering the tough world of Chinese characters, so the best way is when everything goes hand-in-hand. But it’s also not too late to start with it if you are already on a higher level. You just need some patience, persistence, and a good learning strategy. 

But since everyone learns differently, has their methods and is not necessarily that interested in the world of Chinese characters, this totally depends on your preferences.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

Start Learning Now

How do I start learning writing Chinese characters?

The material

When I started with hand-writing Chinese, I tried different methods to find what worked best for me.  

So, first things first: Basically, what you need is just a pen, something to write on, some words you want to practice and a dictionary/app which can show you the stroke-orders and directions. 

The plan

Sounds simple and easy but there are some factors you have to ask yourself: 

• How often do you want to practice (daily, every 2 days, weekly, bi-weekly?) 
• When you practice, how much time do you want to spend? 
• How many characters do you want to write, and how to choose what to write? 
• Why do you want to practice these characters? 
• When do you know that you practiced enough and need to drill new characters? 

And as mentioned above, it’s not about Calligraphy, but casual handwriting. So, don’t spend too much time and money in searching for the best pen and paper. In my opinion, that doesn’t matter that much; you just need to feel comfortable when writing. The only thing which has at least a small impact is the paper.  

My own routine

For me, the paper affects a lot of those questions above. You’ll get that later, first I’ll show you my personal answers on the questions:  

• I want to write characters daily as part of my learning-routine (this needs persistence), but I also don’t want to spend too much time (<20 min daily).   
• I’m learning with different materials: Chinese classes, books, Apps (mostly Ninchanese), etc. I usually pick the words I write from those materials. E.g., I’m learning a new unit in a book or started to learn some new words on Ninchanese; then, I’ll also use these words to practice writing Chinese characters. This way, everything is learned together and can be connected.  

The role of the paper 

To answer the other questions, at this point, the paper comes in:   

I’m using those small vocabulary-notebooks, which are exactly what I need: 

Both of them are pretty much the same. It’s just different manufacturers, and the 田格本 had one row less than the 田字簿。 

So, based on these notebooks, I decided to write one page every day, which answers the questions of how much time to spent and how many characters to write:

• One page is one day 
• One line is one word (can be 1 to 4 characters), which currently is 12 words/phrases 
• On the left side, I write the pinyin, so I know what to write. To keep track of how long I have to practice a word until I know it, I write a point on the right side, and if I had this word right for at least 3 days, I’ll exchange it with a new character. 

Does stroke order matter in chinese? The list of Strokenames of Chinese character

All types of strokes have names by themselves, but you don’t have to remember all of those. Even in casual Chinese language, these are rarely known. There are some which are also very rarely used, only in a few characters.

I picked this sheet up in the past for a class once and translated the names, so you can imagine where their names come from: 

Writing Right-/Lefthanded: 

You may have heard that the majority of Chinese people are right-handed. It’s a tradition to train left-handed people to use their right hand. So, why do I mention it? I am lefthanded, which leads to a minor problem when writing these characters.  

When you look at the stroke orders and directions, these are defined rules and these essential when you write with an ink-pen or brush, because you have to press down and lift the pen at the end, so it leaves a specific line-thickness at the end or beginning.   

When casually writing Chinese characters, a right-handed person would drag the pen in the direction he writes and leaves the words, but a left-handed person has to push the pen and would always smear his left-hand over the just written words. So, using a lot of ink will always result in a big mess, but it also feels very uncomfortable when you have to push a pen to create horizontal strokes (try to push a pen over paper, you’ll see). And here again, I have to mention it’s just about casual handwriting, so to feel comfortable writing Chinese characters, I write horizontal lines from right to left instead of the other direction.  

A short personal story about that: One time in school, I had to write characters on the whiteboard in front of the teacher, and it was the first time I had to do that. So, I just wrote like I was comfortable with dragging horizontal lines from right to left. In the end, my teacher smiled and said that the written characters are 100% correct, but the way I wrote was not that accurate, and I explained that I knew but did so because I use my left hand, and it feels more comfortable that way. This was hard to understand for him, and it still is for a lot of (righthanded) people when I explain it. 

Final words 

Since that episode with the teacher, I’m still doing my writing-practice how I feel comfortable, but I also know the proper way, and whenever I have to write in front of a teacher, I’ll write how it is intended, even if it’s not comfortable for me. 

So, saying that, I hope this article provides some useful tips and answers to some questions which prevented you from writing Chinese characters. It doesn’t take much, so why not just give it a try? Who knows, you may get the hang of it and it becomes a routine in your daily life.

 Stefan and 

The Nincha Team

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How do you find the Chinese character you are looking for?

Today, we’ll show you tricks to study Chinese by using an IME. Using an IME is an excellent way to improve your Chinese and practice writing Chinese as the Chinese do.

Real fast: What’s an IME and how do you use one?

A Chinese IME is a Chinese “input method editor” which allows you to type Chinese characters easily like a native Chinese speaker, using Pinyin. They are kind of like a Chinese keyboard but with way more options than just 26 letters. Having an IME helps a lot with writing Chinese online and using it is a great way to progress in your Chinese. This is how you learn to write Chinese characters in the listening stage on Ninchanese.

No IME yet? Head here to see how to get one!

Because you use an IME to write in Chinese, it’s also a great tool to help you identify mistakes you may be making in the way you memorized some Chinese words. In particular, I see two points where using an IME can help you identify your mistakes:

• Using a Chinese keyboard allows you to notice if you’re not spelling a word right in pinyin / pronouncing a Chinese word right because it won’t bring up the right results.
• It also lets you see if you’re familiar with what the word looks like in Chinese and not just with its pronunciation: because once you enter the pinyin for the Chinese character you want to enter, you still have to be able to pick out the right character for the sound you want! 

Actually, IMEs are getting increasingly clever, to make your life easier. More and more of these Chinese input methods use predictive engines, kind of like autocorrect, to guess what you’re trying to say even if you don’t quite remember how to write the word you’re looking for.

The truth is, however, your IME sometimes won’t be that helping pal that does the thinking for you. It will just help you to know you’re wrong but won’t give you the word in Mandarin you’re looking for. So, in that case, what can you do to find the right character? What if there was a method that allowed you to find that correct Chinese character and at the same time train your Chinese to remember better the Chinese character you’ve mistakenly learned?

Let’s explore with an example

 The other day, I wanted to write the word that means “Jealous” in Chinese. I typed “chisu” to bring it up in my IME, but nothing that looked right was coming up in the results.

Uh oh. Something’s wrong. No “to feel jealous” there.

Sure, I could have grabbed a Chinese dictionary and looked up the word “to feel jealous” in Chinese.

But I felt that was too easy. I was determined to understand why I wasn’t getting any results, in a way that would really help me memorize the Chinese word for “to feel jealous”. So I put my detective hat on and went on a mission to discover the culprit.

So here’s what I did.

 My 吃 is correct; that I was sure of. So it must be the “su” that’s faulty.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

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 Searching for the character Su

These results definitely don’t look like what I’m looking for.

Clinging to your Chinese memories

I take a few seconds to remember how the words I wanted to find looked. While I wasn’t quite sure about the second character –  or I could just have drawn it – I remembered the second character had the radical 酉 alcohol radical in it. So, I looked for characters with that radical or component in it, with my IME. Components are often either a sound or a meaning component so it could be a good path to find the character I was looking for.

After going through the first 5 results the IME suggested for “su”, and looking at other options, I found this character 酥  on the IME. Not quite the mental image I had in mind but worth a shot. Could that be the Su(e) I was desperately seeking (sorry, bad Madonna joke :D)?

So I looked that character up on my favorite Chinese dictionary, Ninchanese:

Screenshot of 酥 on Ninchanese

Oh. So it means “flaky pastry; crunchy; limp; soft; silky”. Not the one I was looking for.

Strangely evocative but not what I’m looking for.

So writing “su” alone without “chi” did not give me the result I wanted. But it did not refute the hypothesis that the word was containing “chi”, right? 

This time around, it looks like my method trying to find the character I wanted using a key component and the pronunciation I thought was correct, was not helping to find the right character either. Either my “su” is wrong, and I’m seriously starting to think that’s the problem here, or I made up the presence of “酉“ as a component in it. 

Okay, time to need to investigate further!

What shall I 吃?

My “Su” lead obviously isn’t getting me anywhere. But, I know for sure the expression started with “吃”.

So I went online and typed 吃 in Ninchanese’s dictionary to see what kind of expressions contained 吃. It brought up these results:

The 吃 I was looking for was first, so I clicked on it to see what kind of expressions contained 吃. Guess what? There’s a bunch – 128 related words! The Chinese sure to use their word “吃” to create other words! But it’s easy to look up all the related words that contain a Chinese character in Ninchanese’s dictionary results. Time to dig in and find “jealous”!

To replicate this search yourself, go here: https://app.ninchanese.com/word/simplified/119585/%E5%90%83%E9%86%8B

Tada!

吃醋!

Found it!

Here’s the culprit: 吃醋 Chīcù. Which means, literally, to consume vinegar. But people use it to say someone’s jealous. Because of love, naturally.

See? I knew it had 酉 the alcohol radical in it!  Turns out I wasn’t indeed typing the right pinyin. It should have been with a “c” ->  chī cù.  “Su” sounds a little close to “cu”, too. (Bad memory! Thank you, IME and Ninchanese.)

 So there you go! You have learned Chinese a little on the side AND spot your mistakes in Chinese.

How about you? Has that happened to you before? If so, what kind of errors do you spot with your IME? Let us know if you have any other Nincha techniques with your IME!

 吃fully yours!

The Nincha Team

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We picked them, and our users like watching them because they are a lot of fun, obviously, and very inspiring. As you may learn Chinese, you’ll love them too.

Why? Because most vloggers (video bloggers) in our selection are actually non-native Chinese speakers who have reached an awe-inspiring Chinese level. They were Chinese learners, then moved to China and started making super good videos in Mandarin.

These videos are usually easier to approach than a full-length feature film or TV show in Chinese, so that’s why we’re starting with these. Plus, there are loads to enjoy in these videos and glean from them in terms of language currently used in China and golden nuggets of Chinese culture to discover. You’ll see! Ready? Let’s dig in.

Fulinfang

Fulinfang is the one dude you want to be friends with. It feels warm to watch his videos. His Chinese is really great too. He has a really understandable way of speaking Chinese. He is quite funny, and I recommend some of his videos where he visits China with his niece. They are so adorable :)!

Here another video from him:

Thomas

Thomas is one of my favorite youtubers. He speaks really great Chinese. I mean, he really adds a lot of energy to his way of speaking Chinese. And Chinese people really do speak with a lot of intonation, and he does it very well. I like to follow his videos since they are really close to real life in Shanghai (his wife is Chinese). So there are a lot of videos about life in China and about what it’s like living with a family in China, and that’s super cool.

Here a présentation of this superstar:

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

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Kevin in Shanghai

Kevin in Shanghai creates entertaining videos to watch. They speak a lot about the cross-cultural culture and the challenges that go along with them. The videos are really nicely done, with many visual cues and situations to understand what’s going on. There are also often English subtitles in these videos, so it’s great to make sure you’re following okay if you’re not sure.

Collin Abroadcast

Collin likes to visit parts of the world, but I suspect his preference is for China. This vlogger has made really, really great videos about life in China and what situations you could expect when you’re facing Chinese citizens. His videos are fascinating and worth a look.

This particular video is about a guy showing how he bargains to get what he wants. The last seller is quite aggressive, but all in all, that’s only a negotiation style. From my experience, it’s always really fun to haggle over what you’re buying in China, and it makes buying an interesting experience. It’s even more fun if you speak Chinese with them (plus you negotiate better).

Mamahuhu

The Mamahuhu gang is one of the funniest you can find on youtube. They don’t care to mock Chinese culture and the Laowei’s culture (though they often compare American and Chinese culture). What can I say? Their videos are hilarious, and if you don’t know them yet, you have only one choice now, it’s to go there, watch these videos and share this article with your friends :D.

The China Traveller 司徒建国

Stu has been living for many years in China, and he makes a lot of videos about China and the Chinese culture. All his videos are quite funny. He actually has two channels. One called the China Traveller or 司徒建国. He’s funny and says his videos have two goals: help foreigners discover the Chinese culture more and make Chinese people laugh. The truth is, he manages to make us laugh too :).

Stu has also done many videos for a Chinese TV channel, so if you needed proof his Chinese was good, there you go!

His other channel is called STUpid in China; It’s great too!

This rounds up our selection of fun vlogs and vloggers to watch in Chinese! This selection was hand-picked by the Ninchanese community on Slack. Did we miss your favorite vlogger? Let us know in the comments or on Slack! And don’t forget, learn Chinese with us 🙂

New entries: User recommendations

Laowhy86 and Serpentza

C-milk channel or Laowhy86 has made lots of videos about China. He likes really doing deep-dives in the Chinese culture, especially what stands out. If there is a weird aspect of China, you bet it, and he’s made a video about it. It’s great if you are an ex-pat in China since these videos are really like speaking about China. And he always has a little pun that will make you laugh. Keep up the good work, C-Milk!

Another great vlogger is Serpentza, who does videos about China. He likes asking the “real” questions like, are Chinese girls easy? Don’t take me wrong, the titles are always a bit catchy, if not even a little clickbaity, but he has a lot of respect for China, and you really can feel his love for the country.

C-Milk and Serpentza have teamed up to make another great Channel: ADVChina. They visit a lot of places in China and make their videos really interesting. Worth a look! And if you really like their videos, check out the complete documentary on their website https://t.co/CvB2hZxg3R

xxxoooo

The Nincha Team

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我喜欢坐火车旅行

Wǒ xǐhuan zuò huǒchē lǚxíng

I love taking the train to travel

Let’s break down the words:

• 我 – Wǒ – I, me, my. Here: I
• 喜欢 – xǐhuan –  to like, to be fond of.
• 坐  – zuò – to sit; to take
• 火车 –  huǒchē –  train
• 旅行 – lǚxíng – to travel, journey, trip. Here: to travel.
  • Here’s a tip to find 旅行 with your IME (input method editor, what allows you to type in Chinese): instead of the ü, type a v! That’s the norm in Chinese as most keyboards don’t have an easy way to type such things (with the exception of languages like French or German, that have diacritical marks like ¨ or accents).

Did you know?  To say “to take the train”, the Chinese say 坐火车, which literally means “to sit (in) the train”. That actually makes a lot of sense. When you take a train, you’re sitting on the train, not driving it, so why not be specific and say that instead of just “take”? Make sure you remember. In a similar fashion, you can say  坐公共汽车 to take the bus or  坐飞机, to take a plane.

Stay tuned for more of Nincha’s adventures and travels!

Related: Nincha discovers mooncakes!

The Nincha Team

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The post Nincha travels: 坐火车 – taking the train appeared first on Ninchanese.

Let’s take a moment to see why we recommend adding a Chinese dictionary to your learning arsenal.

Of course,  Ninchanese is the best online Chinese dictionary, but others also have good qualities.

Why do you need a Chinese dictionary in your learning arsenal?

Imagine you’re reading a newspaper or a blog post online, and right there, in the middle of a sentence, there’s an unknown Chinese character. What are you going to do? Just leave it alone? Sometimes, unfamiliar words don’t keep you from understanding the whole sentence, but in many cases, especially in Chinese, those unknown words will be an obstacle to your understanding. So there’s only one solution: look up this evil word in a Chinese dictionary.

Chinese dictionaries are also a good help when looking up unknown words you come across when traveling. Maybe it’ll be an unfamiliar word on a street sign, in a shop, or perhaps you want to understand the menu in a restaurant.

In all those situations, you’ll be glad you have a dictionary to decipher the words that escape you, whether it’s a paper, online or offline Chinese dictionary.

Don’t you agree that it’s essential to include a dictionary in your Chinese learning arsenal?

When traveling in China or learning Chinese to understand the unknown words you run into, you’ll need one. But, of course, you can’t rely only on dictionaries to learn Chinese.  Ninchanese is here to help you learn new vocabulary in Chinese, master grammar rules, and hone your Chinese speaking and listening skills. So keep your favorite dictionary for those times you’re reading Chinese texts on the Internet, and use it wisely as a help!

Online Chinese dictionaries trump Chinese paper dictionaries

Now, maybe you’re wondering: which are the best, Chinese paper dictionaries or online Chinese dictionaries? We’ll be blunt: paper dictionaries are good, of course, but we’re 100% pro-online Chinese dictionaries. Let us tell you why.

Chinese dictionaries have evolved a lot since the invention of the first Chinese paper dictionaries. Technology has made Chinese dictionaries tremendously more accessible and has helped provide everyone with dictionaries for free.

Technology has made Chinese dictionaries tremendously more accessible and has helped a lot to provide everyone with dictionaries for free.

— Ninchanese (@Ninchanese) 26 May 2016

For those born with a computer/ phone/ tablet/ phablet in their hands, believe us, you can be grateful you don’t have to experience what it was like to look up a word or a Chinese character in a Chinese paper dictionary. Looking up a Chinese character or word the traditional way in a paper dictionary was a long process. Here’s how it works:

How to look up a Chinese character or word the traditional way

Half of the time, by the time you were done looking for the character you wanted to look up in the radical list, you’d pretty much forgotten what character you wanted to look up and why. But, of course, technology has changed that completely.

How to look up a Chinese character in a modern way

With the advent of technology, looking up a Chinese character or word has never been easier.

How? If you know the pinyin or the meaning of a word you’re looking up, you can easily find it and relieve your thirst for knowledge. And what if you don’t know anything about a character you’ve seen in a newspaper, for instance? How can you find its meaning or pinyin? Not to worry, that’s simple too: just draw it!  When you need to decipher an unknown Chinese character, you can draw it.

Some online dictionaries even offer a tool to draw the character directly with your mouse or touchpad. There’s no need to be an artist to find the character you want, and most handwriting tools aren’t too sensitive.

Some online dictionaries even offer a tool to draw the character directly with your mouse or touchpad. There’s no need to be an artist.

— Ninchanese (@Ninchanese) 26 May 2016

And if there’s no handwriting tool offered, there’s still an easy way to draw your character, thanks to your computer’s IME (Input Method Editor) or using your phone’s specific Chinese handwriting keyboard or IME.

See? Much simpler.

Many features beyond the simple translation system have also been added to English-Chinese and Chinese-English digital dictionaries to help learners improve their Chinese. For instance, in most digital dictionaries, you can also hear the word’s pronunciation, which is incredible!  Being able to listen to someone pronouncing the word correctly is excellent. Then you can repeat what you hear to get the right accent and tone instead of making up a pronunciation in your head.

Also, as you’ll see in our reviews below, in some of these online translators and dictionaries, you can find examples containing the word you’re looking for. Magic and terribly useful, right?!

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

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Technology has helped all Chinese speakers save many hours we can spend watching brilliant cat videos instead. And because we love cats, we want you to save even more time by helping you figure out which are the best Chinese dictionaries to use.

Our review of the best free Chinese dictionaries available for Chinese learners

We’ve selected our favorite free Chinese dictionaries to help you improve in Mandarin, from online dictionaries to applications. We tested three categories of Chinese dictionaries: online Chinese dictionaries, pop-up dictionaries, and offline mobile dictionary applications. We know you’ll find one or several Chinese dictionaries for you in this selection, depending on your needs.

Fair warning: We’ve left the most complex task: picking the one that fits you best! Ready? Let’s explore these Chinese dictionaries!

Free Online Chinese Dictionaries

Online dictionaries might be for you if you like to spend time online and need to look up words. However, instead of thumbing through your paper dictionary, you have to open a new tab in your browser and look up the Chinese character’s meaning or pronunciation in pinyin!

Ninchanese Dictionary

Ninchanese dictionary has been made with Chinese learners in mind. The design is very clean and neat. It has everything you need to understand a Chinese character’s meaning and how to use it.

Pros:

• Very accurate words meanings
• The simplified and traditional form of Chinese characters
• Chinese character strokes
• Sentences examples
• Character decomposition with all key elements like Chinese components to understand the deep meaning of a character
• Compounds of character where you find other characters formed with the character
• Related words of the Chinese character to know when you’ll find the character in multiple characters

Cons:

Some words could have synonyms. But The Nincha Team update Chinese character every day. So don’t hesitate to contact us.

MDBG

MDBG is the first Chinese dictionary you come across when you google “Chinese dictionary.” MDBG focuses on being a good reference for Chinese learners by offering detailed information about characters such as pronunciation, meaning, strokes, examples, etc. They’ve become quickly popular among the Chinese learning community. Did you know MDBG is also maintaining CC-CEDICT? CC-CEDICT is an open-source database to which everyone can contribute to creating a complete Chinese to English dictionary with pronunciation in pinyin for the Chinese characters. CC-CEDICT is also used by many Chinese dictionaries such as Perapera, Zhongwen Chinese popup dictionary, Pleco, etc.

Pros:
Lots of data are provided about the characters, with:

• Stroke animations that show the characters stroke by stroke and character decomposition

• Handwriting input: you can draw characters with your mouse to look them up, and that’s pretty awesome! It’s handy when you encounter a character you neither know how to pronounce or what it means.

• Example sentences for a better understanding of how words are used in context.

• A clean interface helps you find the words you’re looking for easily.

• It has an advanced search function. You can search almost everything: single characters, words, pinyin, English, of course, and look up words by character components, Cangjie input method, and more. You can also ask for Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciation.

• A new feature is the “Lookup All Chinese Words in a Text” option, which shows the meaning of each Chinese word in a text you upload. The +: you can choose the mouse over the translation option to highlight definitions as you’re reading.

• HSK level: Next to each word, its corresponding HSK level is indicated. You can learn words that fit your HSK level, just like on Ninchanese!

Cons:

• Its basic interface. MDBG is not the most colorful and playful interface to use for sure. But, as they say, don’t judge a book by its cover, right?

• We’d love to have more extra features, but this is not the purpose of this online Chinese dictionary.

Many valuable and practical tools are brought to Chinese learners with this dictionary. MDBG is an excellent online dictionary to have by your side if you need a complete one with excellent tools.

Bab.la

Bab.la is a pretty good online dictionary and translator you can translate from English to Chinese and Chinese to English. As you may know, its translator offers many languages you can switch from to target your search. Moreover, this online dictionary provides the learners with all the main stuff you expect from a Chinese dictionary: translations, pronunciations, and synonyms, as well as special features, such as a phrasebook, quizzes, and more.

Pros:

• Lots of synonyms are provided whenever you look up words. That’s interesting to get to know the slight differences between the words.

• The straightforward interface makes you want to look up tons of words.

• The audio so you can hear the pronunciation of each word.

• Context sentences that show you how and when to use a particular word.

• A forum for linguistic doubts in case you need a grammar explanation. It can also be beneficial to share your Chinese learning journey with others, just like in the Ninchanese Discord community, and ask them their opinion about a topic.

• A phrasebook is divided into six sections, from travel to business. This phrasebook prepares you for every situation you’re going to face in China, depending on your profile.

• Quizzes. Playing small quizzes can be a good help when learning Chinese.

Cons:

• Lack of extra tools such as stroke order explanations.

• The lack of Chinese specialization. We’d love to have more specific features for Chinese learning.

To sum up, Bab.la is a good dictionary you can rely on, especially if you want to explore language learning background, with forums in many foreign languages.

Let’s move to the last online Chinese dictionary we reviewed: Ichacha, a dictionary available in a few languages such as Japanese, Korean, French, Russian, and English. Ichacha translates all those languages into Chinese and vice-versa.

Ichacha

Ichacha looks like a paper dictionary. You get all its uses when looking up a word: from nouns to verbs. An extensive broad of examples is also provided.

Pros:

• Data mining technology is Ichacha’s strength. The use of data mining data technology to collect new and trendy Chinese words is a great plus. It’s cool stuff to know all the vocabulary used by native speakers.

• Several versions: you can access the English version and the traditional Chinese version.

• Example sentences: putting the word you’ve just learned in a context is the best way to remember it.

Cons:

• The interface is not the prettiest.

• Not easy to handle the dictionary at first. When getting started with this dictionary, you may feel lost, but it’s okay once you know your way around.

• The ads. You can get easily disturbed by the many ads displayed on the website.

Ichacha is an unconventional Chinese dictionary that makes Mandarin learning more accessible. In addition, the translation of new words adds a fantastic feature to this dictionary.

We agree that online dictionaries are a great help since they’re complete, but what if you don’t want to open a new tab in your browser to look up words? Have you ever thought of installing a popup dictionary? Chinese popup dictionaries are great complements to online dictionaries and also work as standalone. Let’s see what the best Popup Chinese dictionaries are!

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

Start Learning Now

Free Popup Chinese Dictionaries

Popup dictionaries are handy when you’re reading a text online in Chinese and need to know the meaning of some words. Pop-up dictionaries instantly translate a word you don’t see as you hover over it. Instead, just hover over the word with your mouse, and the translation appears. Neat, huh?

Installing a pop-up dictionary

Chinese Pop-up dictionaries are usually plugins or extensions you add to your browser. Install them, activate them if needed and let the magic happen. Once activated, you’ll simply need to hover over a word in Chinese to see its pronunciation and meaning. Not all is wonderful about these plugins, but one thing’s for sure: they make reading Chinese online wonderfully easier. All you have to do is to hover a word with your mouse! Of course, we all wish we could use them on paper texts too. But, as they don’t exist (yet), here are two excellent pop-up Chinese dictionaries you can use online.

We all wish we could use them on paper texts too. But, as they don’t exist (yet), here are two excellent pop-up Chinese dictionaries you can use online.

Zhongwen Chinese popup dictionary

Zhongwen Chinese popup dictionary is available in Chrome. Once you’ve added it to your Chrome extensions, you can activate this popup dictionary extension by clicking on the little logo in the toolbar. You’ll then be ready to translate everything you want by hovering over words with your mouse!

Pros:

• The translation of expressions and loanwords.

• It identifies well whether you’re highlightings a group of words, an expression, or a single word.

• Its keyboard shortcuts: for instance, when you press the letter “g” button on your keyboard while hovering a word, you’re redirected to a wiki page explaining Chinese grammar rules related to that word. “T” takes you to Tatoeba, where you’ll see example sentences containing that word.

• The easy use of the plugin, once it’s installed, all you’ll need to do is to switch on and off the little icon to activate the pop-up dictionary or not. Easy!

Cons:

• Too useful. You can easily get addicted to this popup dictionary, which can keep you from improving your Chinese. Use it only when you need it.

• Only available on Chrome and Apple’s Safari.

• This popup dictionary doesn’t always recognize the new and trendy Chinese words because they’re not in the database.

If you hate complicated things, then this pop-up dictionary is for you! It is easy to install and use, and it’s advantageous daily.

The following pop-up dictionary we’ll talk about is PeraPera, which has different features. It’s going to be hard to choose!

Pera Pera

Perapera is available both in Firefox and Chrome. Whenever you meet a Chinese character or word you don’t know, hover your mouse over it, and Perapera will translate it for you.

Pros:

• Available in both Firefox and Chrome.

• You can save and export words to study them later. It’s a fantastic way to remember and learn the words you run into on Chinese websites.

• Multiple display options: should it display tone marks, pinyin, Zhuyin, simplified Chinese, or traditional Chinese? It’s all up to you.

Cons:

• Same as the Zhongwen Chinese popup dictionary. You can be tempted to rely on Perapera all the time and stop using your brain to read the characters you already know. That’s not the best way to learn Chinese.

• Not many keyboard shortcuts.

Pop-up dictionaries are helpful tools that will help you improve your Chinese reading skills, but make sure you also know how to manage without them! Also, don’t depend on them; it’s easy to get addicted to over-hovering!

Now that we’ve seen online Chinese dictionaries and pop-up dictionaries, you can guess what’s next: Mobile dictionary applications!

Free Mobile Chinese Dictionaries (Android and iOS)

Time to talk about mobile Chinese dictionaries. As you don’t always carry your computer with you, having a Chinese dictionary on your smartphone can be very practical, especially if you’re traveling or walking.

Another cool thing about dictionary applications is that you can usually use them offline. So when traveling, you won’t need to spend all your money on internet access to look up words. Instead, whenever you decide to go for a bit of adventure in the middle of nowhere with no Internet Connection or a foreign country, let’s say China, install one of these three dictionary apps, and you’ll be able to translate every word you need offline.

Lastly, dictionaries applications are also full of excellent extensions that can help you improve your Chinese. In this shortlist, these mobile Chinese dictionaries will become your go-to on the do Chinese resources!

Hanping (Android)

Hanping is an excellent Chinese dictionary app. The interface looks friendly with all the vivid colors. Hanping offers two versions: the Lite version, the free one, and the Pro version, which is the not-so-free one. As for the content, in addition to translations, word pronunciation, and Anki flashcards export options, you’ll find tools like handwriting recognition, multi-syllable audio recordings, search-by-radicals, home screen widgets, and vertical Zhuyin, and other valuable extensions in both the Lite and the Pro versions.

Pros:

• Dynamic search. This feature is pretty awesome, when you’re looking up words, the first result will be your target word, and the following results Hanping shows you are all started with your target word. And if you’re looking for a multi-syllable word, you will get all words that contain those characters in that order (even if other characters are in between).

• Idioms. Hanping contains many Chinese idioms useful for Mandarin learners thanks to predefined word lists containing popular expressions and words frequently used in China.

• Cantonese version: You can also download the Hanping Cantonese app using CantoDict data for those interested in Cantonese.

• It’s a popup dictionary add-on for your mobile device. A little pointer appears on your screen, and it translates words live. No matter which version you’ve downloaded (lite, pro, or Cantonese), you can use this add-on which comes separately (paid).

• Free full-screen handwriting recognition. Hanping offers handwriting recognition. This is a must-have tool for a Chinese dictionary.

Cons:

• Only available on Android.

• The paid add-ons. You have to pay for them, but some are worth it.

Hanping also has an OCR app called Hanping Camera that uses an innovative barcode scanner style design to read Chinese text in the wild without touching your screen.

If you’re interested in Hanping but can’t decide whether or not you should get the Pro version, it depends on the extensions you want to add. The Lite version can be sufficient for some as it’s pretty complete for a free Chinese dictionary. So give the Lite version a try and see if you want to upgrade to the Pro.

Pleco (iOS & Android)

Pleco is one of the most popular mobile Chinese dictionaries. How could we not mention it in our review? This app is available both on Android and iOS, making it more accessible to everyone. What about its features? Pleco offers a comprehensive database to search from, in which you can look up words, translations, synonyms, pronunciation, stroke order, example sentences, and more. This application also gives the users the option of adding licensed Chinese dictionaries (for a fee). Let’s explore Pleco’s features in our pro and con section below.

Pros:

• Handwriting recognition. You can look up words by drawing the characters in simplified or traditional Chinese. Plus, it’s okay to get the stroke order wrong; Pleco’s recognition deals with scribbles very well.

• A screen reader to make you more familiar with Chinese words you don’t know. You can look up Chinese words everywhere on your phone by tapping on a floating button. This tool is probably one of the best on Pleco as the word analysis is very accurate.

• Its clipboard reader: copy a text you want to look up words in, go to your clipboard reader in Pleco, and you’ll be able to look up all the words you want. Great for when you’re chatting in Chinese on WeChat

• The document reader, which works like the screen reader but for files (paid add-on on IOS and Android)

• The OCR system (Optical Character Recognition) is a recent update of Pleco that allows you to instantly translate words you don’t know by using your mobile device’s camera or tapping the word on a picture. Magic! Your phone is now a Chinese learning weapon capable of translating any sign in the streets!

• The examples show you how to use the word you’ve just looked up.

• Detailed information about the word: Pleco shows you the components in the characters, the characters in the word you’re looking for, and compound words that include the character you’re looking up.

• A wide choice of dictionaries to add. If you have specific needs or just want to compare dictionaries definitions, Pleco offers several free and paying dictionaries you can add. In addition, that allows you to see more various definitions, content, explanations, and definitions on sites that provide mono-dictionaries.

• For instance, a free Cantonese version that comes with four Cantonese dictionaries, like cantonese.org.

Cons:

• Paying IOS features. Most of these incredible tools, like the screen reader, are only available for free on Android. Sorry, Apple lovers, you’ll have to pony up.

• Many extra features. Too many, perhaps? Pleco provides lots of tools for their users, which is cool, but it can be hard to keep up with all the new extensions.

Try the screen reader tool if you’re hesitating between the add-ons you can install in Pleco. Very practical when you’re exploring the web! If you have an iPhone, then Pleco is made for you!

What about other good free online Chinese dictionaries?

You may use or find other online Chinese dictionaries or applications we haven’t reviewed here.

Here are some of them:

• Line Dict, which replaced the well-loved Nciku, a now-defunct Chinese dictionary, and learning tool.
• Youdao is a well-known online dictionary and Android app that beginners can find challenging since it’s all written in Chinese. But still, it’s a handy dictionary for advanced learners.
• YellowBridge is a free online Chinese dictionary where you can find examples, and synonyms, learn about each character’s history, etc.
• Arch Chinese is an online dictionary in which you can learn the meaning and symbol of each Chinese character according to their shape and history.

Final words

We hope you’ll find this review of these eight free Chinese dictionaries helpful! We’ve selected our favorite ones from online dictionaries to applications and added their pros and cons. All you have to do now is choose the method you prefer to decipher Chinese characters and words and bury your Mandarin paper dictionary for good! The uprising of the machine starts now! Do you already have a fave Chinese dictionary? Which of these do you use the most and why? Tell everyone in the comments!

Wondering what to read next? How about knowing how many Chinese characters and words exist in Chinese and how many you should learn? We just wrote a blog post about that!

The Nincha Team

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The post The Best Free Chinese Dictionaries For Learners appeared first on Ninchanese.

It’s quite normal when you’re starting out in Mandarin to wonder how many characters and words are there exactly in Chinese? And then, to wonder immediately after that, just how many of those Chinese characters do I need to learn? The task may seem daunting, the number of Chinese characters that exist is enormous, but after you read this post, I can assure you that you’ll know exactly how many and how to find Chinese characters to learn. We’ll see first what the Chinese language is made of, then, how many Chinese characters you need to know and finally the amount of characters natives know.

How many characters exist in total in Chinese?

What is the Chinese language made of? Nowadays, the Chinese language is made of more than 80,000 characters, 85,568 characters to be more precise according to the Zhonghua Zihai dictionary. The 中华字海 Zhonghua Zihai dictionary contains all the Chinese characters that have ever existed, from old Buddhist texts to characters used by the Qing, Ming and Song dynasties. Such a very complete dictionary! It sounds very impressive, but you should know that a lot of the characters contained in this dictionary are actually no longer used.

So now you know that there are at least 80 000 characters in Mandarin. But it doesn’t stop there! These 80 000 characters equal many, many, more Chinese words. How does that work?
In the Chinese language, 字 zì characters also known as 汉字 hànzi (hanzi) meaning Chinese characters can be combined together to create 词 cí words. Yes, you heard right.
Single characters can be words on their own, for instance, you can use the character 手 shǒu hand if you want to talk about someone’s hand but most words in Chinese are composed of two or more characters. So if you take this character 手 for example, you can combine it with other characters to create new words like 手表 Shǒubiǎo wristwatch.

The Chinese language works in an interesting way, doesn’t it? It’s a little tricky.

This means if you “only” learned the 80,000 Chinese characters, you’d be able to understand a good number of the words you run across in a text, but not all of them. It’s often possible to guess the meaning of two characters combined together to form a new word, but often, it’s not possible, as you’ll see below.
Let’s take the characters 手 and 机 and their pinyin.

手 shǒu hand

+

机 jī machine

= 手机 shǒujī cellphone

You can easily guess the meaning of the word 手机 in simplified Chinese when you know the meaning of each individual character.

On the contrary, here’s a tougher word to crack, using the characters 上 and 手:

上 shàng above

+

手 shǒu hand

= 上手 shàngshǒu to master

See? The Chinese word 上手 made of the two characters 上 and 手 is harder to guess! And if you don’t know the characters you’ll hardly guess the word’s pronunciation.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

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This is why you should master both Chinese characters and terms, to be able to understand the texts you run into in China.

So how many Chinese words are there in Chinese? That’s an even tougher question than how many Chinese characters are there. As Chinese is a living language, it’s hard to give a definite count. The Chinese language is still evolving and new terms and expressions are created every day. To give you an idea, The 汉语大词典 Hanyu Da Cidian (lit: Comprehensive Chinese Word Dictionary) is said to contain 370,000 words. Just like the 中华字海 Zhonghua Zihai dictionary for characters, a lot of the entries in the 汉语大词典 are no longer in use.

You know now how to identify Chinese characters (one syllable max) and words (one or more 字). But are you worried by the sheer quantity of words that exist in Chinese? We have some good news for you: there is no need to memorize all 80,000+ Chinese characters or 370 000 Chinese words. All you have to do is master the characters and terms which are commonly used today in the Chinese language. Conversational fluency in Chinese is within your reach and won’t take years and years of study. Relieved? I’m sure what you’re really itching to know now is: So, how many Chinese characters will I need to learn to be able to handle most texts in everyday circumstances?

How many Chinese characters do you really need to learn?

Many people are afraid of learning Chinese because of the 80,000 characters that make up the Chinese language. It seems like a lot to learn. The truth is you don’t need to know that many characters to speak Chinese. Did you really believe that Chinese natives all know 80,000 characters? Nope! Not at all. Native Chinese speakers themselves don’t know that many words and characters in Chinese! That’d be an incredible amount of terms to know. So before we move on to how many Chinese words and Chinese characters you would be required know to be considered fluent, let’s see first how many characters an average Chinese speaker knows.

In elementary school, Chinese pupils are expected to learn about 2,500 characters which are the most used. Then they assimilate about 1,000 more specific ones during middle school and high school. In the end, Chinese students that have finished high school know about 4,500 characters. For reference, the Chinese government puts literacy at 2000 characters. Well-educated Chinese people know anywhere from 8,000 characters and upwards. That’s really far away from the 80,000 Chinese characters! Only specialized linguists and scholars get closer to those 80,000.

4500 to 8000 characters to know doesn’t sound too bad, right? So how many Chinese characters do YOU need to know to be considered fluent? The number of Chinese characters and words you need to know depends on many things such as your learning goal, your current fluency level or even the frequency of use of these characters.

What’s your learning goal for Chinese?

First, ask yourself what’s your goal in speaking Chinese? What are you looking to do? If you want to live in China, and simply interact in your everyday life in Chinese, a working vocabulary of 1000 words might be enough to start with. You don’t need to learn many characters to travel to China. If you need to order food, read something that’s written on a menu, call a taxi or even asking for a direction, few survival words would be enough. If you want to understand what’s going on TV, on the radio or in the newspapers, you’ll basically need to learn about 3,000 to 4,000 characters. In newspapers you’ll find about 2.500 very common Chinese characters, so knowing 3,000 characters will allow you to understand about 99% of what’s written.

Now if your goal is to be able to read a Chinese dictionary, which is a pretty advanced Chinese goal, then you’ll need to know at least 9,000 to 15,000 characters to be able to comfortably read the definitions.
Having a Chinese learning goal is essential to progress, but knowing what level you are is also very important to know what Chinese characters and terms to learn.

What’s your level?

You’ve just started learning Chinese? Then you belong to the HSK 1 level which requires learning about 150 words. You’ve just entered the world 3 in Ninchanese? Then you’re the HSK 3 level and you’ll need to learn about 300 new terms. Check your level and see how many words you have to learn according to the HSK. As there has been a renewal of the HSK exams.

The numbers of words you need to learn for the new HSK:

HSK 1: 153    –     HSK 2: 150    –     HSK 3: 300    –     HSK 4: 598    –     HSK 5: 1300    –     HSK 6: 2513

The HSK levels are important if you want to prove your Chinese skills by taking the exam, it’s also good for you to know where you are and where you’re heading to. But don’t rely on them, as some terms in the lists are sometimes quite odd, and not that useful on a daily basis.

Pick the right characters to learn: Mind the characters’ frequency

Learning every single Chinese character would be a waste of time as you’ll rarely meet some of them. Why don’t you learn the characters that are the most used in everyday life? Here’s the list of the most frequent characters. See? Currently, the most used Chinese character is 的 de of; particle. If you master the most frequent Chinese characters, you’ll be in theory able to read a newspaper, have a conversation, watch TV and so on. It just depends on how many frequent characters you decide to learn. If you digest 100 of the most common characters, you statistically should have a 42% understanding of the characters you run into.

1000 of the most frequent Chinese characters should bring you an 89% understanding of what you read.The caveat to this method is that the 11%, for instance, you won’t understand will be the characters that bring you the meaning of the sentence. Imagine being able to read everything single word in a sentence that says “I bought an XXX for cheap”. If you don’t know what XXX means, then the sentence is rather pointless isn’t? The best way to counter that is to keep expanding your Chinese vocabulary, by learning new characters, and more specific terms you’re interested in, and more specific until you’ve learned the 3000 to 4000 most frequent Chinese characters. Then, you should be familiar with the vast majority of the characters you running into.

My advice : Do a little bit of everything

Pay attention to these three steps to know what and how many characters you should learn. My best advice would be to put as a goal: master 2,500 to 3,000 characters. Therefore, you’ll be able to understand many things. When you’re HSK 4 level (world 4 in Ninchanese), you should be able to understand about 2,000 characters and terms. But how and what should you learn? In Ninchanese, we help you learn the most common and frequently used Chinese characters. So, take the road to world 4 and you’ll be on the right path to speaking Chinese like a native!

Final words:

Now that you know how many terms and characters exist in Chinese, and how many characters you need to learn, aren’t you glad you asked? You see, there’s no need to be scared of some mischievous Chinese characters! You don’t need to assimilate an entire Chinese dictionary by heart to be fluent in Chinese, just follow our advice, and you’ll soon be learning the Chinese words and characters you need to reach your goal of fluency in Chinese!

Learning words and characters is the key to reading anything you see and fitting in China! The cool thing about Chinese characters is that they are the writing system common to all forms of spoken Chinese. See, you could be learning one of the many dialects of the Chinese language (check out this page to learn more about them), you’ll still be using Chinese characters.
Let’s say, for instance, that you want to learn Cantonese, as Olly Richards did in one year, can you guess what writing system you’ll be using? That’s right, Chinese characters. No matter what spoken form of Chinese you’re learning, you’ll be using them in writing.  So it’s pretty important to learn Chinese characters and really, there’s no need to be afraid of learning them.

Just pick your main learning goal, be realistic in the number of terms and Chinese characters you want to learn based on your actual level and select the characters that are the most frequent if you want to save time and efficiently study Mandarin. We’ve already selected the words you should know in Ninchanese so learn Chinese at your own speed without thinking about what you need to learn. After all, most of the Chinese only know about 5,000 characters and we know you soon will too!

Now tell us, how many words do you think you know in simplified Chinese? Or have you stopped counting?

The Nincha Team

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