• 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:

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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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The post Writing Chinese characters: The purpose appeared first on Ninchanese.

World 5 (HSK 5) – Part 2 is out of Beta!

Join Lupishu and Nincha through +100 new stages of advanced academic content to learn Chinese! You’ll be delighted to learn Chinese with these new stages full of HSK 5 vocabulary, upper intermediate to advanced Chinese grammar, and dialogues. It’s time to depart from the eternal intermediate level and move to a fluent Chinese speaker level!

Explore this new island of learning on Ninchanese here.

Why most Chinese learners stay at intermediate levels

It’s not their fault. It’s hard to find a teacher that has the experience to drive them well in their learning at this point. There’s also not much interesting content available for Chinese learners once they are at an upper intermediate level and want to brush past it. And, to give a final blow: the books weigh a ton and look impossible to go through.

They could use something to guide them further in their learning and help them take the next step. They’re ready for it.

A new world 5 to help you cross the bridge to HSK 5 advanced Chinese

At Ninchanese, we bite-sized all HSK 5 needs into small, efficient, and well-thought-out stages. You now have access to a complete world that will effectively help you improve each part of the Chinese language you need to be at ease in. That’s reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

This new advanced HSK 5 Chinese world offers structured learning perfect to support all the learning you’ve been doing up to now and all the freeform learning you’ve done in context.  The best part? Learn however you like, do a session of 5 minutes a day or however much more you want, and feel a recurring sense of achievement and progress.

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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What does it mean to have an “advanced level of Chinese”?

Wondering if this new advanced level of Chinese is for you? If you’re ready? We bet you are. If you see yourself in this, you sure are:

You have made great strides in their Chinese learning up to now. You are good at talking about common topics and are learning a lot on your own, by interacting with a Chinese environment. This has helped you realize there’s still a lot you want to learn.

Does it mean you’re looking for a lot of interesting and authentic content to learn?

That’s a good thing, because the new World 5 in Ninchanese is huge and full of cool content.

To give you an idea: Now that it’s complete, the HSK5 world is as BIG as world 1 to 4 reunited! That’s a good chunk of content to work on!

HSK 5 World 5: Advanced content on two islands

The complete World 5 is so big it had to be split into two islands. Once you’ve done both, you’ll have learned 1 300 Chinese words and over 60 of the more difficult and advanced grammar structures. And that’s not it! You’ll also learn by speaking and writing over 70 new dialogues and 1523 new sentences to be able to speak about advanced ideas.

You’ll be able to read newspapers and magazines, enjoy Chinese films and plays and give a full-length speech in Chinese. Discover the curriculum of the HSK world 5 here.

Vocabulary

The amount of HSK 5 vocabulary to learn and familiarize yourself with is much larger than in the previous worlds. Organized by theme, this vocab will give the keys to understand much of any given situation. You’ll be able to understand the words used in any TV show or newspapers for example.

Grammar

The HSK 5 grammar you’ll study in this world goes in depth. All lessons are still simply explained but you’ll be handling more complex structures here. Not to worry, you’ll have plenty of example sentences to rely on. They are relevant, all full of sense. Learn to use the grammar points and example sentences in the grammar stages, and you’ll be able to use very useful ways to express your thoughts in Chinese.

Dialogues

As always, the HSK 5 dialogues all have a very practical focus and day to day related events. The conversations are also much longer than in the previous worlds. You’ll get a sense of immersion through the interactive way of speaking.

Authentic Chinese material that stays interesting

Too often, content at an advanced Chinese level goes abstract and borderline stuffy, when there are loads of interesting topics to talk and learn about! Modern, day-to-day content, to talk about technology, the news, economics, your favorite artist, to debate and share your opinion, to understand the culture and social etiquette, and a lot more. One area this world particularly focuses on is working in a Chinese environment and doing International business. Those are key things to know to pass the HSK 5.

Learn to work in a Chinese environment: a highlight on one key topic in World 5

As you go through the thousands of dialogues in the app, you’ll see Lupishu evolve and learning working skills. Lupishu is going through every stage of the work market and so will you alongside him. From making a Chinese resume, explaining skills in an interview, starting with an internship at a coffee shop at the airport, to become a salesman for a big company,… Yes, our Lupishu has well grown. We are very proud of Lupishu. And of you, now already, and even more so when you’ll reach his level and you’ll be able to work in a Chinese environment at ease!

What’s else is in store for this new HSK 5 world?

What about the pearl?

The story, of course! Lupishu is still doing his best to recover the pearl from the Emperor! IceAly, one of our early users, loves Ninchanese tremendously and asked to help write the story. IceAly is very creative, lives in China and use daily Ninchanese. We gladly accepted her help to write the story. We are impatient to share this new cat-story full of epic Chinese adventures with you!

Final words

Creating this new world based on the Ninchanese method has been a tremendous and fulfilling amount of work. We greatly thank all the Chinese teachers that poured their hearts into it, and the many little Nincha dragons that beta-tested it and sent their corrections (Noornalini, a special mention to you). Thanks also to all the Nincha team for their excellent work. We hope you’ll love it.

True, we are cute, true we are fun, true we have cats. But very true, that you have access to great educational content is our top priority.

We want to thank all that have helped to make Ninchanese so meowsome.

The Nincha Team

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PS: Help us spread the word about Ninchanese. Share the Ninchanese adventure with your Chinese learner pals and help the Chinese learning community know about us ;)! And if you like Ninchanese, subscribe to support your meowsome Chinese learning app!

The post World HSK 5: An Epic world for Epic Chinese learning appeared first on Ninchanese.

With Western languages, even though you don’t know what a “flitterWochen” is (it’s an English word), you can easily read it out loud. Unlike English or Spanish, or any roman alphabet based language, in Chinese, however, it’s not that easy to read characters aloud you don’t know. The Chinese language is not a phonetic language, and with over 80,000 characters in the Chinese language, it’s quite normal to run into a character you’ve never seen before and to be at a loss as to how to pronounce it. So, how do the Chinese know how to read characters they’ve never seen before?

The secret trick

At first glance, the many strokes that compose a Chinese character don’t look like they give out many hints as to how they are to be pronounced. In fact, for a long time, you were expected to connect the strokes of characters to the sounds they refer to by sheer rote memorization. But, this is no longer the case. The Chinese know something you don’t and we’re going to let you in on their big secret: Chinese characters do represent sound, thanks to phonetic components. Phonetic components are indications the character contains on its 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

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

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How to deal with an unknown character

When you run into an unknown character, the first thing you want to do is analyze it and break it down to see what it’s made of.

That way, rather than seeing and trying to remember a jumble of strokes, when you break down a character, you easily spot the different meaningful elements that make it up.

You can break down the characters yourself, or look at a Chinese dictionary, like Ninchanese’s.  The dictionary will show you how the character can be decomposed, and allow you to look up the different elements in the character.

What can you expect to see?

Most of the time (over 80% of the time), the character you’ll be looking at will be a picto-phonetic character.

This is the most common way of forming characters. In fact, more than 80% of all Chinese characters are pictophonetic characters. That’s great news for us Chinese learners, and you’re soon going to understand why.

Picto-phonetic characters are made of two pieces, called components. These two components are usually a meaning (also known as semantic) component and a phonetic component. One piece gives you a clue to the word’s meaning, another to the word’s pronunciation. Isn’t that great? Meaning components and phonetic components really are the building blocks of the Chinese written language.

As today we’re exploring how to read out loud a character you’ve never seen before, our focus is on phonetic components. Let’s see what a phonetic component is precisely and how you can easily use it to know how a character sounds!

What are phonetic components?

Phonetic components are elements in a Chinese character that give you clues on a character’s pronunciation. They can be used to deduce the intonation of an unknown Chinese character. Curious to know how?

Let’s take the character 妈 mā mother. If you break it down, you’ll see it’s made of two parts:
女 which is a meaning component, symbolizing femininity, and 马, which is pronounced mǎ (and when used as a standalone character, means horse). As you can see, 妈’s sound matches the component 马’s pronunciation, aside from the tone. Here, 马 is a phonetic component.

Now that you know 马 is a phonetic component, can you pronounce: 吗, 骂, and 码?

That’s right, they’re all pronounced “ma”. Well done! You can expect Chinese characters that contain this phonetic component to sound the same.

In most of the cases, when you identify a phonetic component in a character, the character will be pronounced either exactly like the component or have a sound pretty close to it.

How to spot a phonetic component in a Chinese character

So you have your Chinese character in front of you. You may be wondering: is there an easy way to spot which part of the character is the phonetic component

The Chinese like to say:

有边念边，没边念中间吗，没有中间，自己编.

However, this method doesn’t always work. The phonetic component can indeed often be found on the right side of a character.
But, it’s also common for the phonetic component to be below the meaning component.

In other character structures, you’ll find the phonetic information inside another element; and, even more rarely, in other combinations.

When in doubt, go to your favorite online Chinese dictionary, and look up the character. Its character decomposition will help you research which element is the phonetic component, and what the other element(s) that compose the character are.

How do you master phonetic complements?

Phonetic components have traditionally less been studied than meaning components, which is a shame, as they are tremendously useful to knowing how to read and write a Chinese character. Before teachers used to expect the students to learn how to pronounce all the characters by rote, at least, now, we know we can rely on phonetic components to read an unknown character’s pronunciation.

One thing we don’t know for sure,however, is how many phonetic components there are.

Early research on the subject, by Soothill in the 1880s for instance, listed up to 1000 phonetic components. Other researchers have suggested other numbers, ranging from less to more. It may seem like a lot, but, we have lots of good news.

First, you can start by learning the most common phonetic complements first.

Excited by the idea of mastering the essential phonetic components? Then join us every Monday in our community.

Your Monday meeting with a component

Meet the phonetic component 包! Learn how to use it, by clicking here >> https://t.co/IJ5B4a3eZ6 #chinese #learn pic.twitter.com/M7sfpI6EF9

— Ninchanese (@Ninchanese) June 27, 2016

Every Monday, on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, get to know the key phonetic components and meaning components! You are introduced to a new component each week. You learn to use it all week in all sorts of fun activities, from silly dialogues to cool word building. Each component has a whole page dedicated to it, so you can also study in detail about it.

Head to this page to see all the Chinese character components you need to know. More are added each week! Don’t miss this weekly rendezvous.

Second, phonetic components are, more often than not, also standalone characters

This means: you’ll learn them as words, and then happily be able to spot them in words.

In addition, and that’s the second piece of good news: phonetic components tend to retain the same shape in the character they’re in. They don’t change shapes like a meaning component might do, which makes it even easier to spot them right?

Two key takeaways from this:

When you run into a new character, look for familiar elements. See if it looks anything alike the characters you already know and if it has anything in common with them. When you go to a place you’ve never been before, you look for something familiar, whether it’s a friend or an object, right?! By making an association between the characters you’ve learned before and the familiar features of the unknown character, you’ll possibly find clues on its pronunciation. For example, if you know the word 马 mǎ horse, there’s a big chance you’ll be able to pronounce words such as 吗 ma question particle or 妈 mā mother.

At Ninchanese, we know that phonetic components matter, so we help you help you learn all the components at your own pace. As you learn new words, you’ll learn and master new components so you can identify them better in unknown words. In addition to the learning stages, we also have many tricks to help you catch them all -yup, still talking about the phonetic components.

See, phonetic components come in particularly handy when you play a Ninchallenge.

Ninchallenge your knowledge!

In Ninchanese, you can engage your friends in fun battles called the Ninchallenges. Ninchallenges are the opportunity to review the Chinese words and characters you’ve learned before and learn new words while playing with your friends. They test your knowledge of Chinese. In the Ninchallenges, you mostly pick words you know but sometimes you pick unknown characters and words.

What happens, then? It’s up to you to guess their pronunciation! What are you going to need? That’s right: a phonetic component. If you know the phonetic component that is in the character you need to guess, you’ll be able to easily read them out loud and write down their pinyin.

For example, it’s your turn to play and you’re supposed to guess how to read the character 踉. You’ve never seen this character before, but that doesn’t mean all is lost. You now have your secret weapon: phonetic components!

Do you recognize a component you know in this in this character 踉? Yes, in the right-hand corner, there’s the phonetic component 良 liáng good, well-spotted! So how about taking a gamble and saying this character 踉 sounds about the same? Well done! You’re right, 踉 liáng jump sounds precisely the same, plus it’s an exact match!

Phonetic components are powerful in a Ninchallenge… and in real life

This happens in a Ninchallenge, but it will also happen to you in real life. You’ll run into all sorts of unknown character you’ll need to decipher and guess how they’re pronounced.

As you see, learning the components is essential if you want to expand your understanding of the Chinese language, and your resourcefulness when facing unknown characters.

There’s also many resources you can use to improve your knowledge of phonetic complements. For example, if you want to see all the perfect matches of the phonetic sets, Hanzicraft has an amazing database to explore.

Now you’ve got all the resources to master the phonetic components, you’re ready to pronounce an unknown Chinese character thanks to the phonetic sets. How can you use them to guess how to pronounce a character in Chinese?

What phonetic components will tell you about how to write and read Chinese characters

Great, so now you know where to look for a phonetic component in a Chinese character. Let’s move on to the indications these phonetic complements can give you on a character’s intonation.

As said before, Ninchallenges mirror the experience you’ll get in real life in a Chinese speaking country. Restaurant menus are the best example, but street signs and newspapers are also good ones to train yourself to read out loud unknown Chinese character. You’ll be often faced with unfamiliar and unknown words, but still, you have to deal with them if you want to win. So how do you overcome that obstacle? You look for clues.

Here’s an example that can happen to you in real life.

You meet the Chinese character 晴 when reading the weather forecast. The context may help understand the word, but how do you pronounce it? When you break down the character 晴 you get:

Here, 日 brings the meaning and 青, on the right side, is a phonetic component, which brings the sound. Then, you know the character 晴 will sound like “qing”. Indeed, 晴 is pronounced qíng and means clear (sky).

Phonetics can be essential on a daily basis. For example, if you want to order food but don’t know a character on the menu, you can try to pronounce it using your phonetic component knowledge and get an explanation from the waiter. Plus, you can practice your Chinese by speaking to the waiter. It makes you speak Chinese and practice your understanding skills. Neat!

The examples we’ve shown so far are perfect or near perfect matches for the phonetic component, but is that always the case?

Do characters always sound like the phonetic component they contain?

Yes and no. There are also several kinds of matches.

Perfect matches

If a character has the same sound, pinyin, and tone as the phonetic component it contains, it’s called an exact match. The character 洋 yáng ocean, for example, is an exact match with the phonetic component 羊 yáng sheep.

Near-perfect matches

Then you can find second-degree matches. These are characters that share the same sound as the phonetic component it is made of but not the same tone.

The character 样 yàng manner is a second-degree match with the phonetic component 羊 yáng sheep as they don’t have the original tone but share the same sound.

A little more distant matches

You can also find characters that share the same phonetic component and that have different, but very close sounds. Here, the phonetic component 可 kě to permit can be found in characters that sound like “ke”, “ge” or “he”. These three pronunciations share the finals “e”. A phonetic component can have two or more possible pronunciations that share the same initials, finals or tones.

Exceptions

As you can see, phonetic components aren’t an accurate science and there are some exceptions. The Chinese language has evolved a lot over the years, and therefore, sometimes, you have to look at character etymology, the traditional forms of characters or older sounds to understand why the character is pronounced the way it is.

Despite that, knowing phonetic components is a big piece of the Chinese puzzle, and your key to being able to be able to guesstimate the pronunciation of 80% of all characters. If that’s not meowsome then I don’t know what is.

So, learn to master the different phonetic components and you’ll be able to read any character.

Final words:

If you’ve always wondered how the Chinese managed to pronounce characters they’d never seen before, now you know they owe it to the phonetic compounds. Learning them is important to find unknown words’ pronunciation and also to understand the Chinese logic and memorize the characters better.

Here’s a quick summary of what you need to remember about the phonetic components that:

• Once you master a phonetic component, you master the pronunciation of the several characters that contains it.
• Most Chinese characters are either exact and second-degree matches for the phonetic component they contain.
• A same phonetic component can lead to various pronunciations that share the same initials, finals or tones
• In short: Dare to make guesses. If you don’t find the same intonation, you’ll end up close. And that’s a great start.
• Practice guessing the sounds of unknown Chinese characters and honing your deciphering skills in the Ninchallenges.

Don’t forget our one week one component to keep learning new components! You also continue your reading about Chinese characters and check out the following post about how many characters you need to know.

By the way, for your personal acknowledge, a “flitterwochen” is an old English expression to say “honeymoon”. Good to know when playing Scrabble!

Have you experienced an obstacle when meeting an unknown character? What’s your experience deciphering unknown characters? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Phonetic Components: The Secret Trick to Guessing the Pronunciation of Chinese Characters 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:

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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

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

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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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There are many situations in which you want to add something to what you already have. For instance, when ordering food or buying things. Here are 5 expressions to learn so you can always say “I’ll have a…with that” in Chinese. Remember these Chinese grammar rules and speak like a native!

#1 和 – hé – And: to order easily in Chinese

One of the most useful Chinese expressions to say “I’ll have a… with that!” is definitely 和 hé and. You can use this one for almost everything, for example:

我要一杯茶和一块蛋糕。 wǒ yào yībēi chá hé yīkuài dàngāo. I want a cup of tea and a piece of cake.

See? This Chinese word can be used almost for everything and every situation. But if you want to sound more like a native in Mandarin, take a look at these other Chinese expressions than 和 to say “I’ll have a… with that”.

#2 还有 – hái yǒu- In addition

You’ve probably heard of 还有 hái yǒu in addition, which is one of the most common Chinese expressions, for sure! But be careful with 还有 hái yǒu. You can only use this expression when you want to add at least two things to what you already have.
Therefore, if all you want is rice with some chicken, you can just use 和. What if you’re thirsty? To add a glass of fruit juice to what you’ve just ordered, this is what you must say:

我要米饭和鸡肉，还有一杯果汁。 wǒ yào mǐfàn hé jīròu, hái yǒu yībēi guǒzhī. I want rice with chicken as well as a glass of fruit juice.

Using 还有 is really practical when it comes to asking for two or more things to add.

Basic Chinese expressions like 和 and 还有 are easy to use on daily basis, but still, they’re very common. Want to go from laowai to native speaker? Let’s jump to the third expression to learn how to literally say “plus”.

#3 加 – jiā – To add

The Chinese character 加 jiā to add is a convenient little bugger to know. It literally means “plus” and kind looks like a plus sign, doesn’t it?
The real mnemonic for it are the meaning components it is made of:

+

if you have the strength to open your mouth to ask, then you’ll have more “plus”… No?
It’s important to note that in Chinese grammar, the character 加 is always used as a verb, as “to add”.

Imagine you’re in a coffeeshop and you want a little sugar with your coffee, you can say:

咖啡加糖。 kāfēi jiātáng. Coffee with sugar.

Easy, right? Basically 加 works for most things you’d want to add IN something.
So want an extra egg in your noodles? 加 it !

我要一碗面条，加个鸡蛋！ wǒ yào yī wǎn miàntiáo, jiā gè jīdàn! I want an extra egg in my noodles!

Now that you’ve mastered the 加 thing, let’s go deeper! Sometimes you’ll come across other Chinese expressions like that can be added to 加 to emphasize the “plus” concept.

#4 再 – zài – Another / Some more

You’ll often meet 再 zài another next to 加 to say “I’ll have a…with that” in Chinese. 再 is always used before a verb such as 加. It also indicates the repetition: “some more”, “another”.

服务员，再加一个鸡蛋！ fúwùyuán, zài jiā yīgè jīdàn! Waiter, another egg, please!

Mandarin is such an accurate language, there’s a specific expression for every situation in which you want to add something. The last expression we’re going to introduce you is to only add things that match with what you’ve picked in a first place.

#5 配 – pèi – To match

The last but not least of the essential Chinese expressions like 和 to say “I’ll have a…with that” is 配 pèi to match. You may be wondering why you should use 配 to add something, aren’t you? Well, it’s simple!
This Chinese character is really useful when it comes to add something that matches what you already have.
What matches french fries the best ? Ketchup of course! So if you want to order fries and ketchup you can say:

我要一个中包薯条配番茄酱。 wǒ yào yīgè zhōng bāo shǔ tiáo pèi fānqié jiàng. I want a medium fry with ketchup.

Bonus: Hold the!

And if you wanted to explicitly say you wanted a coffee without sugar (not always an easy feat in China, as you’re in already-sweet-instant-coffee land), you could say:

咖啡不加糖 kāfēi bù jiātáng. I want coffee without sugar.

or even more simply you could say:

不要。 bùyào. I don’t want some.

Final words:

Chinese expressions to say “I’ll have a…with that” are definitely one of the most useful ones to know. By using these expressions to order in Chinese, all the doors will be open to you! I mean, what’s best than being able to ask everything you desire?
To be sure you’ll remember these expressions in Chinese forever, here’s a recap:

#1 和 hé and (the most basic Chinese word to add something)
#2 还有 hái yǒu in addition (for two or more things to add)
#3 加 jiā to add (only as a verb, to add something)
#4 再 zài another (before a verb, to repeat the action)
#5 配 pèi to match (to add things that match your order)

Do you know other expressions to order all you want in Chinese or funny stories about things that happened to you when ordering in Chinese? Let us know in the comments.

The Nincha Team

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The post How to Use Practical Words Like 和 and 还有 to Order All You Want in Chinese appeared first on Ninchanese.

As you know, being polite and thankful towards people will always bring you good things, especially if you make the effort to say them in their native language. Try these expressions to see!

谢谢 is one of the first words to learn in Chinese to say thank you. But did you know there are many more expressions to say thank you in Chinese? Let’s start with the basic ways to say thank you in Chinese and introduce 3 more ways to thank you in Chinese to you.

#1 Thank you in Chinese: 谢谢 – Thank you

Let’s start from the beginning. 谢谢 xiè xie thank you is the most used word to thank someone in Chinese.

As you can see, 谢谢 is a double syllable word. It can seem a bit hard to pronounce. To help you through your Chinese learning adventure, here’s a Nincha tip to say it like a native: think of a sound between /s/ and /sh/. You got it? Great, that’s how you should pronounce the “x” in 谢谢 (xiè xie) .
Try to say xiè xie now. Pay attention to the fact there’s a the neutral tone on the second syllable and your thank you in Chinese will be perfect.
You can also learn the word 谢谢 in Ninchanese if you have a look in the world 1.

When receiving food, gifts or anything else you’re feeling thankful for, you can definitely say 谢谢. Here’s an example:

我买了巧克力给你 Wǒ mǎile qiǎokèlì gěi nǐ I bought chocolate for you

谢谢 xiè xie thank you

It’s good to know that the Chinese don’t use 谢谢 as much as some other cultures do. That’s why you might not always hear them saying thanks. Don’t think it’s because they’re being impolite, it’s a cultural thing.
In China, people can feel uncomfortable when saying thank you because it puts distance between the speaker and the recipient, and that’s not something they want to do, especially if they’re close. Chinese people just don’t want to put distance between each other. Shortening social distance is their way of being polite .

Bonus uses of 谢谢:

If you’re texting or messaging someone and want to thank them, you can also use

duōxiè thanks a lot.

多谢 is mostly used in writing. But nowadays, people sometimes use it when speaking as well.

When meeting someone for the first time, talking to someone higher-ranked or older than you then you certainly want to be more formal when thanking them.

You can use 谢谢你 xiè xie nǐ thank you to be a little more formal but when talking someone hierarchically higher than you, it’s better to say 谢谢您 xiè xienín as 您 is the formal form of 你.

When someone offers you an awesome gift you can tell them:

谢谢你的礼物! Xièxie nǐ de lǐwù! Thank you for your gift!

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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#2 Thank you in Chinese: 非常感谢你 – Thank you very much

Sometimes in life you’re truly grateful. ”感谢” ”gǎnxiè” ”to is a great verb to use for those times. It emphasizes on the emotions, the feeling you’re going through.
When someone has been very nice with you and you feel like you owe them something then you can express your feelings of gratitude by saying:

非常感谢你 fēi cháng gǎn xiè nǐ thank you very much.

Be careful, though, this sentence is formal, so don’t use it when receiving a present or food, for instance. Save for times when you’re feeling extremely grateful.

Here’s when you can use this expression, for example. Imagine a situation in which you have to take the train and are very late – I can feel your pain – and someone you don’t even know helps you get to the train station by calling and paying a taxi for you to make sure you make your train. This is what you must tell them:

非常感谢你的帮助 Fēicháng gǎnxiè nǐ de bāngzhù Thank you very much for your help

You’ll see a big smile on their face!

#3 Thank you in Chinese: 感激 – To be grateful

Another word used to say thank you in Chinese is 感激 gǎnjī to be grateful. It expresses a deeper gratitude than 谢谢 and 感谢. You use 感激 when you are grateful. If someone has helped you when you were at the end of your rope, for instance, you can tell them:

当我消沉的时候，你鼓励了我。对此我十分感激。 Dāng wǒ xiāochén de shíhòu, nǐ gǔlìle wǒ. Duì cǐ wǒ shífēn gǎnjī. I really appreciate that you helped lift my spirits when I was feeling low.

#4 Thank you in Chinese: 哪里哪里 – You’re too kind

The expression 哪里哪里 nǎlǐ nǎlǐ you’re too kind is something you can also use to say thank you in Chinese, but only when you are praised by the others. When Chinese people are being paid compliments, they tend to prefer to show humility and modesty.
So, they avoid saying thank you which might be seen as too direct and which would make them seem too confident. Therefore, instead of using 谢谢 to acknowledge the compliment, the Chinese would rather say 哪里哪里 to deflect the compliment (while secretly enjoying the praise).

For example:

If someone says:

你很漂亮 Nǐ hěn piàoliang You’re beautiful

A native would answer:

哪里哪里 nǎlǐ nǎlǐ you’re too kind

Now that you know how to thank people, when to thank someone and how to show your gratitude in every situation, you can easily immerse yourself in the Chinese society. +1 for your basic Chinese survival skills! But what if someone says thank you in Chinese to you? What can you answer them?

Bonus: 3 ways to say “You’re welcome”

– 不客气 bù kèqì you’re welcome is, as you can guess, the most used expression. It fits nearly every situation.

– 不用谢 bú yòng xiè don’t mention it. You can easily replace 不客气 with this expression. For instance, if you give someone something and they answer 谢谢, you can reply: 不用谢. You can even say ”不用客气” ”bú

– 小事一桩 xiǎo shì yī zhuāng it’s nothing. Watch out for this one, however, as it tends to be more informal. So you can use it with friends, family but certainly not your boss 😉

As you see, there are many ways to show you’re thankful in Chinese. Saying thank you is not only about showing you’re polite, it’ also about fitting in society. Once you master the four expressions you just learned here, you’ll be able of showing your gratitude and know how to say thank you in Chinese. These expressions will be very useful to you on a daily basis, we’re sure!

The next step for you is to use it and see what you get in return. Lots of smiles I guess. 🙂

For more daily useful Chinese expressions, you can check out our posts about saying yes in Chinese and saying sorry in Chinese as well as this awesome guide to 20 survival phrases.

The Nincha Team

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The post How to say thank you in Chinese: 4 Ways to Show Your Gratitude appeared first on Ninchanese.

You already know everything about how to say “yes” in Mandarin, but perhaps you’re tired of saying yes to everything?! Sometimes you just need a “OK” to let the others know you got it. Let’s help you diversify your vocabulary then with 5 ways to say okay in Mandarin Chinese. OK? Ok!

Say OK to accept a proposition

Need to answer someone’s question or show you want to accept their proposition? These three words are all good candidates to use:

好 hǎo fine 行 xíng OK 可以 kěyǐ it’s okay

These three words all show you’re okay with the idea or proposition so you can pick your favorite one to answer. For example when someone asks you :

周末去看电影吗? Zhōumò qù kàn diànyǐng ma? Should we watch a movie this weekend?

可以啊 kěyǐ a Ok, sounds great!

You can answer: 可以，好 or 行 if you want to watch a movie with them this weekend.

Say ok with 对 and 没错 – Right!

Let me introduce you two other Chinese expressions to say OK: 对 duì yes; right and 没错 méicuò right. Both can be used to show you agree with that they just. 对 means “correct” in Chinese, and 没错 means “not wrong”, so they are both often used to show your approval of what someone is saying, just like you would in English by saying “Right”.

没错 can be used, for instance to say

你说的没错! Nǐ shuō de méi cuò You’re right / You can say that again.

Say Ok with 我同意 – I agree

我同意! ”wǒ I agree

An easy way to say ok you can use all the time when you agree with something is 我同意. If you’re having a conversation with someone and totally agree with what they just said well this is a perfect way to give them feedback.
For example:
我同意你的看法 wǒ tóng yì nǐ de kànfǎ I agree with your opinion.

Say Ok with 没问题 – No problem / Don’t mention it

没问题! méi wèn tí no problem

Another very Chinese way to say OK is 没问题! It may sound informal, but for Chinese people, it’s not and they use it all the time. When using 没问题, you show you want to put one at ease, to reassure them that everything is okay. 没问题 is a word you can use in many situations when you need someone to feel okay.
For example, if you really need to leave and feel uncomfortable about going at that time, you might want to say, to seek reassurance:

现在可以走了吗? Xiànzài kěyǐ zǒule ma? Can I leave right now?

没问题! méi wèn tí no problem

Don’t you feel reassured upon hearing them say that?
Just for you to know: 没 is for “no” and 问题 is for “problem”.

#5 How to say Ok with 我知道了 – Got it

我知道了 wǒ zhī dào le I got it

You surely know about this one, I mean, it’s one of the first phrases you learn in Mandarin, right?

Wait. You don’t know this sentence? Then check out our last article about useful Chinese phrases to know more about 我知道了.

Ok, imagine, you’re in a meeting and your boss tells you that he wants you to introduce the company in front of everyone. This is your time to shine and you’re so excited. Calm yourself first and answer:

我知道了 wǒ zhī dào le I got it

Another example? Say, if you’ve been studying Chinese really hard and thought you did well on Master Yocha’s test. But then, Master Yocha tells you there are mistakes in the last test you’ve made. You may feel upset, but keep in mind that mistakes are a great way to learn. So, calm down, breathe in and say:

我知道了, 下次注意 Wǒ zhīdàole, xià cì zhùyì Got it, I’ll be more careful next time.

Master Yocha is good-hearted, he knows you’re doing your best!

#6 A non-word to say OK: 嗯

Looking for a not too wordy way to say OK? Use 嗯 èn OK / hmm!

It’s more a sound than a word but you can use it to show your approval of something that was said. Kind of like the “hmm” of agreement in English you might use when you’re okay with something. Just make sure you watch your pronunciation. If you write it or say it with a second tone like so “én”, it means “what?”. Not quite the same meaning, huh?!

#7 Bonus word to say OK: OK了

Update:  A Reddit User aptly pointed out we forgot this essential and extremely easy way to say OK: OK了

Ok了 is, as you see, simply the word okay coupled with 了. 了 as you probably know is a particle that is either used after a verb to indicate the completion of an action; or at the end of a sentence to indicate a change in situation or state, or, and its most likely the case here, as a modal particle to intensify the preceding phrase.

You use it to show your agreement to a suggestion that’s been made; such a positive answer to a suggestion to go out for a coffee or a shopping session, like so:

我们下午去看电影吧？Ok了 wǒmen xiàwǔ qù kàn diànyǐng ba? Ok le Let's go see a movie this afternoon? Ok

You can also use it to show you’ve finished doing something or accomplished something you had set out to do. For instance,

你做完作业了吗？Ok了 nǐ zuò wán zuòyèle ma? Okle Did you finish your homework? Yup.

Easy peasy, right?

Final words

There are many words to say OK in Chinese. The 5 we just shared (and the bonus grunt!) we just gave you are among the most used in Chinese. Learn these so you can be more fluent and pretend to be Chinese hehe~. OK了？！

Your Nincha Mission: Use these 5 ways to say OK to the Chinese speakers around you! Tell us how it went and if they were surprised to hear you use them!

Pauline, Yanjie and

The Nincha Team

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The post How to Say OK Like a Real Chinese appeared first on Ninchanese.

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

Part 1  – Chinese phrases: Everyday basics

Let’s start with a few basic Chinese phrases you can use in everyday conversations to make sure you communicate efficiently. Also, download the Chinese Phrasebook app we’ve made to find all the essential Chinese sentences to know.

#1 不好意思，我听不懂。-  Sorry, I don’t understand.

Have you got yourself in a situation where someone’s talking to you, but you do not understand what they’re saying? First off, kudos! Speaking to locals in Chinese is the best way to get comfortable speaking in Chinese.

But how do you let the other know you’re not quite getting their gist? Instead of shaking your head no, you can say:

不好意思，我听不懂.

Bù hǎo yì si, wǒ tīng bù dǒng.

Sorry, I don’t understand.

Try that?  Great, now that you’ve let the other know you weren’t quite following what they said without offending them, well done! You can move on to:

#2 你可以讲慢点吗?  –  Can you speak slowly, please?

For situations when: You know some Chinese but you’re not used to people speaking fast, yet. Maybe you’d be following what the other was saying if only they weren’t talking like they’re trying to win a 100-yard sprint. This sentence may solve your troubles:

你可以讲慢点吗?

Nǐ kě yǐ jiǎng màn diǎn ma?

Can you speak more slowly, please?

Hang on to this sentence; you might use it a LOT because you’ll find that the Chinese speak fast sometimes!

#3 你说英语吗?  –  Do you speak English?

Is option #2 sound too harsh because your Mandarin Chinese is still too limited to understand entire sentences? That’s okay. You tried, at least. But, now you know that you need to improve your listening comprehension skills in Chinese!

For now, try saying this after sentence #1:

你说英语吗?

Nǐ shuō yīngyǔ ma?

Do you speak English?

It’s perfect for situations when it might be better to switch to English.

#4 我不知道  –  I don’t know

Knowing how to say I don’t know in Chinese is both easy and extremely useful. You’ll find yourself using it often, and you’ll hear all kinds of people in China saying:

我不知道。

Wǒ bù zhī dào.

I don’t know.

Never feel embarrassed to say 我不知道 as there exist thousands of “whys” in this world. In Chinese, just like in many languages, saying this is normal.

Use it: When you need to say you don’t know and want someone to “let you know”!

Part 2 – Chinese phrases: Getting information

Good, you now have learned a few common Chinese expressions to get you started having conversations with native Chinese speakers. Next, let’s move on to basic Chinese phrases to bring you the information you want.

#5 这个用汉语怎么说？  –  How do you say that in Chinese?

You’re an adventurer, and China’s full of strange things you’ll want to discover and adopt in your daily life. As such, you’re always curious to know how to say this or that in Chinese. This sentence is perfect for you:

这个用汉语怎么说?

Zhè ge yòng hàn yǔ zěn me shuō?

How do you say that in Chinese?

Use it when: you want to know what this thing is!

Bonus: Pointing and asking questions is a great way to build your vocabulary and learn many new Chinese words. So get yourself talking!

#6 请问，这里 有 wifi 吗？-  Excuse me, is there any wifi here?

A wireless connection is the most important thing when you’re far away from your home and family so you can keep in touch with them often. When in a coffee shop, a bar, a restaurant, a spa, your hotel, you can ask:

请问，这里 有 wifi 吗?

Qǐngwèn，zhèlǐ yǒuwifi ma?

Excuse me, is there any wifi here?

Bonus phrase

If the 服务员 fúwùyuán waiter answers there is, you can also ask what the wireless code is:

密码 是 多少?

Mìmǎ shì duōshao?

What’s the password?

#7 厕所在哪里？ – Where are the restrooms?

A must when traveling, exploring unknown places, knowing where the toilets are! Ask this to get instructions on how to reach the restrooms.

厕所在哪里?

Cèsuǒ zài nǎlǐ? Where are the restrooms? A good thing to know (if the people going in and out aren’t enough help):

• Look for 男 Nán for the men’s restroom
• Look for 女 Nǚ for the ladies’ room
• Another good word to know is 洗手间 xǐshǒujiān.

Bonus sentence

没有卫生纸了。

Méi yǒu wèishēngzhǐ le

(Remember to always have tissues with you just in case because you may find yourself saying this more than you expected).

#8 请问现在几点了？-  What time is it, please?

Are you the kind of person who always forgets to bring your watch or give juice to your cell phone? Then this question will come in extra handy:

请问现在几点了?

Qǐng wèn xiàn zài jǐ diǎn le?

What time is it please?

You never know when this question may be helpful to ask. But, of course, it’s also terribly beneficial to make sure you’re organizing your time well and are on time!

Part 3 – Chinese Phrases: Shopping

This part is dedicated to two widespread and helpful phrases to know in Chinese when shopping because we know how much you like shopping!

#9 这个多少钱？-  How much is it?

Knowing how to ask for a price is a fundamental skill you’ll be quickly mastering if you travel or live in China; You’ll most likely use it every day in your daily life!

So, to inquire how much something costs, say:

这个多少钱?

Zhè ge duō shǎo qián?

How much is it?

This sentence is very useful to know; You need this sentence to buy things in China!

#10 太贵了，便宜点。-  It’s too expensive, cheaper, please.

Not happy with the price you heard? Then it’s time to try a bit of essential bargaining!
If you only learn one thing about bargaining in China, remember this one:

太贵了，便宜点。

Tài guì le, pián yi diǎn.

It’s too expensive, cheaper, please.

Chinese sellers (often) may try to take advantage of customers that don’t know the trends and actual prices of items. Don’t let that faze you, and keep saying this sentence until they cave (or you walk away). We believe in your power to convince them!

Part 4 – Chinese phrases: Going places

Next up in this selection of typical Chinese phrases, you need a few useful travel sentences!

#11 请问怎么去…？-  Can you tell me how to go to + place, please?

Confused about where you’re supposed to go? To find your way in China, use this Chinese phrase to ask for directions:

请问怎么去...?

Qǐng wèn zěn me qù...?

Can you tell me how to go to + place, please?

China is such a vast country that you should always be prepared to ask how to find your way in Chinese.

Bonus sentence: I’m lost.

Why are you asking how to go to a particular place? Is it because you’re lost? Then, this might be a piece of useful information to slip in:

我迷路了

Wǒ mílù le.

I’m lost.

#12 请问这辆车去哪儿？ / 哪里? Where is this going?

You got on a train, but suddenly it dawns on you-you’re not sure where it’s going. Put your fears to rest with this simple question you can ask your neighbors or the train conductor:

请问这辆车去哪儿?

Qǐngwèn zhè liàng chē qù nǎ'er?

Excuse me, where is this going?

Note: 哪儿？/哪里？ are two ways to say “where” in Chinese. The first one is more used in the North and the second one in Southern China.

# 13  你要去哪里/哪儿? Where do you want to go?

You snagged a taxi to take you to your next destination; well done! Now, the taxi driver is going to ask you:

你要去哪里/哪儿?

Nǐ yào qù nǎlǐ/nǎ'er

Where do you want to go?

So better be prepared for this question and ready to answer!

Here’s how to answer:

• have a card ready with the address written down on it — always a good way to make sure the taxi driver knows where you’re going
• Call the place you’re going, explain your situation, and hand the driver your phone. They’ll take care of guiding your driver to your destination.

Part 5 – Chinese phrases: Asking for help

This last part is dedicated to asking for assistance, information, and help. So let’s get the most serious type of help out of our way first:

# 14 救命 – Help!

For something urgent, when you’re in real danger or are facing a very present issue, say — or yell, depending on the gravity of the situation –:

救命!

Jiùmìng

Help!

Worst comes to worst; simply yell “Help!” I bet all the people understand this word in this universe.

#15 捉小偷！捉小偷！- Catch the thief

Pickpockets and thieves are an ugly reality, no matter where you go, so better learn this sentence just in case your bag gets snatched or your cellphone was stolen out of your back pocket:

捉小偷!捉小偷!

Zhuō xiǎotōu! Zhuō xiǎotōu!

Catch the thief! Catch the thief!

#16 对不起，打扰了。 – Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you.

Now that you know how to yell for help in serious situations, let’s see what you say when asking someone for information or a little help. 救命 is out of the question. Instead, this is a great sentence to know:

对不起，打扰了.

Duì bù qǐ, dǎ rǎo le.

Excuse-me, I'm sorry to bother you.

then follow up with your question. Trust us, being polite goes a long way when asking people to help you out.

Use it when: you want to get information but want to make you’re not disturbed too much. Type of help you need regular help, nothing too pressing or urgent.

#17 谢谢您的帮助  –  Thank you for your help!

Great, you asked for help and got some very helpful advice. Now it’s time to show your thankfulness!
A simple will work fine, of course, but for extra effect, try:

谢谢您的帮助

Xiè xiè nín de bāng zhù!

Thank you for your help!

Each time someone helps you, even if it’s for a tiny thing,  remember to tell them to thank you!

Part 6 – Chinese phrases: Being sick

#18 我病了 – I’m sick

Your adventure in China might take a different turn, and because of spicy food, change of weather, or whatever reason, you might be sick. If you need help or be noticed, you have to tell about how you’re feeling. Here’s how to start:

我病了

wǒ bìng le

I’m sick.

Saying this will make it easier for the Chinese people to understand how you feel!

#19 我需要医生 – I need a doctor

You’re sick and not getting better? OK, it’s time for you to go to the doctor.

Don’t know where to find a doctor? Then tell someone:

救命!我需要医生

Jiùmìng! Wǒ xūyào yīshēng

Help! I need a doctor!

#20 这儿疼 – It hurts here

Great you found a doctor. How do you tell them what you’re feeling? Well, tell them where it hurts to start with, right?

这儿疼

zhè’er téng

It hurts here.

This may be the most valuable Chinese phrase to keep with you all at times, just in case you never know.

This last sentence concludes this careful collection of 20 (and a few bonus sentences) fundamental Chinese phrases to know and survive your first time in China.

Final words: you know now how to survive in Chinese

And this sentence concludes this careful collection of 20 (and a few bonus sentences) fundamental Chinese phrases to know and survive your first time in China. Because you never know what might happen to you during your Chinese adventure, we’ve gathered here the most useful Chinese phrases to survive any situation: bargaining, going to the doctor, apologizing, calling for help, and asking for assistance in China. With these 20+ sentences, the help of the information you need will never be far away.
So, try some of these fundamental Chinese phrases next time you’re in China (we hope you won’t have to use all of them at once) and fully enjoy your journey! And, tell us: did these expressions help you? Do you know some others that would help or help you there?

You’ll also be very interested in the Chinese phrasebook app we’ve made for Android here.

The Nincha Team

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“People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.”

Samuel Johnson, an 18th century English essayist, pinpointed this important fact early on: a key to long term memory retention is being reminded.

Learning is all about retention

When studying, you want to be actually learning and remembering things for a while. So, it’s important to be working on both aspects at the same time. Say, you’re learning Chinese (and we hope you are!). You want to be continuously learning new things, while counteracting the “forgetting curve”.

Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve

What’s the forgetting curve you ask? Well it has to do with how your memory performs over time and more specifically, how your memory retention declines over time. It was devised by Hermann Ebbinghaus in the 19th century, after he tested his own memory. Crazy! This Wired article explains how intense his experiment was:

“In experiments of breathtaking rigor and tedium, Ebbinghaus practiced and recited from memory 2.5 nonsense syllables a second, then rested for a bit and started again. […] Ebbinghaus trained this way for more than a year.”

Typically, your memory retention declines like this:

The forgetting curve shows the average amount of time it takes you to forget a fact. (c) Wikimedia 

Memory decays but you can do something about it

Ok, so my memory decays. Can I do anything about it?

Of course! First, you want a method that teaches you content in the best possible way. A method that ensures optimal short-term memorization. Personally, we’re advocates of the hands-on, active learning approaches. You’re active; you’re engaged; you’re in control of your learning experience because you’re not passively listening to a lecture. Your fire is being lit, as one would say in the 19th century.

Then, you couple this with a method that reminds you of your learning. This gradually shifts what you’ve learned from your short-term memory to mid and long-term memory. Then, the time and effort you’ve spent on training is fully leveraged.

This method should effectively monitor your memory over time (to assess how well or how little you’re remembering an item over time) and prevent decay by re-submitting you the knowledge you’re about to forget, right when you’re about to forget it.

Spaced Repetition System: the best thing that was invented (second only to French Toast)

That method is called the Spaced Repetition System. The basis for this algorithm (Ebbinghaus again) is that each time you successfully encounter a fact, the amount of time it’ll take you to forget the fact again increases. You’re reviewing things at the ideal moment: when you’re on the brink of forgetting them and therefore when you’re most likely to remember those facts.

That way, you’re not wasting time reviewing content you already know; and you don’t forget things because you forgot to think about re-learning them. It’s effective, it’s efficient. And it’s fantastic. Especially for language learners. Even more specifically for Chinese learners, where a lot of the vocabulary acquisition has to do with memorization and not so much with logic.

Because an image speaks louder than words (and because their graph is both clear and pretty nice looking), behold, Wired’s depiction of the SRS:

The video below shows the advantages of the SRS over other memorization methods, in a colored light kind of way. (Start at 2:30 to see the simulations, it’s all text before that)

Okay, this sounds great. But how does this system know when I’m going to forget it?

First of, the optimal moments to be reminded have been carefully and scientifically calculated, based on the spacing effect Ebbinghaus also coined. Those moments are shown in the Wired graph. Those are an integral part of the SRS systems. The system also counts on you to tell it.

Active recall vs. honesty-based recall

In some SRS applications (SuperMemo for instance, from which a lot of the research comes from), you say how well you know the knowledge the system is showing you by rating your knowledge on a scale to one to five. This tells the system where you stand; whether to show you that bit again soon or not so soon.

Personally, we find this leaves room for error. If you’re feeling lazy, you can just click and say “yes, I know this”. It’s pretty easy to cheat the system. Obviously, you’re the one learning, so there’s no reason for you to try to cheat yourself. But still, we feel mankind will try to game the system whenever possible.

Therefore, for us, here at Ninchanese, active recall is the only way to go. The system is the one assessing whether you know or not, not you, based on your answers (and a number of other criteria). You’re being active (here is the active learning principle again!) because you have to come up with the answer yourself; not just say whether you think you know it or not. This is the best way to learn.

That’s the beauty of technology: it helps you become a better you. Well, in this case, it helps you maximize your learning experience. It tells you what to learn and when.This is key to long-term retention.

Ultimately, that’s all you want to get out of learning something. To remember it : Spaced repetition.  To be able to use it : Spaced repetition.

The Nincha Team

title photo credit: Flооd via photopin

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