How to Learn Chinese
We put together this guide to make your journey learning Chinese a success.
Learning Chinese Is Not Hard
This guide is here to help you realize learning Chinese is not that hard. We’ll take you through everything you need to know to effectively learn Chinese. Follow these practical tips to guide your Chinese learning towards success.
The first step on your journey to successfully learning Chinese is to define what you want to achieve and by what time frame. First, pick a tangible, reachable objective for why you want to learn the Chinese language and then, make a pact with Nincha to reach it. Soon enough, you’ll be able to congratulate yourself and say “I did it”.
Write down Your Objectives
To do so, follow these tried and true tips to know how to learn Chinese and make your learning experience a success:
🌟 Don’t overdo it. Prefer small learning sessions daily rather than long sessions so you stay motivated. You’ll be surprised at how productive and efficient a short 15 minute a day session can be.
🌟 Learn often. Make it a habit to learn some Chinese every day, even if it’s only for a few minutes. A little, regularly, is better than a lot once in a blue moon.
🌟 The world is your stage. Take advantage of every little moment and opportunity to practice your Chinese pronunciation, tones, grammar and learn new characters.
🌟 Always have fun learning Chinese.
🌟 Believe in yourself: you can do this!
There are no shortcuts when learning a language. You have to experience it! However, there are methods and tips to get you started on the right tracks. As we taught thousands of students how to learn Chinese, we’ve made a “Chinese learning Motivation Playbook” that will give you all the answers you need to speak Chinese fluently.
Find what makes Chinese fun and exciting for you, and we will take care of the rest by offering you a personalized and gamified Chinese learning experience.
我每一天都学习汉语
Boost Your Chinese Vocabulary Learning
In order to make your Chinese vocabulary learning really efficient, you need to work with a Spaced Repetition System (SRS). The SRS is a powerful algorithm that guarantees faster learning as well as longer memorization than with traditional learning methods.
The SRS algorithm in Ninchanese was specially designed for Mandarin and will make remembering Chinese characters a breeze. For this reason, you’ll retain up to 95% of what you learn. This gives you more time to focus on speaking Chinese, using grammar rules to build Chinese sentences or to train your ear so your listening comprehension improves and you become a pro at recognizing tones and pinyin.
Train Yourself to Understand Chinese Logic
Chinese has a very logical and practical word order, which makes Chinese grammar easy to grasp. By actively practicing to recognize and use sentence patterns and grammar rules, you’ll quickly learn to make correct phrases in Mandarin.
We believe that learning to make sentences should come naturally and intuitively. We’ve poured gamification in our approach to offer you a satisfying way to actively learn to build sentences and learn grammar rules in Chinese. Therefore, with Ninchanese, you won’t have to fear to make phrases in Chinese and will be confident in your ability to express your thoughts in the Chinese language.
Speak Chinese from Day 1
One of the biggest fears Westerners have when learning Mandarin is mastering Chinese pronunciation and especially its tones.
To help you overcome the fear of learning tones, we’ve put together a cutting-edge voice recognition system in Ninchanese. Just speak to it and it will give you instant feedback on what you’re saying. That way, you’ll know which word and tones you pronounced correctly and which areas of your pronunciation still need improvement! Perfect to improve your Chinese pronunciation.
Whatever you learn on Ninchanese, you can rest assured that you’ll be able to read characters and their pinyin reading right, and be understood in China.
Every dialogue you’ll learn on Ninchanese will expose you to the modern, actual Chinese language. You’ll quicky be able to face and talk in Chinese about any situation in China.
Always have Ninchanese with you
Playing with Your Friends Is the Best Way to Learn
Playing with your friends keeps you engaged in the language. You’ll be having so much fun playing you won’t even realize you’re learning Chinese.
Playing with friends and other Chinese learners is a great way to discover new words in Chinese and interact with the Chinese language. This is why we put together the Ninchallenges, fast-paced multi-player online learning games where you challenge friends and other Chinese learners in Mandarin.
Become Part of a Tremendous Story and Discover the Chinese Culture
Learning Chinese without learning its cultural background would be like eating Chinese food without its native spices.
To introduce the Chinese civilization to you and to show you how to learn Chinese, we had fun writing a story full of cats and a dragon. In Ninchanese, you’ll discover the story of Lupishu, a dragon that wants to know where he comes from. To do so, he’ll need to learn to behave in a Chinese society, study the language and discover the cultural background of one of the most ancient countries in the world. As you progress in Chinese, you’ll see this original story unfold.
Consequently, you’ll gain insights into the Chinese culture, and discover the similarities and differences between a Chinese society and a Western one. This uniquely epic and cute story will change your point of view on China and its thousands of years of history, traditions and customs.
A Dictionary That Will Follow You Everywhere
Always have a Chinese dictionary on hand when you need it with Ninchanese in your pocket. Need to look up a character because you don’t remember its meaning, pinyin or pronunciation? Use Ninchanese’s built-in dictionary!
Every Chinese word and character you’ll learn on Ninchanese have a detailed word page you can access to consolidate your learning. Thus, you can learn more about a character’s different meanings, read example sentences to see it used in context, idioms and even learn how to draw it thanks to its stroke order. You can also explore what components make up the characters and explore words that share the same component to improve memorization.
Each word page also has a list of related words to browse. In effect, it’s an easy way to build up your vocabulary by discovering and learning words with close and associated meanings.
Tons of Resources and Help
Hundreds of Great Chinese Lessons in One Handy Place
Learning many Chinese words and characters is great to be able to talk about various topics. But you’re not going to get very far by learning words alone. What is truly essential for you to know is how to build sentences in Chinese to use the vocabulary you learned. Therefore, we focused on creating fun stages where you can practice using Chinese grammar rules and on writing easily understandable grammar lessons that are accessible to everyone. No terrible grammar words, just straight-forward, enjoyable explanations of grammar concepts and plenty of examples so you understand. We’re proud of our lessons and we’re pretty sure you’ll like them too.
First, we suggest you start by buildings sentences yourself with Yocha. Then, if you have a question about a particular grammar point, you can easily access the corresponding Chinese grammar lesson to erase the difficulties you were having!
Our Blog Is Full of Resources and Tips on Learning Chinese
The Ninchanese Blog is a treasure chest full of nice and compelling articles written for Chinese learners. Everything is organized by theme so you’ll easily find articles about the topics you like reading about.
You’ll see articles about culture in China and the Chinese language. You’ll find tips and tricks on how to learn Chinese, resources to discover Chinese music, books, videos and TV programs in Chinese, and moreover a few articles about cats here and there. Here’s a roundup of some of the best articles on the Ninchanese Blog:
Meet People and Get Social
Join our vibrant and loving community of Chinese learners on Discord. They are all very nice and eager to learn Chinese with you, answer your questions, and share resources. Join the Ninchanese Chat on Discord ad then you’ll be able to:
- Chat in real-time with other Chinese learners
- Introduce yourself to the other Nincha learners
- Practice your Chinese by speaking with other beginners and native Chinese speakers
- Ask questions about China and the Chinese language
- Discover and share interesting things about China or the Chinese language
- and a lot more!
Sign up now; it’s free, and join the community to have a great time! Join us
Not into real-time chat? You can also join us on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Instagram, and Pinterest for fun activities around the Chinese language!
Ninchanese is free to use
and has everything you need to start speaking Chinese
Sign up for freeYou can easily upgrade to our paid plans, which offer more features and Chinese content.