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I’m also hard of hearing with hearing aids and have learned mandarin to a high intermediate level and have also learned basic Cantonese.
If you’re not tone deaf, then tones shouldn’t be an issue. I actually surprisingly have pretty good tones and can tell the difference.

Here’s a YouTube video I made of my 3 years learning mandarin. My channel has a few videos you might be useful

https://youtu.be/k_mIBFpN3Fw

Also here is my audiogram for reference:

https://imgbb.com/xYfzxY3

Feel free to hit me up if you have more questions, I’ll be glad to help and or guide you as you’re learning.

Are you familiar with Chinesepod? Their lessons are categorized into levels (newbie, beginner, intermediate, advanced), so you can always find something that suits you. Their format is quite nice. The lessons are short - 10 - 20 minutes. Each lesson typically features a dialogue, and discussion around the grammar, vocabulary and expressions used in that dialogue. The lower levels tend to have a pretty high ratio of English to Chinese, but with intermediate+, Chinese tends to take over. The "advanced" lessons are pretty much only Chinese.

There's a torrent with about 1000 lessons (and accompanying PDFs) released under a Creative Commons License, so you can get them legally for free. You can find it on piratebay. If you like it, you could get a subscription, and get access to many, many more lessons.

If you can find the app hello Chinese it has really helped me learn at my own pace and its free with optional premium content.

Edit: here it is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hellochinese

Recording here - L1 Chinese speaker (25/M voice): https://clyp.it/z0k4l2nr

有缘千里来相会 Yǒu yuán qiān lǐ lái xiāng huì.

If you type this into Google translate. The pronunciation on the last 6 words are quite good. Google TTS has the tone wrong for the first word (it used 2nd tone instead of 3rd).

You can also input individual words into forvo.com, and click on a mandarin pronunciation. Forvo has mandarin recordings for all but one word. Make sure you are not listening to the Japanese/Wu/Hakka/Cantonese recordings.

Using throwaway due to personally identifiable information, especially voice.

http://www.forvo.com/word/%E7%A5%9D%E4%BD%A0%E7%94%9F%E6%97%A5%E5%BF%AB%E4%B9%90%21/#zh

Here is another recording. You can also search for the words (or phrases like birthday) individually on that site.

Hey thanks for the reply! I came across it on an internet radio(here). It's been down since this morning in the US, but this song was played every so often when it was working. The only identifier it had was "Dz - cyxy". There were many songs that had identifiers like that (dz - ????). I'm not sure really what they meant. Hopefully that helps narrow the search. Thanks for identifying the instruments for me!

The download link (下载地址：) is not displaying. According to the "ps" text, this is either because of high traffic, or because of copyright issues.

EDIT: Isn't the Chinese internet great? The zhidao.baidu.com link appears to work.

Considering it has a falling tone when spoken in isolation, I think it makes more sense to label 不 with a falling tone that changes to a rising tone in some circumstances, rather than the other way around. Most dictionaries follow this convention.

Note: I checked OP's book on amazon. In. the preview it uses the standard convention (labelling 不 with a falling tone that changes to a rising tone in some circumstances).

Looking at my copy of Pleco, it doesn't annotate the change in tone for phrases like 不是 or 进不去 but if you listen to the audio (assuming you have the audio pack) it actually does give the correct pronunciation despite the incorrect pinyin.

You could try using introductory flashcard tools like the Beginner Chinese app and the StartFromZero_Chinese app to easily, and efficiently, begin learning on your own, some of the basic Chinese words and phrases from scratch at your own pace and convenience.

Hi beefshoes,

try CJK Viewer, its a neat little tools for learning Mandarin, or Cantonese. Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.imxiaowoo.cjkviewer&hl=en iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cjk-viewer/id1016286988

1。The answers given below seems adequate. Since it is not clear if you can read what has been given below, I suggest going to forvo.com to get the pronunciation. You just need to copy and paste the phrase or words to forvo to get the pronunciation.

1. I would suggest duolingo. It's free and the learning is self-paced.

I think this is supposed to be a dipiction of Caishen (God of Money)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caishen

More like this image

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Caishen-Portrait-Chinese-Decoration/dp/B07MPT6K16

If you want the Cliff's Notes version, try The Chinese Mind from Tuttle Publishing. It's short, so it's only an overview but I think that's what you want:

https://www.amazon.com/Chinese-Mind-Understanding-Traditional-Contemporary-ebook/dp/B005DB3LFC/

Think of this way. Its no difference a Chinese or Indian speaks English with their own tongue dialect accents. Yes, remember kids use to tease their immigrant classmates. Its what you hear to mimic the tonation. However, tonations differs when that exact same word used in statement or questions or exclamation, etc. If you still search for a physical English-Chinese dictionary, try this in Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Little-Oxford-English-Chinese-Dictionary-Chinese/dp/756007619X/

https://www.amazon.com/Korean-Sweet-yakgwa-Traditional-Dessert/dp/B07VQF4N85/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?crid=1CBAHC2T6AVRN&keywords=%EA%BF%80%EC%95%BD%EA%B3%BC&qid=1644380966&sprefix=%EA%BF%80%EC%95%BD%EA%B3%BC%2Caps%2C71&sr=8-5

Although I ultimately don't understand it, I recommend you use https://www.deepl.com/translator This translation site can translate very accurately, all my messages in reddit are translated by this site

Qi Baishi is a human name, Chinese names are not the same as yours, and many people's first and last names may be repeated. Bai Shi may also be his word. In ancient China people could have surnames First names Font sizes. For example, Zhao Yun (a Chinese character from the Three Kingdoms period) Last name: Zhao First name: Yun Word: Zilong. So he was also called Zhao Zilong. So this writer is not too good to determine. But this painting is really beautiful.

​

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

25/M L1 Chinese Speaker. My voice is quite low and throaty.

https://clyp.it/qw54uqlw

妈 (Mom) , 祝 (wish) 你 (you) 六十 (sixty) 岁 (year) 生日 (birthday) 快乐 (happiness)

Repeat 妈妈 for (Mama). But if I were you, I would just skip the sixty year old part and go with 妈，祝你生日快乐.

Since mdbg says its a japanese variant, here's a link to a Japanese dictionary; Jisho

If the character is japanese, it is apparently read "kyō" and is the word for "sutra" or Buddhist scriptures.

Hi,

I'm not sure it can help but I recently I found the app of Hutong School. Apparently it is new and contents are more and more added. I really like it because it covers HSK1 to HSK6.
It is basically through videos of the teachers. You can even have private lessons with them. I would recommend this app because it is fun to learn with the different videos and games.

Also, I would suggest Memerise. It is really great for learning and helping to memorise words !

I hope it helps, good luck !

You want to get Assimil Chinese with Ease. It'll teach you all the basics that you need to know. If that's too difficult for you starting off, then try Pimsleur's Chinese, as it's a slow, easy introduction. You can also use the app ChineseSkill for extra practice.

Here are a few recommendations, though there’s plenty more out there:

Character learning/memorisation: Memrise/Anki Listening: CSLPod Reading: maayot or small books by Mandarin Companion Speaking: Tandem Writing: Skritter

We put together a schedule with a full list of tools if interested: https://www.maayot.com/blog/chinese-in-5-mins-a-day-learners-guide-schedule/

Might as well be Japanese, 独立 (read 'dokuritsu' in sino-Japanese (Japanese words of Chinese Origin)) means independent, 心 ('shin' in sino-Japanese) means heart, mind, spirit. Even found the whole thing on Jisho.org , a pretty good Japanese-English dictionary http://jisho.org/words?jap=%E7%8B%AC%E7%AB%8B%E5%BF%83&eng=&dict=edict

我學漢語三年了。= I have been learning Chinese for three years.

我們結婚已經七年了。= We've been married for seven years.

A duration always goes towards the end of a sentence, usually with 了 if it's still going on.

Check here for more examples.

Edit: Since you're new, I just realized you probably need pinyin. Here's a tip that helps you if you don't know it already while allowing me to be lazy: get perapera Chinese. You can mouse over words and see the pinyin immediately. You can also set it to show the definitions if you want to, but that might be a little too easy mode.

Edit2: You'll get more and generally better answers from /r/ChineseLanguage . It's got about three times as many people as here.

Chinese poetry may be one of the hardest part to study in Chinese culture. It's hard not only because every single character deserved studying and tasting, but also poetry maintained its major position over a long period of time, as a result meanings of word may transfer, events may be cited, and almost everything has nickname in poetry, that's kind of virtuosity.

Bai Juyi is famous for his easy-to-understand poems, with least burden to read, just like songs.

If you can read Chinese, you can start from his poems. Li Bai and Du Fu is two of the most famous poet, their poems are worth to read as well. Otherwise, Song of the Immortals is my recommendation for non-Chinese readers.

I lived in China as a kid, and I worked there for three years as an adult. I loved the experience but would definitely advise people to have a proper plan before going.

1. Work. This is key. Have a sponsor or company set up before you go. Too many foreigners are competing for too few language teaching jobs in the big cities, and the standard of living can fall off dramatically once you start looking at lower tier cities. I had a couple of foreign firms set up my work and payment arrangements, and when we started my work, most things were taken care of. Payment stayed overseas and into my foreign bank account - a local Chinese connection gave me access to local currency in exchange for a like amount of foreign, delivered to their bank account overseas.

2. Taxes - talk with a specialist. The Chinese tax code is comparatively inclusive but you can often find legal workarounds to minimize your tax footprint.

3. Internet - get yourself set up with a VPN before you leave. Some companies will give you access to their own VPN if their tech support is big enough. Otherwise you can try to set up your own (like shadow socks) or use a paid commercial one (I used Astrill). Expect tighter clampdown during pretty holidays or historical dates.

4. Be aware of the visa rules and keep your travel documents (passport etc) with you. If a Chinese employer tells you they need your passport, I wouldn't give it to them. Though rare, you do hear about strides of modern slavery where a foreigner has lost their passport to their employer and even their foreign embassy won't help then.

I used Reading and Writing Chinese (link) when I started getting serious about characters. It is more oriented towards simplified characters, but it does include traditional - sort of. It does have stroke order for simplified but not the traditional. It isn't structured so much on frequency, but it does have some groupings based on similar elements which I like because I see similar but different characters and it seems to help me recall.

Another one I referenced a lot was Cracking Chinese Characters, although the book is the same as above as it does show the traditional characters but the primary focus and stroke order are on simplified.

I mostly use my phone for character work. I have the Outlier dictionary add-on for Pleco and I like to dig into the characters and their components. I also bought the Outlier Chinese Character Masterclass and I highly recommend it if you are wanting to get serious about understanding character forms and components.

I also use Skritter a lot. It is a subscription model but I think it is well worth it. It uses spaced repetition, which I like. It enforces correct stroke order when drawing characters. I only used simplified, but you can toggle between simplified, traditional, or both. I think Anki can do most of the same things for free, but I tried the Skritter trial and I really liked the way it works so I just went with that because I like the breakdown and tracking over time.

It's called 小柴胡顆粒, which just translates to something like Little Chinese Thorowax Powder. You might also find it under the name chai hu powder.

I found this on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bupleurum-Decoction-Extract-Powder-Natural/dp/B016QV8LM0

Technically speaking... yes, you can. I’ve never tried it, but you probably won’t get the best results, and it definitely won’t look authentic.

If you are interested in calligraphy, there are a few sets on amazon for less than thirty bucks. Here’s one that’s pretty similar to the one I use. It’s not a super fancy set or anything, but you’ll get much better results.

As far as the basic vocabulary goes, you could try effective free flashcard tools like the Beginner Chinese app and the StartFromZero_Chinese app to learn on your own some basic Chinese words and phrases from scratch.

This page lists a bunch

This book is a great resource also

If you're on Android, I'd recommend Inkstone https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.id126c0rsxlvjwv18cf44u&hl=en_US

It's only a few bucks upfront, no subscription, and is offline. There's not too many premade lists, but you can import your own. You need to import it from a file, you can't add new words/characters directly though the app, so it's not super convenient, but it works.

It currently does not support syncing across devices, since it's all offline. Not sure if that's a must for you or not.

If you're technically inclined, it's open source so you could build and install the app for free.

You can practice English with the current version of Talkalang:

There are two options to join: Android app --> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talkalang.app&referrer=utm_source%3DFB%26utm_medium%3Dchat web --> https://www.talkalang.com

This is the book they used for a uni course I did, it was pretty good and there are harder ones after this. Having said that I would probably recommend listening to "Chinese pod" podcasts even more than reading this book.

I ended up getting this one Amazon.com: Tao Te Ching a Bilingual Edition by D.C. Lau and it's really everything I could hope for.

It consists of two parts, the first has the "Wang Pi" version of the Tao Te Ching, which is the most well known, with for each verse the Chinese version and English Translation.

The second part is based on scrolls that were found more recently but that are some of the oldest versions of the Tao Te Ching that are known, also bilingual. There's also a great general introduction.

Also, this is the textbook they started us off with in my second year of university http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introduction-Literary-Chinese-Monographs-Paperback/dp/0674017269/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1460721033&sr=8-3&keywords=literary+chinese+textbook As I remember, it was quite good.

When it comes to learning languages I always stick to books. I'd recommend the Integrated Chinese series, as in http://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Chinese-Textbook-Edition-Traditional/dp/0887276393

There are corresponding workbooks and character workbooks which teach you the strokes. Honestly if you want to learn Chinese, and especially traditional, you should be learning the stroke orders. Traditional can get very complicated, and there is a logic behind the stroke orders and formation of each individual part. If you learn the stroke order then it'll make it a whole lot easier to remember the character as a whole.

You could probably find an online version of the books if you looked hard enough.

EDIT: This site has the corresponding flashcards for the Integrated Chinese series for levels 1 and 2, among other series: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/flashcards.php

Thank you!

Is this it?

Before the class starts, buy and use Heisig. If your serious about learning the written language, it's by far the best way to begin. Then you can tackle spoken much more easily when you arrive.

I second all the other advice about flashcards, language partners, etc.

Not sure what your level of study is, but my university uses the Integrated Chinese series. It has character workbooks, and those have been very helpful for me (I've only done the first volume). It's just one character at a time though, so it's not your bag if you're looking for something with full sentences to write.

Here's the link for Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Integrated-Chinese-Character-Workbook-Traditional/dp/0887276482

This is technically not exactly what you're asking for, but I figured these links might be of interest to you: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.duodou.mall&hl=en

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/manga-mandarin-learn-chinese/id1202173573?mt=8

This is for an app called Manga Mandarin, which offers webcomics in Chinese with both pronunciation and English translation of all text in the comics. Once inside the app (you have to create an account) there is a "contribute" link near the bottom of your user page. The page it brings you to is (I'm guessing, since I can't read most of it) offering positions to help translate and provide other work for the app and its creators.

This app only translates webcomics specifically made for this application and doesn't use third-party mangas, so the content isn't exactly the same, although the concept definitely is there. Perhaps you could do something involving this?

To get yourself introduce to the commonly used words and phrases in Chinese, I recommend vocabulary builder apps like Beginner Chinese or StartFromZero_Chinese. Both are free flashcards/quiz apps that uses the SRS method to ensure you remember the words you learnt.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.beginnerchinese

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.startfromzero_chinese

For expanding and practicing your current Chinese vocab bank, I'd suggest HSK Locker app on the android platform (although they also have it at chrome store and amazon store). Its basically a free and works-offline flashcard/quiz app that is likely more suited to you since you already know how to speak Chinese.

Alternatively, if you want to start from scratch, you can try out Beginner Chinese app as well.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.hsklocker&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.beginnerchinese&hl=en

You can try out Beginner Chinese app if you are just starting, or HSK Locker app on the android platform. The former assumes you don't know any words to begin with whereas the latter assumes you do. Both apps are free and both apps work offline.

Anyway, they both do exactly what you are looking for (more in the case of HSK Locker, which I prefer). As flash cards and quiz app, they mark your progress automatically based on the answer you provide (whether correct or otherwise).

By the by, according to the developer, there are nearly 5,000 words in the database based on the official HSK syllables.

You might want to give them a try if you wish https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.beginnerchinese https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.hsklocker

For HK, they have 'created' a number of their own characters that is unknown to those outside of the HK circle. Similarly, there are lots of local terms and slangs used by different parts of china that are gobbldygook to other chinese else where.

If youa re looking to learn chinese characters and have an android device, you might want to try out Beginner Chinese app. Else if you know a lot of the characters already, you can try out HSK Locker to practice the simplified characters.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.beginnerchinese

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.shex.hsklocker

Your two best apps will be Pleco (with the CC-CEDICT dictionary) and Moe dict (萌典). Both are free and the latter will teach you stroke orders if you click on the characters and Taiwanese Mandarin pronunciations.

And yes, as others have stated, you should definitely be learning stroke orders if you ever want to write a message, especially if you are living in Taiwan and don't want to be a 老外 for the rest of your life.

Also, in Pleco, some of the Taiwanese Mandarin pronunciations are only written on the single characters, so if you are looking at a two-character word, always take a glance at the single characters to make sure they don't have a "TW pr." at the bottom.

Hope that helps!

holy shit, you are going to fucking die.

Look, you need to spend the 5000 rambos, and get yourself an ANDROID phone. Not an iPhone, some android thing. It doesn't matter which, but get something recent with assdroid 5.

Now there is this application called GOOGLE TRANSLATE

You MUST download and install this. Then download English (英語), and the Chinese 中國 Traditional 繁體 and Simplified 添加

Now with this you can do text translations on your phone. OK now ready for the best part. Assuming you aren't on 88th tier teacher salary you can get phone with internet. Then use translate's picture function, it'll take a picture of your noodles, and then it can TRANSLATE THE DIRECTIONS INTO ENGRISH.

Or just, you know ask Rainy. She can hook you up with very traditional recipe from her mother town.

Here's an app that my company made that will allow you to do just that.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wcetv.android.web&hl=en

You can watch a lot of the updated drama's from CCTV-4's international entertainment division.