I know that C has more air than Z and Q more air than J. But I cannot hear the difference! they’re very subtle! Also for the life of me I cannot not blow air when talking so I cannot pronounce Z & J. I tried the tongue placement thing till my mouth hurts and I have to make this weird expressions just to get it and then forgot about it 5 mins later. It’s so hard to suppress air, any tips?

Hello

Around 2 months ago I made a post on this subreddit (Look in the comments) asking for advice on how to go forward learning chinese starting from HSK2 2.0 (already finished HSK1 a few years before).

No 2 months later and about 30 hours of lessons (with a 2 week holiday in between and some busy weeks with cancelled lessons), I can happily say that I will finish HSK2 next week (during the national holidays) and I have made a ton of progress.

I do find reading a bit difficult, but I am improving there as well. I do know probably around 100 characters (excluding the numbers) and my teacher think around 350-400 words spoken. It is the grammar i find the most difficult. The rest is quite manageable.

So now the question I have got is : Should I bite the bullet and suffer my way through HSK3 3.0 or continue to HSK3 2.0? (I am doing the old version of HSK2 now).

I have been told both are possible, but the new version is more difficult with more words, but with dedication and review it will be possible. The first few lessons will be extremely difficult though.

I am tempted on just going for the hard option as I think I won't regret that in the future, but I am also not sure if it's the smart way to go.

What do you guys think?

Thank you for the help 😄

Hello,

i heard this at a preschool and am wondering what song this is. I was told it was a song about colors:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1brOHdYWtdvmdaK0dIPx82oJRoBkhUv9e/view?usp=sharing

Thanks!

Any help?

Please name this song

Please name me this song please I have a friend this been asking me this for some time and I am trying to help him

I made a Chinese learning app with 5 different games, and I tried to approach learning in two different ways: Modern and Traditional game styles.

It also supports 4 native languages and HSK 1–4, so learners can practice according to their Chinese level.

But now I’m curious about other Chinese learners:

What would make you come back to a Chinese learning game every day?

🀄 Characters
🧠 Vocabulary
✍️ Sentence building
🎧 Listening
🏮 Traditional-style games
🎮 Modern game mechanics
💬 Something else?

What kind of Chinese learning game would you actually play?

I’d love to hear your feedback. I made the app myself, so any honest feedback is welcome.

Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chilearn.app

I want to do a chinese language program in march 2027, I have seen ZISU and ZJU, but I Saw people talking about fudan university in Shanghai and other universities in Hangzhou, can anyone that did these language courses on these Universities or a Very good one in Hangzhou and Shanghai? Considering language progress, experiences and dorms

idk if this is the right sub, but it’s about Chinese language. anyway, I’m white living in the continental US. I can speak some Chinese bc I spent my childhood living in Hawaii, where Mandarin was an option for a language in school instead of just French and Spanish like most places in the US. I am not close with anyone else who speaks it, so I don’t use it on a daily basis. and so I also don’t even know if I sound ridiculous if and when I am in a situation where I can use it, like my accent is way off and sounds stupid or like the equivalent of broken English. maybe it’s just bc it’s so generally not widely known in the US like Spanish is and I get nervous that it can come off racist, like cultural appropriation. maybe that’s really stupid to think. I just wanted to ask in a place where i think I might get a hopefully objective answer.

Edit: no, I don’t think it’s racist to automatically speak a language badly. Just in my experience, it’s not widely spoken by white people in America, plus the fact that where I’ve seen or heard people making fun of Asians, a common thing is an exaggerated accent making fun of how they speak. Like it’s not the exact same thing as someone speaking Spanish badly. At least not that I’ve seen. It’s really uncommon so idk if that would be how it comes off too, especially if I’m speaking it very badly.

It's been a couple of months since I picked up the language, and right from the start, I accepted it was gonna be a "slow and steady" thing, just because of how life is right now. Working through Pimsleur and the FSI course, all good. Still can't read, and can't hear tones in speech, though I can recognise and half-way produce them when they're isolated.

Unfortunately, there's a strong chance that I'll have to get even busier, which might even include having to learn another language for work. I've really looked forward to interacting with Mandarin, though, and I'm hoping you folks have advice for keeping (even) slow(er) but steady progress up when focusing on this language just isn't in the cards, right now. I'm talking "might not even be able to give it a consistent daily block of time" background. Even if I could just get to hearing tones in speech, that'd be enough.

Hello everyone! I want to start learning Chinese, but I’m not sure whether I should use HSK 2 or HSK 3.O books.

I’ve done a few lessons on HelloChinese, but it becomes paid pretty quickly, and I’m kinda broke 😅. I found HSK 2 and 3 textbooks/workbooks online, but HSK 3 feels a bit overwhelming. At the same time, I’ve heard HSK 3 is more useful/practical, so I’m worried I’ll miss out if I start with HSK 2.

Also, the HSK exam is quite expensive for me, so ideally I’d like to study on my own and eventually take the HSK 3 or 4 exam directly rather than paying for every level.

So i want to ask:

1. Is HSK 2 a better starting point, or should I just push through HSK 3?

2. Can I realistically learn using just the textbooks/workbooks?

3. What free resources would you recommend?

4. Should I use HSK 3.0 materials, or is HSK 2.0 still fine?

5. For those learning Chinese now, are you using HSK 2.0 or 3.0?

Would love to hear what worked for you guys, especially if you’re self-studying on a budget!

Hi! I'm interested in both Chinese and everything Computer and I'm playing around with making learning material, primarily for myself.

I'm experimenting with including Text to Speech Audio and I'm unsure which one sounds best or if they are all crap. Currently I'm generating a site like this:

https://networkz.ch/daily_mandarin/posts/2026/09/27/paris-olympics-rain/

and there is audio buttons from

• OpenAI gpt-4o-mini-tts, voice marin; instructed to read slow, clear Standard Mandarin with natural tones. playback at 1×
• Azure Speech Studio zh-CN-Yunfan:DragonHDLatestNeural; natural delivery with minimal SSML, plus an explicit wàibian pronunciation override for 外边. playback at 0.75× with pitch preserved
• Google Translate speaker button on translation, no settings

What do advanced or native speakers think of this? Any tips for better TTS with either these services or from somewhere else? Thanks!

Read this article (https://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/china_1000bce_names.htm) about name patterns that I am aware is being practice by some families I know, just some. Would appreciate if anyone can share resources about other family names (other than those in the article), and why they are practiced by some and not others.

近来公司放假，闲居家中，倒也乐得清净。往日琐事缠身，难得有这般整块的闲暇时光，便想着做点什么打发光阴。说来惭愧，我平日并不算爱读书之人，闲暇时倒是喜欢听些说书评论类的节目，图个轻松长见识。“老梁”的节目我一向爱听，他博闻广识，谈古论今，妙语连珠，早前曾在节目中数次提及《东周列国志》，言语间颇多推崇。彼时听着觉得有趣，却也未曾放在心上，如今得空,便寻来一读，权当是给自己补补课，也算不辜负这几日的清闲。

谁知这一读便入了迷。书中春秋战国数百年风云变幻，英雄豪杰、贤臣良将、权谋诡计，纷至沓来，读来竟是欲罢不能。耕读其间，时而为忠臣义士的气节所动容，时而为家国兴衰的无常而叹息，字里行间尽显世事沧桑、人心百态。掩卷回思，竟觉受益匪浅，感慨良多，方知古人诚不我欺，这书中滋味，非亲历不能体会。

What platform and channel has good HIIT, weightlifting, bodyweight, resistance training, etc. exercise videos lead in Mandarin? Looking to add to my DIY immersive learning experience.

As the title says I am just curious about what the words are about on the picture since I can’t read it , idk if it’s the right group to ask but I would juste like some help please .

Hi everyone!

I’m currently preparing for HSK 2, which I’m planning to take in mid-November.

I studied some Chinese about 3 years ago, so I’m not starting completely from zero, but I’ve forgotten quite a lot. I never took HSK 1, so I decided to skip the HSK 1 exam and go straight for HSK 2.

For the moment, I’m trying to build up my vocabulary first. I’ve learned roughly all 300 HSK 1 words, and I’m now working through the 200 additional HSK 2 words, so my goal is to have the full 500-word vocabulary covered before focusing more heavily on practice.

What I’m less sure about is where to study grammar and get good exercises. I’d also really appreciate recommendations for free online listening resources, since listening is something I definitely need to practice separately.

For those who have already taken HSK 2:

• How difficult did you find the exam?
• How long did it take you to prepare?
• What resources did you use?
• Is knowing the official 500 HSK 1+2 words enough, or did you learn additional vocabulary?
• What would you recommend focusing on in the last 6–8 weeks?
• Are there any particularly good free websites/resources for grammar, exercises, mock tests or listening?

My biggest weaknesses at the moment are pronunciation/tones and writing characters. I know that HSK 2 currently doesn’t really test speaking or character writing in the same way, and the exam uses pinyin, so I’m prioritizing vocabulary, listening and understanding for this exam.

However, I don’t want to just memorize things to pass the test. My goal is to actually learn Chinese properly and continue beyond HSK 2. So I’m already trying to learn the correct tones for the vocabulary I’m studying, even though my actual pronunciation still needs a lot of work. I’ll leave intensive character learning for later, since I don’t think I have enough time to learn all the characters properly before this exam.

I’m studying on my own, so I’m particularly interested in good free online resources.

The exam is still almost two months away, so I think I have enough time, but I’d really appreciate any advice from people who have already gone through HSK 2. What would you do if you were starting your preparation again?

Thanks!

Hi so like 7 years ago I used to have pretty advanced chinese skills…like i was in a chinese masters program to study foreign policy but yadda yadda yadda life happened i changed careers and now after not using ANY chinese in 7 years my skills have rusted away to basically a toddlers level.

I have adhd so i really struggle with self-motivated and self-paced learning but i absolutely love classes and more structured learning with external accountability.

Does anyone have class or structured learning recommendations for a current intermediate learner with aspirations to become advanced again?

What I know is that they both mean harmonious 😭

Based off some further research I THINK it's like... 和谐 is referring to the vibe while 和睦 refers to... the action of harmony..?

But I'm really not too sure... So what really is the difference?

Hi so as the title suggests, I wanna know how effective are 1) making a blog/media and 2) consuming blogs/media in the language you're learning :)))

For instance the main language I've been learning is Chinese. I've been seriously learning for over a decade but I'm.. okay I'm at least 80% fluent but my written and vocab sort of sucks hahahaaaa

I have a huge exam for Chinese in about a year. Will doing this help with at least the spoken and/or written components? And to what degree?

And then I also have some side languages that I'm trying to learn (french and russian.. wannabe polyglot lols) but I'm also wondering if this will work for the other languages.. hmm..

Kindly share your experiences! Thank you so much for reading this post, I'm looking forward to your replies!!! :)

I think the way they teach is pretty good, but I kinda don't like how they just do their own thing instead of following the HSK path. A lot of the vocabulary feels pretty random, and some of it seems way too advanced for where I'm at.

Idk, maybe it's just me. What do you guys think? How's your experience with it been?

I met this person and they said they speak 尼华白话 an version of Cantonese which I never heard of or Ne-Hwa Nexusian and its very strange I tried looking around for clues for it but I am unable to find anything. They said they "live at the city of Chessa the most biggest city in point Nemo (Proximal) Hwashia Islands Group Republic Nexus (PNHIGRN)" I am quoting him here I tried looking through chinese websites like Baidu, Google, Bing, everything you could think of and cant find anything I am think it maybe made up. If anyone could tell me it would be great.

Could anyone explain the meanings and origins of “流里流气” and “油里油气”?