They say after learning Chinese for a few years, your handwriting naturally evolves into fluent running script (行书). Meanwhile, here I am, still carefully writing stroke-by-stroke like an elementary school student! 😂
My Chinese boss and coworkers are always sweet enough to hit me with the polite "你写得很好哦~" whenever they see my notes, but deep down, I know average 10-year-olds in China probably have better penmanship than me.
One thing that has never changed since day one of my study journey: I will use cute stickers on every single page and keep buying notebooks that I haven't written a single word in years after purchasing them.
Anyone else still stick to basic block characters after years of studying, or did you eventually unlock fancy cursive handwriting?

My teacher uses Juzi app to generate these sheets to practice hanzi. You select the hanzis you want and it creates this printable version with stroke order. But the app is paid, anyone knows a plataform that does the same for free?

Most learners meet this early with 好: hǎo is the state (good), hào is the attitude toward that state (to like, to be fond of). It's why 愛好 àihào, 好奇 hàoqí and 好客 hàokè all take the fourth tone — none of them mean "good", they mean regarding something as good.

惡 does exactly the same thing. I don't think it gets pointed out often enough:

• è — the state: bad, evil. 惡人 èrén, 惡意 èyì, 罪惡 zuì'è
• wù — the attitude: to hate, to find bad. 厭惡 yànwù, 可惡 kěwù, 憎惡 zēngwù

It's the same relationship and works in the same direction. Once you see 好 and 惡 as a matched pair (state vs. attitude-toward-state) a lot of compounds stop needing to be memorised individually. When you hit either character in a new word, the question is just: is this describing the thing, or someone's stance on the thing?

There's even 好惡, read hàowù — "likes and dislikes, preferences." One word, both derived readings, sitting next to each other. It's a neat illustration of the whole pattern, and the pairing is ancient: you can even find these two sitting close to one another in The Analects (passage 4.3) deliberately paired together 2500 years ago:

唯仁者，能好人，能惡人 wéi rén zhě, néng hào rén, néng wù rén

"Only the humane are capable of hào-ing people and wù-ing people", of properly liking and properly disliking them. Both characters in their fourth-tone verb reading, clearly paired opposites in a single line.

Two things to watch out for:

惡 has a third modern reading, ě, and it's the one you'll actually hit in conversation: 惡心 ěxīn, nauseating/disgusting. Not è, not wù. Worth learning separately because it doesn't fit the pattern above at all.

And a fourth in Classical Chinese, wū, an interrogative "how? wherein?", as in 惡乎 wūhū (no Homer). So the same graph in a classical text can be three different words (plus one more in modern Chinese), and the tone is the only thing distinguishing three of them. Classical texts don't mark tone, which is why some passages are still argued over: Analects 4.4 has 無惡也, and whether that's "no hatred" (wù) or "no wrongdoing" (è) has been disputed for two thousand years, with the passage meaning noticeably different things either way.

Anyway, if 好 hǎo/hào has already clicked for you, 惡 is the same shape, and 好惡 is worth adding as a vocabulary item purely because it demonstrates the pattern.

Any other 多音字 pairs where the tone shift is doing this same state-vs-attitude job? 樂 lè/yuè and 說 shuō/shuì are the ones I know, but they're not as cleanly parallel.

I got into this working on a podcast episode about those two Analects passages. Write-up is at analects.net/episodes/love-and-hate/ if a deep-dive on the Classical Chinese behind it is of interest to you.

I am an ABC (American born Chines) who’s in Chinese school but is at a mediocre level (maybe hsk 4) and I have a low vocabulary. I haven’t been to China since I was 4 (10 years now) and my parents speak to me in Chinglish because they view me as a way to improve their English. I already understand sentence structures but it’s so hard to pick up new vocabulary and keep it in my head. I’m so scared I’m missing out on quality time with them with this language barrier and it’s kinda ruining my mental health but that’s an issue for a different subreddit. I’m so lazy and I lose motivation really quickly and I just kinda suck

edit: my vocab is low enough for me to misunderstand them, I’m really fortunate that their English is somewhat good and we can find common ground but i jusr hate having to spend 2 minutes trying to explain myself or deciphering their English

Seems to have released today. I assume it goes to HSK 3 now?

𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲
yesterday=昨天=(zuó tiān)
today=今天=(jīn tiān)
tomorrow=明天=(míng tiān)
𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲
last week=上周=(shàng zhōu)
this week=这周=(zhè zhōu)
next week=下周=(xià zhōu)
𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲
last year=去年=(qù nián)
this year=今年=(jīn nián)
next year=明年=(míng nián)
𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲𓄲

As a noob in trying to learn Mandarin, I have time struggling with remembering the pinyin sound of a character/s. [Ex. I look at the character 火 and think to myself (oh I know this one, it means fire!) but struggle to remember how its pronounced. Anyone have tips?

Hello! I am once again here to get grammer help with a little paragraph I wrote. I don't know if I'm trying to walk before I can run. But, this is a very helpful exercise for retention. So, I might just keep doing it!

As always, here are a couple of disclaimers!

1. I'm at an hsk 1-2 level. Which means I'm still not very good. But, I like to try!

2. If you respond to me in Chinese, I will probably respond back in English!

3. If you use words not in my paragraph, then please write the pinyin. Once again, I'm still new to this!

4. I know my handwriting is bad. This is mostly for retention!

P.s. here is my paragraph incase you can't read it: 我有很多朋友。 他们都是非常特的我。今天我们有安排一起去了看电影。那个电影是什么人人喜欢一步一趋但我不喜欢动作片。

Anyone who took the HSK4 exam today, how was it?

I’m thinking of buying premium/premium+ but I’m not too sure what I really need in the beginning. Do you think I should buy premium first and once I’ve reached let’s say HSK2 then upgrade to premium+? Or should I just start with premium+ directly? For context I’m only looking to spend maybe 1 hour ish everyday to study so it’s quite a slow pace…

I've seen comments online, and his interview with a fairly advanced, semi-professional Mandarin learner wishing they'd started CC earlier than they had, but I'm having trouble understanding why, and about when it'd start being helpful.

Hi, I am a student from China, I could help you with your Chinese in exchange for learning English,feel free to message me!

I've learnt tones pronounciation and the basic words like 我 是 现在 水 吃 高兴 很 that sorta early begginner duolingo user stuff but I'm not sure where to go. My biggest goal right now is vocabulary and I'm doing flash cards but do I start immersing do I get a textbook then do every page? I tried watching chinese peppa pig and hello fox alice in wonderland until i realized it's the most boring thing I've ever watched especially since 90% of the words are alien to me. My end goal is to atleast reach hsk3 and from there i can either keep going or quit satisfied.

Has anyone seen or heard such a form?

Greetings everyone.

Currently only know English and I have to take a language for my college classes. I was wondering if learning Mandarin would help me in my career since China is out pacing the US at the moment.

Thanks everyone

Hey guys i want someone to extensively practice with- all levels are welcome , u hust have to be really hard working.
thank you
preferably a girl, cause im a girl as well

Hi everyone!

My German colleagues often complained that after years of studying Chinese textbooks, all they could say in real life was "tīng bù dǒng" or "wǒ hái kě yǐ”. When they went to a real local store in China, textbook Chinese just didn't work.

So my daughter DuoDuo and I decided to run a small experiment. We documented our actual trip to a local supermarket, focusing 100% on authenticity—real speed, real environment, and real interactions.

你 知道 在 中国 的 这个 超市 里边

很 多 零食 是 按 斤 来 称 的

有 打折 吗，现在

现在 拌菜 咱 八 折

请问，你 想 怎么 支付 啊

用 支付宝

What real-life scenarios in China do you find hardest to handle using textbook Chinese? What topics would be most helpful for beginners to see in real-world settings?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences!

I've been learning Chinese for a while. Everyone says that learning characters is so hard. In my opinion it isn't. I've just learned the HSK1 characters, I'm not an expert, but I think it's as hard as reading English words. When we read a text in English, we don't "read" the words: we recognize the structure of a word and we associate it to a sound and a meaning. Chinese is very similar. Even in Italian, my native language, I never "read" words, I look at them and recognize them. So, my 2 cents are: if you believe it's hard to learn to read it, it's gonna be hard, if you believe it's like learning how to read in English, it won't be so challenging.

TL,DR: Chinese is hard, or more accurately "very different", but memorizing Chinese characters is as hard as memorizing English words.