Beginner’s Guide to Learning Chinese

Ready to go? Now it is the right time to work out a learning plan, getting prepared with the necessary learning materials, supplementary tools and the proper way to use them.

The first step is to learn the pinyin system which lets you grasp the way to speak mandarin. Standard pronunciation and tonal accuracy is the solid foundation of your coming move on your future Chinese learning.

Now no matter you decide to take Chinese courses or learn on your own, a suitable Chinese dictionary is a must. As a beginner, do not hurry into choosing a thick dictionary with as many as Chinese characters; instead, you would be wise to have a practical dictionary designed specifically for beginners like The Starter Oxford Chinese Dictionary or Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary. Although there are several free online Chinese dictionaries, they only give you a very brief translation in English without detailed explanation on the usage and varied meanings. Especially to a beginner, never form the bad habit of consulting a Chinese character or word by using online dictionary as it may causes misunderstanding.

Next, you need a well-designed learning series set for a beginner-to-advanced systematic learning. A couple of things should be taken into consideration like the publishing time, version, simplified or traditional Chinese form, because many expressions used in older books are out-of-date. Be sure to focus on book set equipped with CD, textbook and workbook like Easy Chinese Mandarin, Level I. Keep in mind the best way of learning Chinese is the spiral approach, meaning in the circulation of new things, application and review.

Chinese learning is character learning since Chinese characters take the core position. As I have mentioned in the Chinese Character Overview, though there are about 80,000 characters, a few thousands of them are more than enough. You will find a new Chinese symbol encountered is combined with two symbols you have learned previously. Learn the simple and frequently used Chinese characters first. As you learn more and more Chinese symbols, you will begin to be able to guess the meaning of some new ones. You will find it quite hard to remember a character. In the opening part of Chinese 101, you may have met two Chinese characters. Yeah, some Chinese characters look like a drawing, so try to link the character and the picture in your mind. It is really interesting and effective. There are a few of books, such as Fun with Chinese Characters, which includes not only a Chinese character with vivid explanation on its structure by little story, but the character in phrases and a sentence to provide better understanding and expand your vocabulary. Another book, What's in a Chinese Character, which takes you to trace the lineage and reasons for about 500 characters with cartoons drawing and text explanations. Some similar characters are also listed to help you learn more easily at one time.

It is important to learn the correct way to write each Chinese character and if possible. Take a software like Rosetta Stone Chinese (Mandarin) Level I to show you how to write a Chinese character stroke by stroke (as Chinese character has stroke order) visually together with its correct pronunciation in Mandarin, its meaning in English and words, phrases, sentence built in a systematic progression, so you may learn the sound, shape, meaning and usage at one time. The pronunciation and the listening value of Rosetta Stone Chinese are superb. It allows you to record your voice for analysis of the standard pronunciation. So you may correct your pronunciation instantly. Anyway, you may regard it as your live tutor.

Do not miss any opportunity to practice reading and writing Chinese characters. Some tools are helpful. Flashcards, such as Chinese Character Flashcards 888 or Chinese in a Flash, demonstrate character combinations, their pronunciation in pinyin, the meaning in English and the usage. Carry some cards with you and refer to them when you have a moment. The regular review of these symbols reinforces your memory.

After a period of character and word learning, you may focus more on the combination of learned characters, short phrases and simple sentence pattern. Haven’t you remembered that in Chinese101? I mentioned combination of two or more characters always brings a new word. Beginning Chinese Reader is the right book edited in the way of putting more emphasis on combinations rather than characters alone, 10 new characters introduced in every lesson together with many more words.

Ears are your important gateway to absorb new words also. Think about how you learn your mother tongue when you are a baby. You get to know every thing by ears. So concentrate on listening whenever you have time, if you have mp3 or iPod, you even may listen the conversation when you are jogging. Look around ChinesePod.com, there are more than 100 topic-centric lessons for beginners. In the way of bilingual conversation by two hosts from China and England separately, some popular topics in today’s China containing many useful expression and sentence patterns are brought in. 

Grammar is not as tough as characters in Chinese learning, a classical book is enough. A well-written grammar book for low to intermediate learner concludes all the grammar problems you will encounter during your study. Like Chinese: An Essential Grammar, which provides a clear and concise reference guide to modern Mandarin grammar, presents a fresh and accessible description of the language, focusing on the real patterns of use in today's Chinese or Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar, which delivers the grammar in a concise and practical manner. Watch out to not choose grammar book written using a lot of linguistic terms which take you more effort to understand what these terms mean.

Here I would like to give a tip on how to write a good-looking character. In English, a long word usually takes more space; while in Chinese, no matter less or more strokes, every character is given same amount of space. As a result, some characters with fewer strokes look much looser than those with more strokes. Chinese characters may roughly be divided into four main groups according to the structure: stand alone structure like 米, top and bottom like 早, top mid bottom like 等, left and right like 理 and left mid right like 班. Keep the rules such as leaving more space of the part of a character and some margin between two characters, try to reach a proper proportion in every part of a character. There is a easy way for you to do so. Make grid as below for every character to help you better handle the character writing.

Last but not the least, every starter should keep a Chinese saying in mind. 欲速则不达, it means more haste, less speed. So always learn smart with the help of the good learning materials and tools step by step.

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