Top resources to learn chinese for free online
Learning chinese can pose quite a challenge for non-chinese citizens as the pronunciation and character system works differently and it doesn’t relate to the alphabet at all. Here’s some recommended online resources to ease the journey of learning chinese.
- Youtube, YouKu, Tudou
These 3 video streaming platforms provide thousands of different free chinese learning content. There are many interesting ways included in those teaching videos to enhance the learning process and learners can definitely remember better. Those videos were posted by different persons or channels that provide more options to chinese learners ranging from beginners level to advanced level. Chinese learners can also use these platforms to access free audio learning resources.
2. ANKI : https://apps.ankiweb.net/
This is a great tool for learning chinese beginners. It is available to download for both windows and mac versions. It is easy to install and there are a lot of languages available to choose as the main interface language. After installing it on the computer, users can now download the desired courses online and add them to the application. The learning resources are available in the form of flashcards and the pronunciation is provided too. The SRS software that built in the application also allows users to keep track of what they have learnt and study it efficiently. Advanced users can also create their own flashcards with ANKI.
3. Tatoeba : https://tatoeba.org/eng
It is a free online platform that provides translation and sentences of a specific word. It is user friendly and multiple languages selection available for the users to choose. It is particularly useful for chinese learners to look at examples and how words are used in the context of a sentence. It provides multiple translations at once of a single word search. It is a community based project, hence if users are unsure of the pronunciation of a chinese word, users can just add the specific word into the system via the user’s own native language and wait for other users to translate it.
4. Jukuu : http://jukuu.com/
It was founded in 2004 by the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications is another chinese website that provides chinese-english example sentences. To enhance the overall chinese learning experience, users can use this platform to search for sentences of a particular wish-to-learn word and add it to the ANKI system to retain the information for long term use. However, this platform’s interface is only available in chinese. It can be quite challenging to use for non-chinese users.
5. MDBG Chinese Dictionary : https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary
It is a community based, free english to chinese dictionary and a must have study aid in chinese learning. This online platform offers a variety of services including quizzes, flashcards, text annotation, chinese input and more. In addition, it is a great tool to learn chinese character as it categorised all the words that shared the same components. It also teaches users the pronunciation and pin-yin of chinese words. The interface is written in English and there are no advertisements popping out while using it. Overall, it is a great aid to the chinese learners!
6. Chinese podcasts
Chinese podcasts that were hosted by native speakers helped a lot in building up the chinese learners learning ability and exposure to the chinese cultures. One of the recommended chinese podcasts is BearTalk ( 狗熊有话说). It is available on youtube and also iTunes. It has a lot of topics such as technology, productivity and language learning. There are a lot of other chinese podcasts available online and free to access. Chinese learners can pick the one they prefer to help with the journey of learning chinese.
7. Chinese Language Stack Exchange : https://chinese.stackexchange.com/
It is an online forum that provides answers to the chinese language related questions asked by users. It will show only the best answer after filtering out the bad ones through a voting system of the chinese and non-chinese learners. It is an additional tool in learning chinese, but the fundamental ones are those that were mentioned above.
8. Chinese Boost : https://www.chineseboost.com/
It is particularly useful when it comes to chinese grammar. Under the grammar section, it categorised based on the difficulty levels, keywords, characters, functions and parts of speech. This categorisation allows users to browse for chinese grammar rules easily and it teaches in english language. It also consists of a tool that helps to convert chinese text to pin-yin for those who wish to learn more chinese pin-yin. Chinese learners can also refer to the chinese sentence examples on the site to further enhance the chinese knowledge.
9. Chinese forums : https://www.chinese-forums.com/
It is inevitable to ask questions along the journey of learning chinese. This is the place to go if chinese learners are looking for a free online “teacher”. There are many active users online on this platform to ensure the questions posted were answered. Users can also attach images in the question. It is a great place to interact with other chinese learners or chinese experts to make the learning process more interesting.
10. Perapera : https://www.perapera.org/rocket-chinese-review/
Perapera is a japanese word that means to be fluent in a language. It is initially a japanese and chinese pop-up dictionary plugin for Google and firefox browser. It has evolved over the years into an online hub with study techniques and tips for languages such as chinese, japanese and korean.