thehumbletrapazoid

[thehumbletrapazoid]

Free or Cheap Mandarin Chinese Learning Resources Because You Can't Let John Cena One Up You Again

I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is Mandarin specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.

For the purposes of this list "free" means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. "Cheap" is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest a resource for this list please suggest ones in that price range that are of decent quality and not AI generated.

WEBSITES

Dong Chinese - A website with lessons, a pinyin guide, a dictionary, and various videos and practice tests. With a free account you're only allowed to do one lesson every 12 hours. To do as many lessons as quickly as you want it costs $10 a month or $80 a year.

Domino Chinese - A paid website with video based lessons from absolute beginner to college level. They claim they can get you ready to get a job in China. They offer a free trial and after that it's $5 a month or pay what you can if you want to support their company.

Chinese Education Center - This is an organization that gives information to students interested in studying abroad in China. They have free text based lessons for beginners on vocab, grammar, and handwriting.

Pleco Dictionary App - This is a very popular dictionary app on both iOS and Android. It has a basic dictionary available for free but other features can be purchased individually or in bundles. A full bundle that has what most people would want is about $30 but there are more expensive options with more features.

MIT OpenCourseWare Chinese 1 2 3 4 5 6 - These are actual archived online courses from MIT available for free. You will likely need to download them onto your computer.

Learn Chinese Web Application From Cambridge University - This is a free downloadable file with Mandarin lessons in a PC application. There's a different program for beginner and intermediate.

Learn Chinese Everyday - A free word a day website. Every day the website posts a different word with pronunciation, stroke order, and example sentences. There's also an archive of free downloadable worksheets related to previous words featured on the website.

Chinese Boost - A free website and blog with beginner lessons and articles about tips and various resources to try.

Chinese Forums - An old fashioned forum website for people learning Chinese to share resources and ask questions. It's still active as of when I'm making this list.

Du Chinese - A free website and an app with lessons and reading and listening practice with dual transcripts in both Chinese characters and pinyin. They also have an English language blog with tips, lessons, and information on Chinese culture.

YOUTUBE CHANNELS

Chinese For Us - A channel that provides free video lessons for beginners. The channel is mostly in English.

Herbin Mandarin - A channel with a variety of lessons for beginners. The channel hasn't uploaded in a while but there's a fairly large archive of lessons to watch. The channel is mainly in English.

Mandarin Blueprint - This channel is by a couple of guys who also run a paid website. However on their YouTube channel there's a lot of free videos with tips about how to go about learning Chinese, pronunciation and writing tips, and things of that nature. The channel is mainly in English.

Blabla Chinese - A comprehensible input channel with content about a variety of topics for beginner to intermediate. The video descriptions are in English but the videos themselves are all in Mandarin.

Lazy Chinese - A channel aimed at intermediate learners with videos on general topics, grammar, and culture. They also have a podcast. The channel has English descriptions but the videos are all in Mandarin.

Easy Mandarin - A channel associated with the easy languages network that interviews people on the street in Taiwan about everyday topics. The channel has on screen subtitles in traditional characters, pinyin, and English.

StickynoteChinese - A relatively new channel but it already has a decent amount of videos. Jun makes videos about culture and personal vlogs in Mandarin. The channel is aimed at learners from beginner to upper intermediate.

Story Learning Chinese With Annie - A comprehensible input channel almost entirely in Mandarin. The host teaches through stories and also makes videos about useful vocabulary words and cultural topics. It appears to be aimed at beginner to intermediate learners.

LinguaFlow Chinese - Another relatively new channel but they seem to be making new videos regularly. The channel is aimed at beginner to intermediate learners and teaches and provides listening practice with video games. The channel is mostly in Mandarin.

Lala Chinese - A channel with tips on grammar and pronunciation with the occasional vlog for listening practice, aimed at upper beginner to upper intermediate learners. Some videos are all in Mandarin while others use a mix of English and Mandarin. Most videos have dual language subtitles onscreen.

Grace Mandarin Chinese - A channel with general information on the nitty gritty of grammar, pronunciation, common mistakes, slang, and useful phrases for different levels of learners. Most videos are in English but some videos are fully in Mandarin.

READING PRACTICE

HSK Reading - A free website with articles sorted into beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Every article has comprehension questions. You can also mouse over individual characters and see the pinyin and possible translations. The website is in a mix of English and Mandarin.

chinesegradedreader.com - A free website with free short readings up to HSK level 3 or upper intermediate. Each article has an explaination at the beginning of key vocabulary words in English and you can mouse over individual characters to get translations.

Mandarin Companion - This company sells books that are translated and simplified versions of classic novels as well as a few originals for absolute beginners. They are available in both traditional and simplified Chinese. Their levels don't appear to be aligned with any HSK curriculum but even their most advanced books don't have more than 500 individual characters according to them so they're likely mostly for beginners to advanced beginners. New paperbacks seem to usually be $14 but cheaper used copies, digital copies, and audiobooks are also available. The website is in English.

Graded Chinese Readers - Not to be confused with chinese graded reader, this is a website with information on different graded readers by different authors and different companies. The website tells you what the book is about, what level it's for, whether or not it uses traditional or simplified characters, and gives you a link to where you can buy it on amazon. They seem to have links to books all the way from HSK 1 or beginner to HSK 6 or college level. A lot of the books seem to be under $10 but as they're all from different companies your mileage and availability may vary. The website is in English.

Mandarin Bean - A website with free articles about Chinese culture and different short stories. Articles are sorted by HSK level from 1 to 6. The website also lets you switch between traditional or simplified characters and turn the pinyin on or off. It also lets you mouse over characters to get a translation. They have a relatively expensive paid tier that gives you access to video lessons and HSK practice tests and lesson notes but all articles and basic features on the site are available on the free tier without an account. The website is in a mix of Mandarin and English.

Mandarin Daily News - This is a daily newspaper from Taiwan made for children so the articles are simpler, have illustrations and pictures, and use easier characters. As it's for native speaker kids in Taiwan, the site is completely in traditional Chinese.

New Tong Wen Tang for Chrome or Firefox - This is a free browser extension that can convert traditional characters to simplified characters or vice versa without a need to copy and paste things into a separate website.

PODCASTS

Melnyks Chinese - A podcast for more traditional audio Mandarin Chinese lessons for English speakers. The link I gave is to their website but they're also available on most podcatcher apps.

Chinese Track - Another podcast aimed at learning Mandarin but this one goes a bit higher into lower intermediate levels.

Dimsum Mandarin - An older podcast archive of 30 episodes of dialogues aimed at beginner to upper beginner learners.

Dashu Mandarin - A podcast run by three Chinese teachers aimed at intermediate learners that discusses culture topics and gives tips for Mandarin learners. There are also male teachers on the podcast which I'm told is relatively rare for Mandarin material aimed at learners and could help if you're struggling to understand more masculine speaking patterns.

Learning Chinese Through Stories - A storytelling podcast mostly aimed at intermediate learners but they do have some episodes aimed at beginner or advanced learners. They have various paid tiers for extra episodes and learning material on their patreon but there's still a large amount of episodes available for free.

Haike Mandarin - A conversational podcast in Taiwanese Mandarin for intermediate learners. Every episode discusses a different everyday topic. The episode descriptions and titles are entirely in traditional Chinese characters. The hosts provide free transcripts and other materials related to the episodes on their blog.

Learn Chinese With Ju - A vocabulary building podcast aimed at intermediate learners. The podcast episodes are short at around 4-6 minutes and the host speaks about a variety of topics in a mix of English and Mandarin.

xiaoyuzhou fm - An iOS app for native speakers to listen to podcasts. I’m told it has a number of interactive features. If you have an android device you’ll likely have to do some finagling with third party apps to get this one working. As this app is for native speakers, the app is entirely in simplified Chinese.

Apple Podcast directories for Taiwan and China - Podcast pages directed towards users in those countries/regions.

SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKS AND DICTIONARIES

Learning Chinese Characters - This series is sorted by HSK levels and each volume in the series is around $11. Used and digital copies can also be found for cheaper.

HSK Standard Course Textbooks - These are textbooks designed around official Chinese government affiliated HSK tests including all of the simplified characters, grammar, vocab, and cultural knowledge necessary to pass each test. There are six books in total and the books prices range wildly depending on the level and the seller, going for as cheap as $14 to as expensive as $60 though as these are pretty common textbooks, used copies and cheaper online shops can be found with a little digging. The one I have linked to here is the HSK 1 textbook. Some textbook sellers will also bundle them with a workbook, some will not.

Chinese Made Easy for Kids - Although this series is aimed at children, I'm told that it's also very useful for adult beginners. There's a large number of textbooks and workbooks at various levels. The site I linked to is aimed at people placing orders in Hong Kong but the individual pages also have links to various other websites you can buy them from in other countries. The books range from $20-$35 but I include them because some of them are cheaper and they seem really easy to find used copies of.

Reading and Writing Chinese - This book contains guides on all 2300 characters in the HSK texts as of 2013. Although it is slightly outdated, it's still useful for self study and is usually less than $20 new. Used copies are also easy to find.

Basic Chinese by Mcgraw Hill - This book also fuctions as a workbook so good quality used copies can be difficult to find. The book is usually $20 but it also often goes on sale on Amazon and they also sell a cheaper digital copy.

Chinese Grammar: A beginner's guide to basic structures - This book goes over beginner level grammar concepts and can usually be found for less than $20 in print or as low as $2 for a digital copy.

Collins Mandarin Chinese Visual Dictionary - A bilingual English/Mandarin visual dictionary that comes with a link to online audio files. A new copy goes for about $14 but used and digital versions are available.

Merriam-Webster's Chinese to English Dictionary - In general Merriam Websters usually has the cheapest decent quality multilingual dictionaries out there, including for Mandarin Chinese. New editions usually go for around $8 each while older editions are usually even cheaper.

(at the end of the list here I will say I had a difficult time finding tv series specifically made for learners of Mandarin Chinese so if you know of any that are made for teenage or adult learners or are kids shows that would be interesting to adults and are free to watch without a subscription please let me know and I will add them to the list. There's a lot of Mandarin language TV that's easy to find but what I'm specifically interested in for these lists are free to watch series made for learners and/or easy to understand kids shows originally made in the target language that are free and easy to access worldwide)

[thehumbletrapazoid]

the vampire julia

[thehumbletrapazoid]

Interesting. Quick question tho.

The fact that people in Nicaragua are currently performing backbreaking farming labor for so little pay that being offered a job that pays the equivalent of less than $3.50 USD an hour would constitute an opportunity for upward mobility is...

A. a completely naturally occurring and politically neutral state of affairs, just the way the world happens to be for no reason in particular.

B. a condition that exists as the direct result of decades of interventionism and lobbying by American fruit corporations to deliberately repress wages and labor laws throughout central american countries to keep production costs low for the plantations they own in these countries.

[thehumbletrapazoid]

[thehumbletrapazoid]

assuming that people like you and want to spend time with you is crucial to making friends. unfortunately this is the hardest thing to do in the world

[thehumbletrapazoid]

😭😭

[thehumbletrapazoid]

[thehumbletrapazoid]

[thehumbletrapazoid]

dino-anarchy -> thehumbletrapazoid

url change :]

[thehumbletrapazoid]

what's the first movie you remember seeing in theaters? don't try and be all edgy and cool and say like tetsuo: the iron man. be honest.

Go!!

[thehumbletrapazoid]

lets be exhausted on mama

[thehumbletrapazoid]

handmade drawing references :)

I took these pictures mainly to analyze my hand structure. Feel free to use them for your art, if you'd like to!

[thehumbletrapazoid]

being a little handsy

[thehumbletrapazoid]

i'm literally cuddlebait. i'm internationally recognized as a snuggle risk. they've got me on the registry of snoozers with two charges of soft and reasonable suspicions of smells good

[thehumbletrapazoid]

Quick what are you doing RIGHT now (besides scrolling Tumblr)

[thehumbletrapazoid]

Holy **** oh right okay. So I was about to make a post about how using speech to text has already been a game changer for me but as you can see by the line of asterix at the start of this post the bloody thing auto censors swear words. (Yet bloody got through, ig Because it is a description and also British slang.). Hint: the word I was trying to say there starts with F and ends with K.

Oh and guess what else you can't say you can't say? **** [Nipples]. had to type that myself. penis is ok but **** [clitoris] isn't, and all my attempts to say "clit" were Misunderstood, which may just be my speech but at this point I am not willing to give the benefit of the doubt. Vagina is OK too but every time I say it there is a moment when an * shows up on screen first before the full word does. this doesn't happen when I say the word penis.

It is completely heinous. Anybody who needs speech to text is immediately forced to comply with the rules set out by people in a position of power and then enforced by a machine — a machine that is a very powerful accessibility tool. Imagine trying to dictate a letter to a doctor or fill in an E consult with speech to text, only to have words of your anatomy censored as if they are taboo. there is already far too much stigma around genital physical health — and note that I could say genital but can't say **** [clitoris] — for it to be okay for these words to be censored.

And even if somebody just wants to swear In a message to their friends or write smut/**** [pornography], they should be able to. There is no justification for this feature. No reason for it to be default.

I'm trying to find a way around this. There is a settings icon on the little speech to text bar that comes up, but this only gives me options For the speech typing launcher, auto punctuation, and to set the default microphone. it's making me extremely angry

[thehumbletrapazoid]

Notes i took about a production of dog sees god I saw a month or two ago! (It was a small nonprofit theater and it was super sick-they used a further revised version of the script by Bert v Royal ):

The end lighting of vipers nest was purple and yellow<3

The piano becomes a symbol of loss/grief (and almost functions as a grave) after beethoven’s suicide (also cb and Sally sit on it instead of the dog house)

The lunch is never removed from the piano after mal di luna

YURI‼️ (Marcy and Tricia were the gayest they’ve ever been)

The back of the stage use frames that were made to look like comic strip frames (these were used a lot for monologues)

The end costuming for every character was extremely simplistic and the closest to the original peanuts comic strips

The set changes were super in character- at one point Beethoven kissed his hand and placed it on the piano while moving it

Lucy was the #1 fujoshi

Transgender van

At his line in the CS’s letter Beethoven brought out a mini version of the dog house

The transition song choices were insane and extremely funny (Canus exequiae- who let the dogs out, nirvana-because I got high, I can’t remember the rest of them and I couldn’t take note of them but at some point they also played loser by beck and you oughta know by alanis morisette I think that was after the hangover)

On “if he was straight then I obviously wouldn’t be failing his class” Marcy stared at Tricia’s boobs and said “totally” in the dreamiest thirstiest way you can imagine and then composed herself after Tricia was like ???

CB and Lucy were the most best friends ever they were super physically affectionate they hugged multiple times and cb laid down with his head in her lap for a lot of fire is bad

Our sisters of mercy was moved to the middle of fire is bad which was really weird (one of the few things I didn’t like)

Matt immediately took out his hand sanitizer and cleaned his hands everytime “pig pen” was even alluded to

For the “cb tries to take off his shirt but Beethoven won’t let him” stage direction Beethoven stopped him then was like WTF sure and took his shirt off (the actor was so jacked it was jarring) and cb kissed his neck and down his chest and then got on his knees before the blackout

Marcy and Tricia cuddled for all of the hangover after Matt left and it looked like they almost kissed multiple times

Also they switched clothing for the hangover and Tricia was wearing Marcy’s orange cardigan and Marcy was wearing her lavender skirt (this is later referenced in peer counseling)

Matt was extremely physically affectionate and touchy with CB and almost constantly was touching him when they were on stage together

They actually committed to the bit of Sally having a different style/identity in every scene she’s in and drastically changed it every time

The opening of the play was a voice over clip of the peanuts saying “your a good man Charlie Brown” going into teenage dirtbag

There was a lot of different costumes that all stayed in the same original color theme of the characters (except sally)

Sally had extremely theater-kid esque physicality vocal choices and she had a slight like old Hollywood thing going on vocally it’s hard to explain but she was phenomenal

In general the production had the perfect balance of like campiness and honesty it was really great direction

Marcy actually started humping a chair after “all these third graders are running around like humping everything”

EVERYTHING I CAN REMEMBER OF THE REWRITES:

Top of Mal di luna: cb talks about his plan to ease everyone into their relationship being a thing and specifically talks about how he’s written a speech to confront Matt with - this is in response to Beethoven who directly expresses greater anxiety over openly existing as a queer man in relationship rather than being in a relationship with cb (in general there’s a bit more for both of them about internalized homophobia and fear of violence and ostracism from the world)

After Mal Di Luna: cb bumps into Matt (obviously freaking tf out) leaving the practice room and he begins to deliver his speech (the one he talks abt at the top of mal di luna) Matt is still losing it and shaking and on the verge of tears and he starts clinging to cb and cb is like r u good??? And Matt’s like I’m fine everything’s fine and then Cb realizes where he came from and starts freaking out and screaming WTF DID U DO WHAT DID YOU DO and pushes Matt to the floor Matt started crying and just saying “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to” over and over and cb runs back to the practice room where he presumably finds Beethoven

Our sister of mercy: ITS NOT WEIRD AND CREEPY ANYMORE AND IT WAS ACTUALLY RLLY CUTE AND SILLY- basically van is being really sweet with her and is being a good friend instead of creepy and he’s like do u think the reason cb and Beethoven is so upsetting for you because cbs always the same and your always changing and now he is changing and everything is out of sorts for you and like what if they’re happy and she’s like yeah yeah okay stoner you think lizard people are real and he’s like they are fucking real and goes on a rant about them and Sally’s like looking at him and she starts smiling and then she’s like you know guys really hate when they sleep with your siblings and van is like yeah I wasn’t a big fan of when cb was boning my sister and sally is like WOULDNT it be so crazy if we had sex?!? Omg no that’s so gross omggg we should totally have sex or like do sex stuff and van is like what?? Are u serious ??? And she’s like yeah now let’s go before I change my mind and they exit (also making what they did somewhat ambiguous is one step closer to transgender van canon to me)

Brothers and sisters: cb has a new mini monologue after the “when I was a kid im a loser bit” and I don’t have exactly what he says but he started crying and he was like “I don’t understand why life keeps pulling the football away from me or why my kite has to keep getting stuck in that fucking tree or why my dog and my friend had to die in the same fucking week” (after Beethoven dies he exclusively either calls him the dead kid or my friend- also it’s insane that the events of dsg canonically happen in a week) and Sally says “you can call him your boyfriend you know” before he goes on to “do u ever feel like you’re not a real person..”