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musicheads will be like just one more song then I'm done

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我现在练习中文， 觉得用中文写博客是一个很好的注意…

我现在再看一章（？）文章，是李子柒的… 我觉得这农村生活视频很有意思，可是我爱我的手机和电脑哈哈哈，我一定不可以做她的工作。

这天… 我不太累，可是有点伤心…. 我喜欢的朋友（中文的situationship是什么？lolol）昨天晚上说了我不可以来她的宿舍，她太累了… 这一定好是好，可是我觉得我现在有很不方便的感触 😕 下个学期我不会在校内，不可以交往她… 最好的办法就是没有感触，但这不是容易。啊啊啊啊啊啊啊我不知道干什么，感什么🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲 我只可以等，看会发生什么，试着感触都没有 :/

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10 unusual language learning tips !

i see a lot of the same (sometimes unhelpful) tips being thrown around, so here’s my two cents:

1. write shopping lists/to do lists in your target language - often you don’t learn this vocab but it’s conversational & v useful! also writing yourself notes (lil pep talks on the bathroom mirror, for example) can work.

2. buy a small whiteboard and practice verb conjugation (esp. romantic languages) or script writing 

3. talk to pets in target language if possible!

4. look for quotes in your target language - often the turns of phrase are  more colloquial, and is a good opportunity to see how things are translated from your native language 

5. find a fairly easy news headline (in target lang) and try to re-write it w/ vocab you already have. you’ll quickly find gaps - this is a good thing! (if you’re feeling extra spicy, try writing a small subheading or description about the article).

6. create an imaginary friend who you speak with on the shower, or on the train, doing the laundry etc. talk w/ them in your target lang (in your head, obvs) about your day, future plans, etc etc.

~for more advanced learners~

7. when you’re more advanced, and have some grasp of past/future tenses, buy a children’s/tween’s/YA book that you’ve already read. highlight and annotate the shit out of it. you’ll know the general gist already, which makes context clues easier to find.

8. change wikipedia settings into target language - same goes for any social media site. this can be a mega challenge, but is so good for vocab, plus you’re more likely to remember the info since you worked so hard for it.

9. write a review for a book/film/record/whatever you’ve most recently consumed. maybe start a diary of them, or just have an ongoing word doc.

10. find a bilingual edition of poetry/literature if possible. you might find you can spot translation differences, but you’re sure to find some new vocab.

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i've been considering getting douyin to improve my mandarin but 1. i don't use apple and 2. i don't want my attention span to get any worse than it already is... what other chinese social media is popular that you'd recommend using to learn chinese on?

Bilibili is basically the equivalent of YouTube with longer form videos… there’s also ixigua, kuaishou, Weibo/weibo videos, xiaohongshu, and then I feel like the rest are mostly less popular competitors to those apps/sites.

Weibo, Lofter, and Xiaohongshu are more like social media oriented than just video platform sites, with Weibo being similar to Facebook and Twitter, XHS being similar to IG and Lofter being like IG/AO3/Twitter/tumblr/live journal (I say tumblr there mostly bc of its website format looking like a tumblr blog mirror site lol). Again there is a web version of douyin, though the main issue there will be that it takes a bit of scrolling to get the algorithm working in your favor and not just giving you mindless thirst trap videos.

I use Lofter a lot for reading Chinese (it’s where I’ve been getting my 狂飙 fic fix lolol), but that might not be feasible depending on your reading comprehension level.

I would use a video platform and then read the comment section when you can because there’s a lot of repetition there and casual/daily use vocab you can hammer into your brain.

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Hi! I have been learning Chinese for 8 months now, and even though I'm doing okay on HSK3 level, i feel like I'm in need of more content for this level that i can consume and practice. A lot of the shows and tv programs are still too difficult for me and i only understand around 40% of words (at most 😆).

I already watched everything on YouTube channels like Mandarin Click or Mandarin Corner etc, but in general i cant find that much for low levels. Do you happen to know where I could find some more? It could be texts, stories or videos, just below HSK4.

Sorry to take your time. Have a good day!

First of all, great progress!

I would continue just watching some programs for the exposure, even if you can't quite keep up yet.

Aside from apps and standard learning material (which I assume you already have resources for), I think for HSK 3 which I assume is beginner/intermediate, you might just have to bite the bullet and follow along with elementary school content, even if it's boring.

You can probably also find children's programming on Bilibili. I gave a rec in this ask of some Chinese cartoons to check out. Make sure to check out any recs in the notes as well!

This playlist with videos aimed toward Chinese 1st graders. It is a little dry, but the teacher speaks clearly and fairly slowly and from the first few minutes, I think it should at least be good listening practice as well as reading practice with anything visual. A lot of the first videos go over things you should already know since the videos are aimed at teaching Chinese children to read, so you may just want to skip to part 43, 课文1, where the videos will begin class readings of elementary texts.

Check out this site for scans of pages from the Ministry of Education's textbooks. The link should go straight to the page for first grade, but if you find that too easy, the menu across the top of the page goes up to 6th grade. There are just one or two years' books for each grade, I think (you'll have to click around a look). The textbooks contain short stories with pinyin guides.

This youtube channel has Chinese nursery rhymes if you don't mind the ugly ass art

Generally speaking, I think after HSK3/HSK4 is where your language skills will really see improvement so when you're still starting out there's not as much material because that's when it's expected that you just have your head stuck in a textbook.

You might find it useful to give yourself some longer term projects or challenges; translation is a good way to really spend some time thinking about the language, so it might help to find a song you really like and try translating it line by line with a dictionary. Pick a pop ballad or something that sounds cute and simple in because other genres like gufeng will probably be too difficult. Later, when your language skills have improved some more, you can try translating the same song again and see if you decide to make any different translation choices based on new insights.

If anyone wants to leave more links for beginners, please feel free to do so in the replies of this post!

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i've been considering getting douyin to improve my mandarin but 1. i don't use apple and 2. i don't want my attention span to get any worse than it already is... what other chinese social media is popular that you'd recommend using to learn chinese on?

Bilibili is basically the equivalent of YouTube with longer form videos… there’s also ixigua, kuaishou, Weibo/weibo videos, xiaohongshu, and then I feel like the rest are mostly less popular competitors to those apps/sites.

Weibo, Lofter, and Xiaohongshu are more like social media oriented than just video platform sites, with Weibo being similar to Facebook and Twitter, XHS being similar to IG and Lofter being like IG/AO3/Twitter/tumblr/live journal (I say tumblr there mostly bc of its website format looking like a tumblr blog mirror site lol). Again there is a web version of douyin, though the main issue there will be that it takes a bit of scrolling to get the algorithm working in your favor and not just giving you mindless thirst trap videos.

I use Lofter a lot for reading Chinese (it’s where I’ve been getting my 狂飙 fic fix lolol), but that might not be feasible depending on your reading comprehension level.

I would use a video platform and then read the comment section when you can because there’s a lot of repetition there and casual/daily use vocab you can hammer into your brain.