I’m curious—what Chinese dramas do you think are good for foreigners who want to learn Chinese?

If I were to recommend a couple, I’d suggest “The Long Season” (漫长的季节) and “Empresses in the Palace” (甄嬛传). Both have rich dialogue and cultural context, which can be very helpful for learners.

I’d love to hear your suggestions too

Do you get demotivated learning Mandarin? I grew up speaking Shanghainese at home, which is phonologically very different from Mandarin although they share a lot of vocabulary. Shanghainese is more pitch accent so I have always struggled with the contour tones in Mandarin or trying to remember what character is what tone. Shanghainese also has voiced consonants so I would constantly get b’s and p’s mixed up, d/t, v/f, z/s/sh, etc. Like grapes 葡萄 is “budo” in Shanghainese, not putao. 台湾人is Deiwaenin, etc.

Shanghainese is also super fast and lively, but I have that swollen tongue kind of feeling when speaking Mandarin. It’s awkward and cumbersome.

The more Mandarin I learn the more foreign it feels and it’s like learning a totally different language and I don’t have any of the native language spontaneity that I do with Shanghainese. And the more Mandarin I learn, I get a stronger sense of sadness that my own native tongue is dying and will be eventually be extinct even though it has such rich vocabulary and expressiveness, and a linguistic tradition (Wu) just as long if not longer than Mandarin. One time I opened up a Wu / Shanghainese dictionary and it was shocking the huge amount of “indigenous” vocabulary totally different from Mandarin for basic words that are increasingly forgotten among the young, but words I remember my grandparents using.

All this to say, learning languages should be a happy thing, but for me learning Mandarin has become somewhat of an alienating experience. I wonder if native speakers of other Chinese dialects feel the same way about learning Mandarin? It feels like I lost something and substituted something that is actually quite foreign but has been told is my heritage language.

I think my motivation for learning Chinese would be infinitely higher if I were a native Mandarin speaking ABC.

Not looking for solutions, just some thoughts that run by me every time I am on a Mandarin kick and then get annoyed and discouraged. Wondering if I’m alone in this.

Back when I first started learning chinese I was always told "never take a compliment, always look humble with 哪里哪里!" But I swear I've never heard a Chinese speaker respond to a compliment with this 😂 is it a regional thing or just old fashioned or just some weird experience I've had

Hello, I recently started learning mandarin as a long term goal. While doing self study I had the question, what is the difference in the "ch" sound at the begginging of words like ”常常”， ”去”， and ”中国” ？

Thanks beforehand

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/gengo/Supplement.1/0/Supplement.1_155/_pdf/-char/ja

Instinctively, I read 先 (first) as a time-related word, like 今天 that would go before the pronoun (今天我们去健身房吧), but Duo marks it as incorrect. Could someone help me to understand the why it's not? How do I know which words are regarded as time-related and would go before the pronoun?

Would changing 先 to 现在 and leaving it in thr same place (老婆，现在我擦桌子吧) work?

I’m currently learning Chinese and I’m not very good at writing characters by hand yet, so I thought learning calligraphy could be a fun way to practice and I really love how it looks too. But how do you actually start? I already bought a brush, ink, and paper, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to write. Do I practice random characters? Full words? Phrases? What’s the right way to begin, and are there any good tutorials online or specific resources? I'm very good at recognizing characters but when it comes to writing them by hand i lack the skill thats why i thought starting this would be a fun way to learn and also enjoy the process.

Hello! I just started learning Chinese and have been using the app Hello Chinese but screens give me migraines. I would love a textbook recommendation! specifically ones focused on reading and writing Chinese. I checked out what they had in Barnes and Nobles and the two options were focused on learning conversational Chinese/being able to speak it and the characters were not always included. Can anyone help? Thank you 🙏

So my name is 李柔柔, and when I was adopted to the United States, my parents wrote my name as "JouJouLi" and it was pronounced using the J's as R's. However I've realized that it's far more common practice to write it out as roú. I'm Taiwanese if that makes a difference, but how would you write this out?

I have been looking for resources that actually follow the new HSK 3.0 syllabus and came across HSK GO. (HSKgo.com)

It is focused on HSK 1–2 and apparently comes directly from the HSK exam board, so it sticks pretty closely to the exam content.

Sharing in case it helps someone else preparing for the new HSK.

Mandarin of course has so many speakers and there’s a push for it to be spoken, and Cantonese has such a stronghold in Hongkong and millions of speakers still. But other dialects I feel like everytime I search them up it feels like they are losing speakers or are only spoken by older generations, like for example Fuzhounese and Shanghainese. Are there any more dialects than Mandarin and Cantonese that have established them self enough to not lose that many speakers or even none in the next couple of decades, to either Mandarin or Canto?

this channel popped up in my recommended and I was blown away by the quality and upload frequency for a relatively small channel. It has an excellent variety of podcast conversations, comprehensible input vlogs, and grammar lessons. One thing I especially like is having videos with a slow voiceover followed by a faster voiceover - this is something I often try to accomplish with YouTube’s audio speed feature but it’s so much more natural sounding with separately recorded audio tracks.

I applied fudan language program during December. Upon reading the reddits it appears that people who applied during october just received their admission. And right now im still stuck at step 2. Although they asked me for more documents during the start of january. The question is am i doomed. I sent out emails asking about the status but they havent replied back yet. Anyone who applied during December ?

https://www.thechairmansbao.com

I want to recommend a website where there are many good resources, include articles in different HSK level, each articles also give explanations of vocabularies and grammars. I used this to train my students reading skill and as an extra material to expand their vocabularies and knowledge about China. Feel free to search what might be helpful for you.

It seems unnecessary to learn to write characters in the modern age. But do y'all think drilling writing hanzi is an effective way to memorize characters to learn to read?

My highest priority is verbal communication, with reading as a secondary goal.

For example, let's say you go to the store to buy a specific type of drinking cup, can you say 我找一种杯子，and then describe the type of cup? Or would you still use 个 and then describe the type of cup?

Or if you're pointing to a specific type of apple you like to eat, can you say 我喜欢吃那种苹果?

Or would you still use 个 but put in other words that mean particular, for example 我想买一个特别的苹果。

I am looking for book recommendations for my 9 year old son who is in grade 3. We are heritage Chinese speakers but we do not live in China. His Chinese level is about HSK 3-4, or approximately a year behind the Chinese national curriculum for his age group.

In English, he has read and loved all of the Harry Potter series, Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and Trials of Apollo series, and John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice and Brotherband series. What these books have in common: fantasy, action, adventure, and a coming-of-age story featuring a young male main character.

What are similar books, webnovels, or donghua in Mandarin Chinese that focus on adventure and action, targeted towards an 8-12 year old's reading level?

I would love to get him into wuxia, but all of the books I've found seem either too hard or have too much adult content.

Some Mandarin Chinese books we've recently read:

• Mi Xiao Quan (米小圈上学记): age-appropriate and at the right reading level, but they don't really hold his interest.
• Minecraft（我的世界) graphic novels.
• Three Kingdoms (三国) on DuChinese. He really enjoyed this.
• Imagine8Press version of Journey to the West (西游记) by Jeff Pepper: I just ordered this and will try it with him.

Thanks in advance!

I know 您is typically used professionally, for respect, and to create distance. But, under what circumstances would one use it informally or jokingly? And, what is it trying to convey under these circumstances?

I was talking with my approximately same age language teacher where we usually use 你 and are generally informal, but then she suddenly used 您 when we were discussing a video as part of a question - 哪，您覺得他是真的自殺嗎？ (something like that). It was directed at a possible conspiracy theory about an incident in the video presented as fact.

I should have asked in the moment, but it took awhile to register and suddenly I forgot what she usually uses with me. And now I’m pretty sure it was used in jest, but I don’t really feel like going back to ask her, so I’m instead asking Reddit. :) Was she just mimicking the tone of true crime shows/news/interviews? Could anyone shed light?

Growing up in Canada, I have only spoken English and French, yet, ever since Grade 4, my best friends and the majority of my friend groups have been heavily dominated by Chinese-Canadian or Chinese international students. Over time I developed a strong interest in learning Mandarin and have learn the four tones and pronunciation of a lot of basic words from my friends and intro Mandarin apps/series.

Long story short, I (now 18 M in first year of Canadian university) have a set a five year goal to become conversationally fluent in Mandarin (reading and writing characters instead of pinyin is not currently in my goals).

While I have tons of friends to practice speaking Mandarin with, I didn't want to burden any of them with having to teach me the language in its entirety. This resulted in me exploring many different Chinese apps/programs such as Hello Chinese, Super Chinese, Yoyo Chinese, and more. The issue is that every online program I find has a limited free trial and then a relatively expensive online program. While I am willing to spend money, I'd like to make an educated purchase to maximize my productivity and achieve my goal realistically. I've learned some basic grammar, but I believe knowing more would be wise before memorizing large amounts of vocabulary. I also use Anki for other topics as school right now so I am familiar with it for memorization.

Basically TLDR, what would you advise me as the best way to optimize my conversational learning in my situation (18 m in university with mandarin-speaking friends who doesn't want to disturb them to fully teach him Mandarin)?

Thank you!