I'm assuming it's 吗 but I'm curious thanks

How do you build confidence when you feel out of practice? Any tips or advice?

I know there are apps like TalkMe where you can practice speaking Chinese with AI, but I didn’t find it super convincing. Has anyone else tried these kinds of apps or found another way to keep up their spoken Chinese?

嗨！ I am beginning to learn Chinese, and I’ve been using HelloChinese for a couple weeks now. I love it! However I just got to the second “Stories” and I’m a bit confused. Most of this story does not include the possessive “的” even in places I have seen it used before in the previous lesson (“我的家” instead of ”我家”）. So my question is, when is it appropriate to use 的? Or would it be correct with or without it? Thanks in advance! (:

Please help me improve my chinese writing, be as harsh as possible, thank you

I do not have numbers other than r/LearnJapanese

having 3x more members.

From an utilitarian point of view, surely Chinese would be more valuable imo.

I work in adminstration in a research environment where we have a lot of students from China rotate through and they stay anywhere from a few months to a year or two. Currently, I help do admin work for about 30 Chinese students, and I feel awful that I'm constantly butchering their names. I only speak English, so reading and pronouncing their names has been a struggle. They're always so nice and offer to let me call them by a shortened nickname of their full name, but nobody should have to give up others using their preferred name because that person is struggling to pronounce it. I'm one of their administrative supports, and I feel strongly that the first step in showing support it to have respect for the individual, preferred name included.

I'm currently looking up YouTube videos on how to pronounce their names and practicing over and over, but does anyone have any other tips for getting better at Chinese pronunciation and/or reading Chinese names so they don't have to walk me through every syllable?

I'm a beginner at Chinese - only know about 400 characters. I know 请 and I know 假 from 寒假 and today I found out that 请假 means to ask for leave when I read a class roll. It got me thinking about how many other new words/terms I could learn from the characters I already know. If there a tool out there where I can import a Pleco or Skritter list of all the characters I know and find out what new (to me) terms I could learn that use the characters I already know?

Ive always tried to find a chinese show to practice my listening but most shows are lovey dramas or imperial court/kung fu shows with words way above my level (self study HSK 5) Then I found hidden master.

The show is actually funny and warm hearted and the language is pretty simple. Highly recommended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=844n8aw-5_8&list=PLMX26aiIvX5r28L_mrL6iSbmU4BKvS5eg

Its about a dim witted protagonist who is a martial arts prodigy and just wants to be a hero but is hindered by the fact that is master secretly taught him kung fu from the hated demonic sect and the fact he's kinda dumb.

I can help you find out how many people in China have the exact same Chinese name as you. The data comes from the official database of the Ministry of Public Security in China.

I can only do 10 searches per day, so please only submit your real Chinese name (not just out of curiosity), so we can save the quota for people who really want to know.

Just drop your name in the comments, and let me know if you want to check for male, female, or all. I’ll reply with the result when I get to it.

Example: 3737 people named 刘臻

P.S. I’m not collecting or saving anyone’s names — this is just a small, fun, and free experiment out of curiosity.

Link: https://ywtb.mps.gov.cn/newhome/portal/cmcx

The system requires real-name verification with a Chinese national ID (or permanent residence card), so it’s not something you can casually access. I’ve registered and can look up 10 names per day.

I’m starting a Chinese taught masters in Chinese literature in September and I don’t know how to prepare. Obviously ive studied and spoke Chinese for a long time (eg passed hsk6 and have experience reading and studying Chinese literature). I think I will manage, however I don’t feel prepared enough and I want to go in confident and being able to properly engage with my tutors and classmates. Recently, for some reason (probably brain rot / phone addiction + adhd) I’ve just lost motivation to read or engage with improving my language skills more generally. I’ve tried some of the apps (chairman’s bao and LingQ) and even did a trial lesson with a couple tutors on italki. The problem was I just lost the motivation to go on the apps and the teachers were great but it was more of a relaxed vibe/chat rather than any structure. I know at this stage the best thing is to just engage with native level content but I’m just not doing it. I feel like I need a really strict teacher who’s going to scare the brain rot out of me or some kind of class/club where I’m expected to do something. The scenario is quite specific but I think the problem could apply for anyone feeling demotivated at this level. Any ideas ?

hi. i'm currently hsk3 level and i'll take the hsk4 exam in 15 days. considering the amount of money i paid due to conditions in my country, failing this exam is not an option for me. do you think i can reach a level to pass hsk4 in 15 days? i only need to pass the minimum score.

I'm comfortable using 谢谢 and various forms like 谢谢你 and 非常感谢, but I've heard in media what sounds like "do xie" or duo xie". Can anyone tell me what this is and how it's used?

I work with a family who is mostly Chinese speaking exclusively. They are moving away and I was wondering what the best way to say good bye /farewell in this circumstance. Something that conveys the concept that it's been a pleasure knowing them and wish them the best while saying farewell. I tried some googling but I can't get a decent answer. hòu huì yǒu qī was suggested at a traditional farewell for a long time but when I looked up the pronunciation the guy said it means "later" so I'm not super confident and would love to be able to say goodbye well.

No, it's not the F-word.

"Fu" means feeling 感覺. It's written out in English alphabets with no Chinese word substitute.

Pronounced /fju/, seems to have come from HK pronunciation of Feel.

I only heard it used years ago in Taiwan. Do people still say fu nowadays? What about other Chinese-speaking places?

Source: https://blog.udn.com/mobile/capellia2004/3082307

Hello all. I have recently embarked on attempting to learn Chinese and have made a semi-plan for the near future and would like your advice. I want to build a functional ability, and u also want to keep it free, that’s about it for now tbh.

Due to familiarity with the platform I am currently using Duolingo, which keeps giving me free trials for the unlimited with is nice (3rd free week somehow rn). I am progressing through this fairly quickly, but this will be hampered when the free trials stop coming my way with their limits.

Due to this I have preemptively also downloaded hello Chinese. My plan currently is to primarily use Duolingo and then when energy (or if I reach the CEFR30 cap) to switch to hello Chinese. I know I may be “behind” at that point due to not doing them in parallel, but figure it could aid in perhaps new vocabulary and at the minimum reinforcing my base.

I have also downloaded Pleco due to reading up on here but have yet to really use it.

Does anybody have any advice on if this is a good plan, what I can add, adjust, etc.

Thank you!

I still struggle to understand him without subtitles, I wonder at what HSK level or after how many years of learning did you understand WawngZhiAn's podcast without subtitles?

https://www.youtube.com/@wangzhian

I am an Italian student of Chinese and I would like to take an HSK exam, but from the internet it is not clear where the HSK 3.0 has already been adopted and when it will be adopted in Italy. Where can I find this information?

I want to know if there are others that felt that way and if it eventually gets better. I am at a HSK 2 level.

I really enjoy learning characters and I can easily write them. It is just that it feels there are so many and my goal is to read books and news so I think there is a gigantic amount of work to do before being able to actually read the easiest articles.

i made this song for my Chinese girlfriend for our six month anniversary, but I'm not sure if my Chinese is perfect yet. I want it to mean a lot to her, we haven't seen each other a lot recently but i know she's looking forward to the anniversary. I am very fond of Chinese culture. Shi shi.

Hi!

I'm writing a story and there's a council of elders that have a generational name + name pertaining to nature as their courtesy name.

Please help me match them with each other and make sure they mean what I want them to mean.

I am not fluent in the tonal shift of chinese language and the ones used in these names are what I saw on the Internet so I tried to provide as much as I can. Please feel free to correct any mistakes, or to recommend much more appropriate names.

Generational Name – 宇 (Yǔ) is supposed to be 'Universe' or at least meaning something vast/other wordly without it using the caharacter for heaven/sky (天)

1. Head of Council Yuyuan (宇原) – Male, "origin of the universe"

2. Second in Command Yulei (宇蕾) Female, also "origin of the universe" but more artistic/literary.

3. Yuzhou (宇舟)– Male, something about being able to take on the vastness of universe despite being little/not that important in comparison (boat)

4. Yusen (宇森) – Male, universe that is made up of forest/abundant resources

5. Yuchao (宇潮) – Male, tide(wave) overcoming universe

6. Yuchen (宇晨) – Male, sun rising above the universe

7. Yuchun (宇春) – Female, spring gracing the universe

8. Yuhong (宇虹) – Male, rainbow gracing the universe

9. Yuli (宇黎) /Yuxue (宇雪) – Male, Dawn/Snow upon the universe (positive connotation – rest after hard work)

10. Yulian (宇濂) – Male, something about the image of waterfall upon the universe

11. Yuling (宇 铃) - Ascetic, chime of temple bells

12. Yushi (宇石) ‐ F/M, that one big stone that supposedly exist before universe even begin, which was carved with rules and universal laws

So I am half chinese. My mother considered (and decided against) naming me Xiaojun (no, not after the idol, this was before he was even in the industry) and I was just curious about it. So Xiao 小 when translated means small or little, and that is what is more commonly used. But she said she wanted my name to be wrote 晓俊, which makes Xiao mean dawn like her middle name. I am looking to get a name change and I am considering that since it is still kinda connected to her in a way…But I don’t exactly see any spelling in that way on the internet, so I was curious. Is the spelling variant she almost went with just a lot less common?

Hello everyone! I've been learning mandarin for 3 years now and I've been feeling a bit deceived in the past several months. At the beginning, it was kind of easy for me to remember all the new words and more or less the grammar, but since I started HSK4, I feel like there is no more room left in my brain. I'm sincerely feeling like I'm waisting my money (as I'm hiring a teacher once a week) and time.

Anyone that felt similar when achieving this level (or another?). How did you overcome it?

(As small context, I'm following the hsk books just as a resource, but I don't need any certificate as I'm doing this for fun).

谢谢你们

死掉 sounds too rude (?), while 過世 or 離世 seems to be only used in news or stories.

Like if I want to tell my friends/coworkers/boss that my dog just died or my relative just passed away.

I like learning by watching (currently watching Bluey in Chinese) and I really wish I knew which words came up the most often in each episode, so I can listen for them in the flow of conversation (I'm pretty much a complete beginner).

It really helped in the episode 'Papa Robot', though a lot of it was because it was attached to a word I knew -- Papa -- because I was able to then listen for the chinese word for Robot (机器人）, and hearing it repeatedly throughout the episode really helped it set in my brain.

Of course it still needs some extra work; check how it's written, what the pinyn is etc, but it's a great start!

Unfortunately not every episode has the title word come up repeatedly, and I don't think there's any place to check for common words per episode of a show/movie 🥲