If you are interested in learning Mandarin Chinese, learn to be a better language learner first. This may seem a little counterintuitive at first. Most people’s first impulse is to go out and buy a book and CD and start memorizing vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. However, this is a major reason that so few speakers of English are successful in their attempts to learn Mandarin. The greatest struggle...

For most people, learning Chinese is the kind of abstract goal that one writes on a piece of paper. A list, maybe. Say — “100 things I want to do before I die”. Maybe it has some company on that list with things like skydiving, scuba diving, and seeing the Taj Mahal. It should not surprise you to know that most people who make these kinds of lists will not achieve the majority of...

Most people recognize that there are real and tangible benefits for those who learn Chinese now. Chinese has a reputation as a difficult language for English speakers to learn, however, this has been much exaggerated. Chinese is in reality a fairly easy language to learn, especially for those who are willing to speak and listen to native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. The benefits for those who get...

If you’ve bought Chinese language software from a reputable company and begun to go through the lessons, you’re probably already impressed (or overwhelmed) but what has been made available to you. A Chinese language software program is like a library, or a university. You can’t read every book at once, or take every course at the same time. In order to get the most out of a language...

Although you’re never ’stuck’ having to use one particular Mandarin Chinese course (you can always check out another one), it takes away a lot of hassle if you can choose one that suits your needs the first time. There are a variety of features that are important to look for when choosing a course for learning Mandarin Chinese, and I have outlined some of them here for you. Comprehensive....

You have seen it everyplace. The pleasurable strokes in jet black brushed on a canvas. Meaning something, but were unsure what. You see it in tattoos left on the skin to declare deep significance to the wearer, and often out of curiosity we ask what it signifies. It is a peaceful mystery, we are drawn to it naturally. The infamy of Chinese calligraphy has become an art to be understood and learned....

Everyone has their own reasons for learning a new language such as Chinese, Spanish or French. These days, a number of individuals are choosing to learn Spanish over the other common languages. It is true that Spanish is a beautiful language just like Spain, but there are other reasons as well why majority are choosing to learn Spanish. The number one reason why people feel the need to learn Spanish...

Deciding which language is easiest or hardest to learn is a regular discussion between speakers of different languages. Some will point out how languages with phonetic spelling like Spanish and Italian are easier. However those languages tend to have a complex verb system with hundreds of verb stems to memorize. On the other hand languages like English which are not phonetic have a relatively simple...

Tips on learning a foreign language are very important to improve our skills. There are many tips to improve our knowledge as well as our skills. English is the common of all that is being spoken in almost all the countries, except very few. But as it is the medium of instruction in schools and colleges, it is commonly used and necessarily tips are not required for it. But there are a few languages...

Do you struggle with Chinese tones? If so, you do need to know the answers to the following questions: Which parts of the brain help you to understand speech? Is there any difference if you hear English or Chinese language? How should this affect your learning of Chinese language? Chinese Language and Your Brain Researchers recently analyzed brain scans of English speakers and Mandarin Chinese speakers....