Learn Chinese Fast With These Great Tools

Learn Chinese Fast With These Great Tools The Best Tools to Learn Mandarin Chinese ChaptersSupplement Your Chinese Classes With Lessons Through AppsUsing Websites Specialised in Chinese Language ExercisesTake Part in a Chinese Language ExchangeLearn About Chinese HistoryWatch Chinese Movies in the Original Language“The Great Wall of China is a beautiful monument, but there are too many walls between men already.”This phrase was pronounced by Michael Gorbatchev - Head of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991 - during an official visit in China in 1989 just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.With language apps, there are no walls between native speakers and students of Chinese.Learning a foreign language such as Chinese can also be a difficult wall to climb.When you are a native speaker of an Indo-European language - such as French, Spanish, German or English - learning the Chinese language seems inaccessible.Even if you concentrate on Mandarin Chinese, everything is different - the pronunciation, sounds (it’s a tonal language), the Chinese writing system (necessi tating calligraphy lessons), grammar etc.That’s why it’s often not enough to simply take private Chinese lessons.Here is a series of tools you can use to supplement your Chinese lessons and learn Chinese fast: apps, websites, films, history lessons…Also discover the best way to learn Chinese...Join Facebook groups of travellers or Chinese expatriotsLook through student forums: there are a lot of Chinese seeking to learn English.Go shopping in Chinatown to practise your Chinese and find Mandarin language exchange partners. Photo by Ken Lund on Visual huntLearn About Chinese HistoryLearning a language without learning anything about its culture is like tasting a dish without knowing its ingredients.Taking Chinese language lessons is a good opportunity for finding out more about China’s history and that of its various dynasties.Learning about Chinese civilisation opens your eyes to an incredibly rich culture: literature, painting, calligraphy, music and all the arts.Chinese cha racters are a very ancient writing system. Learning their history can help you understand them. Photo credit: Fæ via VisualHuntLearning about the history of China also lets you discover the biographies of the legendary emperors who shaped Chinese culture and whose heritage is still very much present today.It also helps you review Pinyin: you can learn to recognise Chinese characters by getting to know the great figures of Chinese history.China was first inhabited more than a million years ago by Homo Erectus in the lower Palaeolithic. But Chinese history truly starts with the reign of the Yellow Emperor Huándì of the ancient ethnicity of Huaxia, who ruled in the 27th century BC.Among the 56 ethnic groups inhabiting China today, the most important is the Han, making up 95 % of the current Chinese population. They reigned over the north-east of what is now modern China for more than 400 years (206 BC to 220 AD).To learn Chinese writing in private lessons is to learn the Han writing system.Now you understand why learning Chinese is considered so difficult - even though the Chinese language is now unified, its original form - traditional Chinese - is over 2000 years old.Watch Chinese Movies in the Original LanguageOne last tip to help booster your knowledge of the Chinese language: watch Chinese films in the original language with English subtitles.You can learn Chinese through entertainment: by watching films “made in China”.But why do this to yourself?It’s excellent cognitive training. It helps the brain get used to the tones, accents and intonations in dialogue, hear phrases and expressions spoken by native-speaking Chinese actors.Watching Chinese movies is a wonderful strategy to stimulate your auditive memory and perfect your Chinese pronunciation.Apart from its non-negligible added value to your Chinese classes, Chinese movies are also helpful for cultural and linguistic immersion.A true intensive course without doing any actual work!Take Chinese cl asses London with a private tutor.