The Best Resources to Learn Chinese
如果问我从这本书中学到了什么？那就是重新关注你与伴侣的沟通方式
世界上有不同语言，例如英文、中文、法文、德文等，如果某人用我们听不懂的语言与我们谈话，我们不会理解他说了什么。在没有共同语言的情况下沟通，可能会导致误解、愤怒和对抗，但是幸好，我们多数人和伴侣说着同样的语言，应该吧？
事实上，伴侣间经常使用不同的语言沟通。表达爱意能用不同的语言和方法，理解你和伴侣的沟通方式，是任何良好关系和婚姻的重要组成。在此摘要中，你会了解人们对爱的需求，爱在人际间的沟通方式，以及如何寻找你可以说出口的爱之语。
你将学会：
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
Or, in this case. Don’t judge an app based on the cat in the logo.
I seriously underestimated Ninchanese. I had reviewed around 25 Chinese learning resources before finally getting around to trying it out. I’m honestly not sure what took me so long. I had the app downloaded on my phone for months. I even opened it up and played around for five or ten minutes before getting bored and moving on. I gave up on it far too soon.
It’s much better than I expected. I thought it was a silly game but really it’s so much more than that. I’d include in in a list of the best five resources for learning Chinese – along with ChinesePod, Du Chinese, italki and Pleco.
Ninchanese is fun. Many apps try to use points and gamification techniques but for the most part, it doesn’t help much with motivation. Ninchanese actually feels like a game. It’s fun and somewhat addicting. I found myself studying more than I otherwise would have in an attempt to climb the leaderboards.
Don’t let the fact that it’s a game lead you to not take Ninchanese seriously. It’s extensive. Seriously, there is an absurd amount of content. Many resources claim they can take you from absolute beginner to fluent. Generally, this is BS. Ninchanese comes as close to following through on that claim as anyone could hope to.
I usually hate it when resources take a broad approach. It almost never works. LingQ, Rocket Chinese, and many others have tried to do too much and they end up doing nothing well.
Ninchanese takes a broad and deep approach and they manage to pull it off quite well. The lessons cover vocab, grammar, speaking, listening and typing characters. They don’t just skim over these topics. Everything is very in-depth. That’s not to say Ninchanese is perfect or that it’s the only resource you should use. There’s quite a bit of room for improvement. But, they do a lot of things well and at a very affordable price.
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The Du Chinese app is quite possibly the best designed Chinese learning app around. I don’t know if it’s the best app overall to learn Chinese but the developers really did an outstanding job. In this review, I’ll tell you more about Du Chinese and help you decide whether or not it’s worth the subscription cost.
First off, I just have to reiterate how smooth and well made this app is. It’s about as sexy as a Chinese learning app can be. It packs all of the features I would want into a clean interface that can be customized to fit your preferences. Across the top of the screen is the English translation of the current highlighted sentence. I love that you can tap it to show or hide the translation. If it always showed the English, I’d likely feel it was a crutch and use it too much. However, without it, there would be instances where I’m not certain I understood the sentence correctly. I like hiding the English and then using it to check comprehension later if I’m confused about something.
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Finding a Chinese tutor or language exchange partner is essential for learning Mandarin. You need conversation practice and feedback from a Native speaker. A skilled teacher can pinpoint your weak areas and significantly speed-up the learning process.
In this review, I’ll look at eChineseLearning. They’re one of the oldest and most well-known companies for 1-to-1 online Mandarin lessons. I took two hours of trial classes and researched other people’s experiences for writing this review. I’ve used italki (read my review) rather extensively for help with my Chinese. While this isn’t meant to be a comparison article, there are places where I’ll be comparing my experience with the two services.
Use the coupon code “ALLLANG50” to get $50 off an annual premium subscription.
ChinesePod is one of the resources most often recommended to Mandarin learners for good reason. Improving your listening skills may be the most important skill to becoming fluent in Chinese. After all, being able to speak isn’t particularly helpful if you have no idea what the conversation is about.
This review will look at both the Basic and Premium plans. The Basic Plan is more fitting for people who just want to listen to audio podcasts and be able to check the lesson notes. The Premium Plan is better suited for people looking to study each lesson very in-depth. This is for people looking for a resource that can cover other areas besides just listening.
ChinesePod been around longer than a decade and the lesson library has become massive. It’s not a perfect all-encompassing resource but it’s probably as close you can get.
Chinese Learn Online (CLO) is an okay option for learning Mandarin. It’s not the best and it’s not the worst. It’s not particularly good or bad. I don’t typically give reviews based on stars or points, but if I did, CLO would be about a 6.5 out of 10. It’s useful, but I’m not sure it would be my choice to use it. At the same time, if I knew someone was considering using it, I wouldn’t strongly urge them to go look elsewhere either.
CLO is based in Taiwan. I’m living in Beijing and have primarily heard Beijing accents, and haven’t had any difficulties understanding the presenters’ accents. There may be a slight one, but it’s not a reason to buy or to avoid CLO. There are 7 levels with 60 lessons in each level. These lessons range from absolute beginner to somewhere around the upper intermediate level. The amount of English used in each lesson varies according to the level you’re at. You can access the first three lessons of any level for free.
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“用已知的知识，并不能直接获取到未知的知识。”
在阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦（Albert Einstein）五岁的时候，他的父亲拿了一个罗盘给他看，爱因斯坦感到很好奇。当父亲不停地转动罗盘外壳的时候，为什么里面的指针却能保持不动呢？
当时，爱因斯坦还小，不知道问题的答案。之后，他写道，这个指南针告诉了他一个重要的道理——“事物的背后”还“隐藏着更深的东西”。那个充满好奇心的小男孩，最终长成了一个充满好奇心的科学家。爱因斯坦终其一生都在努力找出“隐藏在深处的那个东西”。而在这个过程中，他也永远地改变了人们对宇宙的认识。 [Read more…]
史蒂夫•乔布斯(Steve Jobs)制造了我们所生活的这个世界上的大部份的电脑。乔布斯想用技术改变世界。在这本畅销书里，你将了解他希望事事追求完美的个性是如何帮助他完成他的目标的。但这也给他身边和为他工作的人带来了不少麻烦。他可能认为他自己是唯一一个能做事的人，但是多数人并不喜欢他这么做。这本书讲的是一个改变了世界的男人的有趣故事。这里讲述了两个爱开玩笑的年青人，成为合伙人并创造了世界上最大的电脑公司中的一家。这里讲述了，毒品是怎么帮助了一个想法的产生，而最终生产出了到处都在使用的产品。这里还讲述了史蒂夫•乔布斯是怎样走进了《玩具总动员》(Toy Story)，和他是怎样可悲的以为，不用治疗癌症就会离他而去的。
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Learn Chinese From Movies (LCFM) is a new Chinese learning resource that I’m pretty excited about. It hasn’t been around for long and has a lot of room to grow. But, even as it is now, I really like it.
As you reach the Intermediate level and higher you start to want to mix in movies and TV shows into your Mandarin Chinese study routine. However, your options for doing this aren’t particularly good. Before LCFM, you could…
* Watch kids shows and cartoons. While this is helpful and the app Bao Bei Ting Ting is great for finding these shows – it’s far from ideal. I’m not a kid. I don’t really want to watch kids cartoons.
* Subscribe to FluentU – If you’re interested in watching one minute videos that are mostly commercials and paying a relatively high price to do so – check out FluentU. I don’t like it very much – you can read my review of it here.
* Subscribe to Yabla – Yabla is similar to FluentU in that they have lots of short two minute videos. They do have quite a few multi-part videos though. So, that makes it more like you’re able to watch a full TV show and the reason I prefer it to FluentU. But still, there aren’t any movies or longer content. Read my full review of Yabla.
* Just watch a Chinese movie – This isn’t a bad option and a good challenge but you’re going to miss out on a lot of details in the process. Plus, it can be hard to find a video with captions. Much less captions that are exactly the same as the audio and where you have the choice of Simplified or Traditional characters. If you’re looking for a transcript or pinyin subtitles as well – this is going to take a lot of effort and there’s a good chance you won’t find it.
This is where Learn-Chinese-From-Movies.com comes in.
罗宾汉（Robin Hood）和他的伙伴隐居在舍伍德森林（Sherwood Forest）。即使罗宾汉和他的伙计不受法律约束，但是他们只从富人那里偷钱，并给穷人。罗宾汉认为腐败的地主是真正的贼。他们不公正地控制土地，而理查国王却正在进行抗战。恶毒的地主想把罗宾汉吊起来打，但是他们从未得手。当罗宾汉从战边回来，他也无法尊重这位奋力保护普通人的亡命之徒。
理查德王喜欢所有的运动和擅长这些运动的人。“我希望我能看见罗宾汉” 理查德王再他的城堡里说。我希望我能看见他和他的伙伴们互相射击，摔跤展示所有的技能。但是如果他们听到国王要来，他们只是认为我要逮捕他们。他们会逃跑然后隐藏在深林里，我将永远不会看见他们。
“我将告诉你如何能见到他。”国王的一位亲信笑着说。“穿上大寺院男住持的长袍，骑着马穿过舍伍德森林，把钱装到荷包里。罗宾汉会以圣宴招待你，因这样才能偷你的钱。”“我就这样做吧”，理查德王说，拍打着他的膝盖。“这将非常有意思”。
要改变自己，最重要的是专注于品德，而非行为。
一般来说，有两种方式能改变自己并改善人生。
第一，专注于你想要的行为所需之技能，例如，学习沟通或时间管理的技能。
其次，需要更多时间深入你的内心深处，并从自身的品德做起。你的习惯和信念形塑着你如何看待世界，这是你的品德。
第一种方式是尝试采取高效能的捷径，不为钱而工作你会更富有，否则一个人将不会有真正的成长。
真正的个人成长没有捷径，走向一条真正有效的道路是没有捷径的。
真正的成就可以是运动或弹琴，也可以是一个人的情感增长或品德成长。
如果你想改变，就要从内到外全面造就自己，从自身做起，才能改变你周遭的世界。就像你想拥有美满的婚姻，就要先成为一个幸福的人。
如果你想获得别人的信任，就要成为一个被人信任的人。改善你的沟通技巧不会让你成为被人信任的人。
你要专注在内在品德的改变，而不是外部的技能。
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