I've been studying Chinese on and off for 15 years, always trying to keep the cost as low as possible. I actually spent some of my study time hunting down affordable resources instead of studying Chinese! Free trials, YouTube channels, websites, apps, books, you name it.

What frustrated me was finding promising resource lists that were just walls of links with no descriptions, many times with more than a third of the links broken. I wished for the kind of directory that would actually deliver, saving me time, money, and frustration.

So I kept collecting and organizing what I found. Over the years, that grew to 1,000+ resources across more than 100 categories. As a retired legal secretary, organization and writing descriptions of things comes naturally to me. In 2018, I moved my collection to a website to make it easier to navigate and share. Every resource has a description and is labeled free, paid, or free trial. I also regularly check and repair broken links.

Since self-promotion is understandably a concern here, I want to be completely transparent.

My website has no ads, no paywall, and just two clearly labeled affiliate links. Those links (currently on 2 pages of a huge site) have earned me a grand total of 86 cents since 2018! 😂 I'm not monetized on social media either. There are optional donation links, but donations over the years haven't even covered two months of hosting, much less the other costs of maintaining the site. These costs are the only reason the donations links exist. If I could do it free I would.

Like all legitimate resource directories, some resources are paid, but I have no financial relationship with their providers. I'm not selling an app, steering people toward paid products, and never intend to put anything behind a paywall. I will shut the website down first. I simply want to give learners like me what I so desperately wished I had and retirement has given me the time to create.

This truly has been a labor of love for years.

Mods and others, please take a look, click around, and judge for yourself whether it's genuinely useful:

https://mandarinmania.com/resources/

Enjoy!

Hey all, I just started HSK2 and I’ve been recently pretty self conscious about my hand writing — kept thinking its illegible. As a result of this repetitive thoughts echoing in my head, I decided to post here and ask locals and fellow learners instead.

I used to dread having to memorize so many classifiers but I've found that it's not that bad.

I found this app here called LanLan to learn chinese doomscrolling and I dont know how to turn off pinyin. If youre the maker please DM me.

I think learning Chinese saved my brain from becoming AI slop

A year ago I graduated and got my first corporate job at a consulting firm. Every single day since all I've heard is AI, AI, AI, use more AI, AI, AI, etc... Like I was used to some AI talk since I did an IT related major but damn at least at uni the teachers were interested in us learning and understanding the material.

At work it feels like thinking using our brains is the absolute worst thing we could ever do.

This September I finally went back to learning Chinese after having abandoned it years ago.

It might just be a personal bias but I actually feel like my brain is more agile and I have less brain fog now.

Actually thinking and actively making an effort to learn something new is the best. It's regarding, it's good for your health and you get to be good at something new!

Plus! Since I choose to go to in-person classes I also get to meet new people with shared interests!

I’m flying to Chongqing in a few weeks for a vacation. My primary goal is to work on improving my Chinese, especially spoken. I’m around HSK 4 or 5, but don’t have a lot of speaking practice.

I have already booked a hotel and decided to look into finding a tutor or someone who can help me and give me feedback. So far my search has been more difficult than I imagined. I found Keats, but I feel like it’s more than I really need. I don’t need a place to stay, I just need someone to meet up with for a few hours in a restaurant, hotel lobby, or some other public space.

Does anyone have a recommendation for how I could organize something like this? I think I’ll look into tandem partners and language exchanges, but I think it would be a good idea to find someone who can explain things more in depth and to be honest I would like to speak as little English as possible during my trip, to really try for as much immersion as possible

Can anyone help me with the Fuzhounese (福州話) romanization of 富貴? I found hó for 富 on
https://fuzhounese.org, but I couldn’t find the reference for 貴.

I looked up 學 in Pleco after seeing it in the Integrated Chinese 1-1 workbook. I thought this workbook was simplified only, so was surprised to see multiple variants of this character.

So my very dumb question about Pleco is:

Does the top line of the screenshot show the simplified character, followed by the traditional in parentheses?

I just started studying sinology and thought about going to China next summer for about three months (planning to do a Chinese course, although I will have studied it two semesters at this point).

Do you guys recommend doing it, considering it would be quite expensive for me and how did your Chinese improve during this time period?

As me and my 2 friends, we want to learn the Chinese language for free from good and interesting app.

That actually works and helps to learn and read the language.. is anyone know good app for that and tried, plz recommend us

Hey Guys,

I am part of a team running a marketplace platform specializing in Learning Chinese. We have mostly been B2C, so people can check out tutors and book sessions with them.

However, we are looking to also do B2B. What sort of businesses do you feel might actually need that? This is either as part of optional employee development or as part of business needs. Do you have any ideas in mind?

I'd love to see a monthly “Show & Tell” thread where members could share FREE resources they've created, whether it's learning tools, YouTube videos, flashcards, FREE websites, or anything else that might help fellow learners.

I'm sure there are some fantastic resources we're missing simply because people are afraid of being accused of self-promotion or having their posts removed. I have had posts removed and it is humiliating when your heart is in the right place.

I understand the need to prevent spam, but shouldn't we encourage people who genuinely want to contribute something useful?

A dedicated monthly thread, with clear guidelines and no sales pitches, seems like a great middle ground.

Would anyone else welcome something like this? Or is something like this already here and I missed it?

I have exam on 7 nov, paper based, this is last tine with 2.0 i want to pass to get my degree

Can someone share some tips?

I know 1 to 460 vocab, out of 600,

I nvr wrote any chinese chracter, just recognize and practiced

Your help will be appreciated

Thank you

I am just not into learning hsk materials. Feels like I am learning words that I will never use on everyday speech. So I am kinda stuck.

Then this idea came to my mind. Would it be ok to learn this way and can I still be intermediate level with this method?

I am currently learning them and try to use them in a sentence. So I try to learn them in a context.

What do you guys think?

I've been looking for the one with the blue bird logo, but I couldn't find it 😭😭

I saw this app that's relatively new called Merry Mandarin, and I've been using it for a few days and it seems to work. However I am concerned because a lot of the english in the apps seems to be ai-generated. They don't tell you what is ai and what isn't and I'm afraid that if they generate chinese w/ai then I could be learning wrong and building bad habits. Does anybody know of this app and if it's trustworthy or not?

For me it is 一杯珍珠奶茶 🧋HAHHA

Asking for recs ^.^

I overheard a classmate calling me 老外 while taking to her mother and I told her that I knew she was calling me foreigner but as far as I know it's a bit different from 外国人... My teacher also taught us that some people use it but I'm afraid this person was lying and it actually had a pejorative meaning ...

Edit! Some people are asking for more context so: We were sitting together (2 中国人 and I), her mom video called her and she answered, I've been studying Chinese for a year so I'm not that good yet, she pointed to my friend and said something along the lines 她是 "her name", then pointed at me and said something like "他老外国朋友/同学 "my name". When I told her later that I knew 老外 was like "guiri" she said that it was just a colloquial/casual way to say 外国人...

We're kinda close but it's not the first time I've asked something like this and they've tried to "lie" to make it seem innocent + I was taught it's slightly xenophobic 🤨

Hope this helps!

The new HSK has a fixed date now, and there's a lot of conflicting info floating around, so here's what the official documents actually say.

Dates

• First official HSK 3.0 sitting: December 13, 2026. Registration closes Nov 16 (paper) and Dec 3 (computer), Beijing time.
• Last old-format (six-level) dates in the global calendar: Oct 17 and Nov 7. Computer registration for Nov 7 closes Oct 28. Some centres add their own last session, so ask yours.
• The notice doesn't say whether the old format continues after Dec 13. One UK centre says everything moves to HSK 3.0, and CTI's partner in Vietnam told the press the two won't run in parallel. Plan on the old format ending.

Why there are two sets of word counts

If you've read that HSK 1 needs 500 words or HSK 3 needs 2,245, those numbers are real. They're just from the 2021 Standards (GF0025-2021), not from the exam. The exam follows the syllabus published in November 2025:

When you pick a word list or textbook, check which of the two it uses.

What else changes

• Papers get shorter: HSK 4 drops from 100 items in 105 min to 70 items in 85 min.
• Writing starts at HSK 2 (10 items). Characters come in two lists: ones to recognise and ones to handwrite. The new HSK 4 expects 1,096 recognised but only 400 handwritten.
• HSK 3–6 each come with a speaking test, which you register for together with the written paper. HSK 1–2 have none. Every level starts with listen-and-repeat or listen-and-retell.
• HSK 7–9 is one shared paper (91 items, ~200 min, computer only). Your score places you at 7, 8 or 9.

Common wrong claims

• "It launches July 2026": July 2026 is the implementation date printed on the syllabus cover, not a test date.
• "Old certificates become invalid": no notice says so. A score is still valid for two years from the test date.
• "No handwriting until HSK 5": the sample HSK 2 paper has a 10-item writing section.

What to do

• Booked for Nov 7: sit it as planned.
• Sitting from December on: get the new word list for your level, practise the handwriting list, do the sample papers on chinesetest.cn, and speak out loud daily. From HSK 3 up, you'll be recorded.

Sources: CTI notice of Sept 8, 2026 (chinesetest.cn) · CLEC HSK syllabus, Nov 2025 · CLEC HSK 3.0 sample papers (levels 1–6, 7–9, speaking 3–6) · MoE GF0025-2021.

Disclosure: I work on a Chinese-learning app and wrote this up for our blog. No link here; everything above comes from the official documents. Corrections welcome.

Hi everyone,

I'm considering going to Shanghai for a language course at Shanghai International Studies University, and I'd love to hear from anyone who has done their Chinese language program.

I want to do the Spring Semster.

I have a couple of questions because I can barely find anything online about people's experiences.

1. For anybody who has done the course, how is it? How were the teachers and the classes?

2. How is the dorm? I'm planning to apply for it since its easier to make friendships this way. If anybody stayed there were the rooms okay? Is there a curfew?

1. What age are the people attending? I'm in my early twenties and I would hope I can find people to form a friend group.

4. Does SISU organise any activities, excursions or cultural experiences? Or is it mainly classes, with everyone doing their own thing afterwards?

5. How did you enjoy staying in Shanghai? Is it a good destination to travel to and stay for couple of months?

Thank you so much for reading and I'll be grateful for any advice you can give me. If anybody has a different university or language school they recommend, I'll also be grateful! :)