As if learning Chinese wasn’t challenging enough, the poor, struggling student has to contend with countless unique dialects spoken across the vast nation of China. One of those dialects is Shanghainese.

Shanghainese, as you might guess, is the dialect spoken in and around Shanghai.

To help you learn a few words or Shanghainese, China Daily, the largest English-language newspaper in China, has produced a series of video lessons.

Although I haven’t learned much from these videos, I do find them highly entertaining — and slightly absurd. In fact, sometimes I wonder if the producer is playing a joke on us, or on whomever funded the project.

As of this writing, twenty video lessons are available for you to view. Themes range from “Who’s going to pick up the check” to “How to ask a girl out for coffee.”

Mastering tones is one of the biggest challenges in learning Chinese. Here’s a fun tool you can use to test your recognition of tones.

Simply play the word, then answer whether the word is first, second, third or fourth tone. It’s fun!

This test currently has 73 different words that play in random order each time you restart the test.

If this is too easy for you, try this 2-character tone drill. In this test, you have to correctly answer the tones of two Chinese words.

I love it! Thank you, Keith Welch.

The Confucius Institute is an organization funded by the Chinese government to promote the Chinese language and culture throughout the world. They offer courses in dozens of countries and even have an online institute where you can find free video lessons.

Some of the online video lessons seem a bit peculiar to me. Even the website’s “about us” information is a bit off:

“The Confucius Institute is devoting to satisfy the need of people who are interested in Chinese learning all around the world, promoting the understanding of Chinese language culture, enhancing the educational and cultural cooperation between China and the world, developing the friendship between China and other countries, to help developing a multicultural environment and building up a harmonious world.”

Nevertheless, the website does have some useful lessons and resources like flashcards.

I have not yet met anyone who has studied in-person at a Confucius Institute and I am extremely curious about the quality of their courses, what textbooks they use, and whether the courses are good value for money. If you have studied at a Confucius Institute, I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment below.

English names are difficult for Chinese to pronounce. I think one of the first things you should do as you begin your quest to learn to speak Chinese is get a Chinese name. Don’t you think it will make it more fun, taking on a new name and perhaps even a new persona?

When I took my Chinese name, I asked my Taiwanese tutor for suggestions, based on my English name and my personality. The result? Cheng Kai.

Some business people try to get their Chinese name to sound as close to their English name as possible. Others choose completely new, fun names that they just happen to like.

Here’s an online tool you can use to suggest possible Chinese names based on your English name, gender, and basic character traits. It’s a good starting point and a source of ideas. However I would consult a Chinese friend before making a final decision, just to make sure the name is appropriate.

I recently came across an article about Skritter, which is an online tool that you can use to learn how to write Chinese characters. I tried the free demo lessons and it looks to be fun and effective.

Using Skritter, you simply follow along the interactive lessons which show you how to write Chinese characters stroke by stroke. I used the trackpad on my laptop, but I think it would be best if you had a tablet since that would more accurately simulate a writing instrument.

For me, writing Chinese characters is not currently a priority. Right now I am focused on conversational Chinese, though I plan to learn the characters at a later time. But if I was learning characters, I think I might give Skritter a try (even though it costs $9.95 per month).

Here’s a link to the Skritter website if you want to try the free demo.

Not everyone who learns to speak Chinese will take the time to learn to read Chinese characters. But if learning to read and write Chinese is part of your study routing, you’ll want to check out Zhongwen.com. (“Zhong wen” of course means “Chinese language”).

According to site creator Rick Harbough, Zhongwen.com  is designed to “help students understand, appreciate and remember Chinese characters, one of humanity’s greatest and most enduring cultural achievements.”

Part of what I like about this site is that it has such a simple-yet-unique (and highly functional) layout.

The information is serious, accurate, useful and absolutely fascinating.

Standard MandarinChinese is not necessarily the most difficult language to learn, at least not from a grammar perspective. However, it is difficult to pronounce.

For the past few months I’ve been using a free site called Standard Mandarin to help practice basic Chinese phrases. Here you’ll find dozens of useful expressions such as “Can you speak English?”, “I like swimming”, and “Have a good day!”

The best part is that the site includes audio. So you just click a button to hear the phrase pronounced.

You can also read the phrase in Chinese and Pinyin.

If you’re a beginner, this is one site you will probably want to bookmark.

I love listening to Beijingers speak Chinese. They seem to form words in the back of their mouths and most sentences seem to end in “errrr” or “arrrr”.

I’m certainly not the only person to notice this and, I recently I heard one person humorously describe it as the “Beijing pirate accent.”

Such an apt description.

Arrrrr, matey!

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