Hello everyone, I’m Grace!
Welcome to my channel!
In this video, I will introduce 10 useful Chinese learning tools
that are going to make your Chinese learning much easier!
Let’s get started!
Number one,
BCC 語料庫
This is a website.
Some of you may have already seen it when I used it in another video.
This is a website that helps you know how words are used in real life.
Also, there’s a function that I find very useful for learning.
Let's take a look at it.
So for instance, when you first learn 重要 this word,
and you want to see some examples of how to use it,
you can enter this word 重要,
and then you’ll find many sentences containing this word.
Also, you can choose different categories
to see how this word is used in different writing styles,
like in literature, news, and online posts.
Another amazing function of this tool is that
you can use it to learn collocation, for example,
if you know basketball is 籃球
but you don’t know which verb to pair it with,
then you can type out “v篮球”,
oh and btw, you need to type in simplified Chinese to search on this website.
OK, then click on 搜索 and you’ll see the results for a verb plus 籃球,
the best part is that you can click here 統計（statistics）
to see which verbs can combine with 籃球, and their frequency.
Here you can see 打籃球 is the most common one.
In case you’re curious about how to type other parts of speech,
I put the frequently used marks here,
you can note them down and start using this tool.
This is not the only website that can search for real-life examples,
if you’re interested in these kind of websites,
you can also check out CCL 語料庫 and 中央研究院語料庫,
I’ll put the links in the description.
OK the second tool is Pleco
This is a Chinese dictionary app,
I guess most of you already know this,
when I asked what your favorite Chinese learning tools was on Instagram,
many of you said Pleco is super useful
and it displays both traditional and simplified characters.
So if you haven’t used it yet, it’s definitely worth checking out.
I’m not going to go any deeper on this,
if you don’t know how to use it,
there are many tutorial videos on Youtube that can instruct you.
Let’s move on to the next one: Zhongwen
It’s a web browser extension for google chrome.
After you install it, you’ll be able to look up words effortlessly.
Let’s say you’re reading Chinese articles on websites
and you encounter some words that you don’t understand,
you don’t have to look them up in a dictionary,
you just place your cursor on that word
and then its pinyin and meaning will show up.
It’s really convenient.
If you want to install it, you can find the link in my description.
The next one is HelloTalk
This is a language exchange app,
in this video, I talked about how language exchange can help you increase your vocabulary.
It’s not always easy finding suitable language exchange partners in real life.
This app helps connect you with native speakers,
and then you can help each other with language learning.
It’s very important to use your target language
because this way you can keep yourself motivated to learn this language,
the whole learning process is going to help you communicate more efficiently in Chinese
or any other language you’re learning for that matter.
OK, number five, Skritter
If you want to learn Chinese characters,
whether simplified or traditional,
this app is going to help you a lot.
It’s really handy because it guides you to write by the proper stroke order.
Also it teaches you the tones and definitions of characters,
plus it tells you the components that form the character
and what they mean
which is great because the components are going to show up again and again,
so it’s going to help you learn new Chinese characters easier.
Another great feature of this app is that
it has many topics and books for you to choose from,
you can choose the textbook that you’re currently studying
or topics that you’re interested in,
and it provides you with the vocabulary lists to learn.
And it also uses spaced repetition
to help you review these Chinese characters you’ve learned.
If you want to try this app, I’ll put a link in the description,
if you use that link to sign up,
it will provide my code which will help you get a 15-day free trial.
After signing up you can use it on your computer
or download the app to use it on your phone.
Alright, the next one is Du Chinese
If you want to enhance your Chinese reading,
this is a really good app for that.
In this app, there are many stories in different categories
and you can choose the topics that you’re interested in
and the level that is suitable for you.
Also when you’re reading,
you can choose whether you want the pinyin to show up,
and one of the amazing features of this app is that
it can recite the text to you.
Also if you encounter some words that you don’t understand,
you can click them to see their meanings and save the words to review them later.
OK, number seven is Chinese Grammar Wiki
When you’re confused about some Chinese grammar points,
this is a great website that explains them. For example,
if you’re confused on how to use 把,
then type out 把, and then let’s click on this,
you will see several grammar points associated with 把.
Let’s click the first one,
as you can see, here is an explanation of the 把 construction.
It tells you when to use this structure and gives you some examples.
This is going to help you immensely with your Chinese grammar learning.
Now let’s move on to the next one, 两岸萌典
I know that many of my viewers are interested in
knowing the differences between Chinese and Taiwanese Mandarin.
This is a website that you can use to search a word
and see whether they are pronounced differently
between Chinese and Taiwanese Mandarin, for example,
let’s use this website and search “星期”
so here you can see, in Taiwan, it’s pronounced “星期”
but in China, it’s pronounced “星期”
Also, you can use it to know
some different expressions between Taiwanese and Chinese Mandarin.
For instance,
in Taiwanese Mandarin, a boxed meal or bento box is called 便當,
but let’s look it up here on this website,
you’ll find out that this is the Taiwanese way to say bento,
but in Chinese Mandarin, they say “盒飯”.
So this website is for those who are interested in
knowing the differences between Chinese and Taiwanese Mandarin.
OK, number nine is Anki
Anki is a flashcard program that can help you build your vocabulary,
it’s very easy to forget words you’ve learned,
but Anki uses spaced repetition to help you memorize new words.
Now I want to show you how to make flashcards on Anki.
Now let’s open Anki, create a deck,
then let’s click “add” here to start creating our flashcards.
So first, the type here I will choose “cloze”,
and in the text section, first you type out the new word you’ve learned,
let’s say, you just learned “重要” this word,
and then you can copy its English definition
and its Pinyin or Zhuyin in the dictionary into the text section,
after entering them in, you select them and click cloze deletion.
After finishing this part,
you can also find one or two example sentences to put in the extra section
because it’s important to know how to apply this word in context.
So now I’ve added in two examples.
OK, so now we are studying this card,
at first, we can only see the new word,
try to recall its pronunciation and meaning,
then click on enter to see the answer and example sentences.
If you’re at an intermediate to advanced level,
I suggest that you use a Chinese definition of that word
instead of using an English definition.
OK, the last one I want to introduce is Podcasts
Podcasts are audio programs,
you can listen to Podcasts on different platforms,
like apple podcast, Spotify or SoundCloud, etc.
It’s a great resource for improving your Chinese listening.
I’ve made a video recommending several Chinese podcasts,
if you’re interested,
you can click here or find it in my description below.
OK, that’s all for today!
If you found today’s video useful,
please give it a thumbs-up
and share it to let more people know about these resources.
Also if you have some Chinese learning tools or resources
that help you a lot,
feel free to share them in the comments below.
Alright, until next time, bye!