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Chinese Pronunciation : Pinyin is Not English

Don’t get me wrong, pinyin is a god-send for early Chinese language learning. You can use pinyin to get up and running and communicating in basic Chinese much faster than if you had to rely on characters. However, the fact that pinyin looks like English...

sensiblechineseJun 04 beginner, pronunciation, speaking, waichinese Comments Disabled

Language Toolbox

Tone Pair Drills: The Single Best Method for Learning Chinese Tones

If I was allowed to only use one practice method to learn Mandarin Chinese tones it would be this: tone pairs. Tone pair drills are simply the most powerful way to get a intuitive grip on Chinese tones. Unfortunately they are woefully underused. I want...

sensiblechineseApr 13 pronunciation, speaking, tones 5 Comments

Reviews

Learning Chinese Tones with WaiChinese | A Review by @Eurolinguiste Shannon Kennedy

Today we are happy to be able to share Shannon Kennedy’s excellent review of WaiChinese and how it helped with her Chinese tones. Shannon Kennedy is a language lover, traveler and musician sharing her adventures and language learning tips at...

sensiblechineseMar 11 reviews, speaking, tones, waichinese 3 Comments

Pinyin Course

Pinyin Course: Basic Consonants

This is part of our Sensible Pinyin Course. To see an overview of the course check out this Sensible Pinyin Course homepage! The basic pinyin consonant set in Chinese is: B, p, m, f, d, t, n, l Why am I calling these consonants “basic”?...

sensiblechineseMar 07 pinyin, pronunciation, speaking 1 Comment

10 Things I Wish I Knew

Day 1 Speaking Script – How to Speak Chinese Today

You’ve just started learning Chinese and are ready to talk – this article gives you a basic script (with recordings) as well as suggestions for a Chinese name. You’ll learn how to speak Chinese today, right now, if you follow through...

sensiblechineseFeb 03 10 things I wish I knew, beginner, speaking 1 Comment

10 Things I Wish I Knew

How to speak Chinese? Talk from Day 1

This is part of our How to Learn Chinese. Check out the How to Learn Chinese homepage to get a lot more tips on how to learn Chinese. How to speak Chinese is a question that baffles learners early in their Chinese journey. Often we wait until we think...

sensiblechineseFeb 03 10 things I wish I knew, beginner, speaking Comments Disabled

10 Things I Wish I Knew

Chinese Tones: Getting Started

Chinese Tones are one of the most challenging aspects of Chinese. The good news is that with enough practice, like any skill, you’ll be able to master Chinese Tones. Additionally, you already use tones in English, just in a very different way to...

sensiblechineseFeb 02 10 things I wish I knew, beginner, pronunciation, speaking, tones Comments Disabled

All Chinese characters are made up of the same 200 Chinese radicals!

This is part of our How to Learn Chinese. Check out the How to Learn Chinese series to get a lot more...
Common Chinese Characters you’ve been Reading Wrong!

Kyle@Sensible: This is a guest post by John Renfroe of Outlier Linguistics. They are working on a very...
Tone Pair Drills: The Single Best Method for Learning Chinese Tones

If I was allowed to only use one practice method to learn Mandarin Chinese tones it would be this: tone...
Sensible Character Learning System – Welcome!

Hi there! This page is now out of date. Check out the Chinese Character Learning System in all its glory...
Learning Chinese Characters | Different Methods

Other experts have come up with their own answers to the question of “how to learn Chinese characters”. There...