Free online tools to learn Chinese

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Integrated Chinese

This website provides an array of different Powerpoint slides that accompany each lesson. The best feature about this website are the online exercises. Along with the Powerpoint slides there are exercises where you can build sentences with words provided,which is just like the workbooks. There are also exercises with fill in the blank sentences. It's a great tool and much faster than writing. This site also provides dialogues with sound clips and animated characters so you can learn how to say certain words correctly and write certain characters with the correct stroke order.

Upon entering the homepage you can choose from any of the twenty-two lesson in the Integrated Chinese I Textbook (3rd Edition). You then have the choice between traditional and simplified characters. Once you start you will be asked to read a short dialogue, but the great thing about this website is that you can read the text your self, although there is also the option to listen and read the text; and finally you have the choice to underline any new words in a given dialogue.

Pinyin

Here you'll find a great resource for beginners. This site is dedicated to pinyin. Words are organized by consonants, vowels, tones, and syllables. By click on each letter you'll hear the the tone.

This website is fantastic for other studying purposes as well as for pinyin. Once you're on the tone page you can then choose to study by choosing a tone, entering a tone, choosing a tone combination, or entering a tone combination. You have the choice to pick you preferred method of studying. If you select "choose a tone" you will be prompted to simply choose one of the four tones listed below for the pinyin that appears. If you choose to "enter tone" it only varies in that you must enter a number for the corresponding tone and press enter. The same applies to exercises with tone combinations. For all exercises there is the option to include the character.

This six minute video can be of great help in pronunciation of single letters and combinations.

Vocabulary

Online Flashcard for “Integrated Chinese http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/fc-options.php?deck=ic3-1-1 (3rd Ed.), Level 1,Part 1, by Yellow Bridge

The Online Flascard is a great resource. It may not look as modern as Skritter, but it truly has interesting features. On the Language tab found on the left you'll find nine sections that provide different study guides. Of the nine I picked the ones I felt were the easiest tools for studying.

The Chinese-English Talking Dictionary The most appealing thing about this section is probably the ability to search for a character or word by just drawing it. Talk about saving some time! The second would be to see related words, it's like extra practice with radicals.

  • Lets you listen to words.
  • Handwriting recognition.You candraw it with your mouse to search for a word.
  • Fuzzy pinyin matches words even when you are unsure of the exact pronunciation.
  • Word and character decomposition, character etymology, and stroke order.
  • Lists related words that share the same head or tail word; derived words, and words with a similar pronunciation.
  • Sample sentences helps understand proper word usage.

Online Chinese Flashcards It's extremely easy to use and the great thing about this is you can study words from each dialogue. While writing real flash cards can take tremendously long and don't necessarily help you remember the characters it's a good quick study quide. Once you pick which lesson and dialogue you want to study(you can pick more than one) you have the option to shuffle the flash cards. There are two modes to choose from. The "study" mode shows the character and pinyin, while "practice" recognition only has the character with the choice to flip the card and see the pinyin.

Chinese Memory Game This is a great for recognition. Like the flashcards you can pick any dialogue or lesson and then match the pinyin with the characters. It may just be better and a lot more fun than the online flashcards.

All About PinyinThis is great for a refresher. Tones are definitely hard to remember sometimes, and these are two great tools.

  • Rules: Initials, Finals, and Tones.
  • Valid Combinations.


A is for Love http://www.chinapage.org/flash/love.html - a set of flash cards for learning Chinese It is extremely easy to use. You just select a letter from the alphabet to start. A character is shown as well as the definition and by simply clicking on the character the pinin is revealed. The downside of this website is that there isn't any particular order, other than it being in alphabetical order. You can't study a list of words from the textbook for example.

Vocabulary Index http://my.cheng-tsui.com/files/IC3Textbook1-1VocabIndexTradSimp.pdf (Chinese-English) for Integrated Chinese, Level 1 Part 1, by Cheng & Tsui This is a PDF of all Chinese characters. It's very simliar to the one found towards the end in the Integrated Chinese I Textbook (3rd Edition). It consists of a table with characters staring on the left then pinyin, part of speach, translation, and finally in what lesson the word is found. The table is organized alphabetically like in the textbook by pinyin.

Characters

This resource provided by the California State University, Northridge, is an excellent guide for all those who are new to writing characters or those who would like a refresher. Unlike the textbook, this website is different in that the strokes aren't just demonstrated step by step but are highlighted. Before each stroke there are instructions and tips to help you remember the order and type of stroke required.

USC's website provides different characters but also provides the ability to listen to each word as well as see the pinyin, and translation. It goes one step further by providing an animated display of how that character is written. This particular tool is only limited to radicals and numerals but is a great tool to practice for beginners.

This page is similar to the previous and only differs in that you can choose a specific lesson from Integrated Chinese I textbook and also lists where else this character is found in the text book. It lists the lesson and dialogue. Unlike Skritter or the Online flashcards you can't study multiple lessons or dialogues but is a much quicker resource to access and does not require you to register.

This is a nice reference of the different styles and fonts of Chinese characters.

Here you'll find a list of Chinese characters from A-Z.

This is the only website that will require registration to use. Although is amazing tool that serves almost like an all-in one package. It has many of the features you'll find in Strokes of Chinese, Practice Chinese Characters, and Online Chinese Flashcards. Through your instructor you can get all the information to register as a student no cost to you. Here you can choose from countless textbooks and can study multiple dialogues and lessons at a time. One feature that can't be found anywhere else is the ability to pick and choose the words, dialogues, or lessons you want. Here you can create your custom list and study it as much as you want and create as many lists as you want. Like other sites each word provides the pinyin, character, sound, used in a sentence, the only difference is that it lets you draw the character which in turn lets you practice stroke order. It's a fantastic tool that has all the attributes of other sites in one, which can save a lot of time.

Powerpoint

Phrases and Conversation

The Backpacker approach

Video Clips of Survival Chinese http://personal.kenyon.edu/bai/vcsc.htm This site provides some good dialogues that are probably good examples of situations you may encounter in China. Although you have to download software to use it, there is an annotated transcript that you can read instead. This transcript is only written in Chinese characters. Some dialogues can be harder than others, so people with different levels of Chinese will probably find this site helpful. After watching the video clips or reading the transcript, there are questions provided with an answer key that help you to further understand what you read or watched.

  • Danwei www.danwei.org - Chinese media, advertising, and urban life

History

Reading

Culture

CHINESE NEW YEAR LANTERN FESTIVAL http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/khsu2/MainPage.html, Online Exercises on Grammar and Vocabulary, by Kylie Hsu, CSULA, Chinese Way to Go, http://www.chinesewaytogo.org/ by Emily Yih

Miscellaneous

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