I am not getting paid to write any of this, I just like these a lot.
1.) First and foremost, the tool that I used the most is Pleco. It’s a Chinese dictionary app that is free, but for something like $100 you can get many types of dictionaries, an integrated reading tool, the best dictionary app I have ever used, stroke order diagram, and audio pronunciation. They have dictionaries in different languages like Spanish, medical dictionaries, idiom dictionaries, this is seriously the best app for Chinese in my mind. Itunes, Android, and their website.
2.) Chinesepod. Great lessons for improving your listening skills. They have a few free episodes, but you need to subscribe to get the most out of it. They have thousands of high-quality lessons covering a wide variety of topics. This is the site that enabled me to finally understand spoken Chinese and helped me learn about various cultural items I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. Benny Lewis of Fluent in 3 Months has a great article on Chinesepod here.
3.) This grammar sheet (affiliate link). It is compact and light making it ideal for throwing in your bag. It has all the basic grammar you need and if you memorize this and keep it near you in the beginning you will quickly learn the grammar you need to understand much of Chinese.
4.) A phrasebook! It comes with basic grammar, a small dictionary, and plenty of phrases that are highly useful for going to China. I recommend the Lonely Planet ones, but there are many other good phrasebooks that you could use. Lonely Planet affiliate link.
5.) Heisig’s (and Richardson’s) Remembering Simplified Hanzi. I used this after I essentially figure out the method the hard way. If I had this book I would have saved myself a lot of time in my first year learning Chinese. It breaks the characters into radicals, or building blocks, that can then be used to tell a story to help you remember the characters. Affiliate link.
6.) Perapera, a Chinese popup dictionary. I love popup language dictionaries because that means I don’t have to waste time searching the meaning of a character. All I need to do is hover my mouse over the hanzi and I will get told the meaning.
7.) Italki is the perfect way to find language partners and teachers. I used this to practice Chinese while I was on the other side of the planet in the U.S. The prices are great and many teachers have trial lessons that you can take before deciding. Here is my referral code.
8.) The Chinese Grammar Wiki by AllSet Learning. A great tool with over a thousand grammar articles that is easy to search and is broken up into levels. a great free tool that I used a ton since it was released.
There are plenty of other great resources out there, but I decided to stick with 8 as it is a lucky number in Chinese. I will probably make another post on some of the other resources I have used. In the meantime these will be more than enough to keep you occupied and make some language learning progress!
Read here for my first trip I took to the Middle Kingdom!
