Home » Education » Languages

Learn Chinese Mandarin Online

Ranked #6,215 in Education, #144,855 overall

Learn Chinese Online For Free

Who says there is no free lunch? On the internet there is. There are plenty of useful resources on the www. All you need to do is search for it. Here, as a learner of Chinese Mandarin myself, I will share with you some of the wonderful and free resources I found on the internet. Some of them are dictionaries, some of them are learn to write Chinese sites. Some are videos on how to learn Chinese online. Put them altogther and you have a whole Learn to write, read and speak Chinese. In no time, you will be a pro who will be able to teach her own kids, like me.

Chinese Mandarin Lessons on Chinese New Year terms and expressions

Video Lesson on Chinese New Year or Spring Festival

As one of the biggest and most important festivals in China, the Chinese New Year is also called Spring Festival. Here are some Chinese lessons which will teach you words, expressions and grammars related to the Spring Festival. Happy Chinese New Year!

Of particular note are the eChineseLearning ones. You can go to the website for audio versions or to download the Chinese New Year transcript.
Loading

Learn Chinese Online Free Resources

I found some of these free online resources very useful for an adult learning Chinese Mandarin for the first time.
Mandarin Tools
Another free English to Chinese Web Dictionary.
Ocrat.com Mirror Site
The original Ocrat was lost but someone realised how useful it was and put it together again. The animated Chinese Chracters are very useful for a Chinese Learner.
Chinese to Pinyin
One thing that I have yet to learn is how to input Chinese Characters on the computer. One crazy thing I do is copy and paste words and translate them to pinyin using this Chinese to Pinyin converter when I want to know the Pinyin for certain Chinese Characters.
Chinese Tools
Very nice laid out table of contents makes it easy to navigate throught the lessons. This free learn Chinese Online resource is very useful for those who have the time and patience to go through the lessons from beggining to end.

Learn Chinese in the comfort of your own homes

Loading

Learn how to write Chinese Characters stroke by stroke

from Chinese Learner.com

I absolutely love the learn to write 500 most commonly used Chinese characters flash videos so I have linked directly to that page on the Chinese Learner.com website that offers this tool. It shows a picture of a hand writing the strokes.

If you are a visual learner, than this site is perfect. You will be able to see how some of these common 500 Chinese Characters are written stroke by stroke. Try it. It really helps. It is a fantastic tool to learn how to write Chinese Characters online.

How to write Chinese Characters

The rules for stroke order

Chinese Characters look so complex and complicated but wait a minute. They're not all that hard to write. Not if you know the rules for stroke order for writing Chinese Characters. Left to Right, Top to Bottom, Center first then both sides, Horizontal before Vertical strokes etc.

Online Bilingual English Chinese Dictionary

Nciku.com

Nciku.com is my favourite bilingual English Chinese Online dictionary. You can even handwrite the words for a quicker search. That is what I love bout it the most, plus.... it is free.

You can search in English or Pinyin or Chinese Characters or Radicals. Nciku's tagline is "More than a dictionary". I really find it to be so because it supports Chinese Learning as well. You can even make your own vocal list and store it. It is as good as a handheld electronic dictionary if you can't afford one.

Electronic Bilingual Chinese Dictionary

An electronic dictionary really helps in Chinese learning compared to a normal book dictionary.
Loading

Learn Chinese by using Flashcards

Learn Chinese on the go with Chinese Flashcard app for iPhone or Android - Can be used on PC too

Learn Chinese Android or iPhone app

New advances in technology now makes learning Chinese much more easy for me. I can now learn Chinese whenever I go with my mobile.

I have a new Samsung Galaxy Ace phone which I love. While searching around the apps market, I found this great Learning Chinese App for Android. This app is available to iPhone, iPod and iPad users too as well as for any desktop computer with Windows, Mac or Linus.

In this Learning Chinese app from www.trainchinese.com you can learn and practice your Chinese through the use of digital Chinese Flashcards. The flashcards help you learn Chinese in 4 ways.

1. Translation - Translate a given English Word or Phrase into Chinese. Tap and turn your flashcard to reveal the answers in Chinese and pinyin too.

2. Reading - Read a given Chinese Character, Phrase or Sentence. Then tap the audio to check your pronounciation or turn your flashcard around to check the pinyin and meaning in English.

3. Listening - Listen to the audio of a Chinese word, phrase or sentence then try to give its meaning. Turn your flashcard to check your answer. The Chinese character, word, phrase or sentence together with its meaning and English translation will be given.

4. Writing - Listen to the audio of a Chinese Character, phrase or sentence. Then write out each word yourself using your fingers. Turn the flashcard around to check your Chinese Handwriting. It will be listed out beside the actual Chinese word. You can also play the animation to check if you have got the stroke order correct.

This Chinese Flashcard app also has a dictionary which you can use offline or for searching for new words to add to your flashcard list. Great for looking up for things on the go. You can search the dictionary in Chinese, English or by pinyin.

Registration is free. You start off with 25 cards per week, and it goes down to 15 then 10. Subscription increases your usage level from 1,000 cards to unlimited use of cards. Subsription starts from $15.99 for 3 months.

If you are a Chinese learner, I recommend that you try it out since its free to use. Even with the free user limits its worthwhile checking out.

Read Chinese Books and Newspapers

Ok. If you can't read the Chinese Newspapers just yet, why not start with reading learn Chinese Books. Learning Chinese Online is very useful but it must be supplemented by books. There is nothing like a good book. You can carry it with you and enjoy a cuppa with it. So we have the ipad and e-books etc nowadays but I still prefer an old fashioned book.

Speaking of books, my favourite are Schaum's Outlines Chinese Grammar and Schaum's Outlines Chinese Vocabulary. I also like Tuttle's Learning Chinese Characters book and several others.

If you are an auditory learner, then get some audio cds to listen in your car or get both. Learn from as many sources as possible. Expose yourself and improve your vocabulary and soon you will be able to pick up the Chinese Newspaper to read.

Join a Social Network of Chinese Learners

Learn Mandarin Online CommunityYou can join a social network of Chinese Learners and interact with them.

Check out Study More Chinese. It is a social network to bring together Chinese Learners. You can get together to share through blogs, photos, music, videos and forums.

What an exciting way to learn Chinese. Learning Chinese Online on your own is often a lonely thing, more lonely than attending a class. But now with this Learn Chinese Social Networking site, you can interact and learn together with others.

Learn Chinese from Books

Read of listen whichever you prefer.
Loading

Related Lens

Loading

About Me

Loading

Guestbook Comments

  • rosco May 24, 2012 @ 5:23 am | delete
    Great Lense
  • lollyj May 3, 2012 @ 9:03 am | delete
    OH, I would LOVE to learn Mandarin. Thanks so much for this info.
  • echineselearning2012 May 2, 2012 @ 3:36 am | delete
    I have these courses on echineselearning last year, and choose one-on-on course.I had a great progress there.
    http://www.echineselearning.com
  • mariablack7 Mar 22, 2012 @ 4:05 am | delete
    I am also learning mandarin Chinese, thanks for sharing such nice info. Great collection of resources for learning Chinese
  • billybraveheart Mar 20, 2012 @ 12:04 am | delete
    Always wanted to learn Mandarin, may try now, thanks for sharing
  • joykennel Mar 9, 2012 @ 8:26 am | delete
    Amazing to me--great job on the lens!!
  • aishu19 Mar 8, 2012 @ 9:33 pm | delete
    Chinese is one language I wished I learned more. I can or atleast could speak some. But the letters are wonderful and looks tough.. I do hope to learn that someday
  • Ladymermaid Dec 16, 2011 @ 9:10 am | delete
    Wishing you and yours a wonderful and peace filled holiday season. The very best of seasonal wishes.
  • lravidlearner Oct 7, 2011 @ 8:04 am | delete
    Great collection of resources for learning Mandarin online. I'm alway looking for free learning tools.
  • littlelotus Jul 7, 2011 @ 6:59 am | delete
    always inspired to..... and tried a few times as well..... but this is too hard for me.... :(
  • MaxL Jul 5, 2011 @ 7:07 am | delete
    Nice lens! I'm gonna give it a shot for fun. I wonder if it's easier or harder than German (had been struggling with this language since years now).
  • MaxL Jul 5, 2011 @ 7:07 am | delete
    Nice lens! I'm gonna give it a shot for fun. I wonder if it's easier or harder than German (had been struggling with this language since years now).
  • mumsgather Jul 5, 2011 @ 6:10 pm | delete
    Thank you for the kind words MaxL. I think each language has its own unique differences. I don't know about German but learning Chinese is much harder than learning English. In English you can join a few alphabets and turn them into words. Then you join those words and make a phrase and soon you will be able to make a sentence. In Chinese each word is a new character to master, its quite mind bogling, to me that is. :)
Show All

by

mumsgather

Hello. I have two kids learning Chinese in school. I help them with their homework at home so I had to learn Chinese in order to help them. Here are s... more »

Feeling creative? Create a Lens!

Explore related pages

Related Tags