In this thread I invite you to learn Chinese Mandarin along side me!
Since I am still a beginner this will act as like a sort of public notebook of my study, but I will try to start at the start of the HSK so if you want to learn along side me you can!
Some posts might be, systematic learning of the HSK, vocabulary I have learnt recently, find interest or useful, sentence break downs, resources I find helpful, or even a more technical approach where I break down concepts of the language and the characters.
If you already understand some mandarin and can communicate using simplified Chinese, you are welcome to converse and practice here a little every now and again. All site rules still apply, I will be checking!
Ok for some further information:
In China many different languages are spoken, (dialects). Mandarin is one of these and the most popular. Spoken in many countries outside of China. Due to China having so many dialects, Mandarin is considered to be the standard/official language. In Hong Kong, Cantonese is more common.
Mainland China typically uses simplified Chinese. That is what I will be using here! (China doesn't have an alphabet like English, instead it is characters that represent concepts)
I will be referring to simplified Chinese characters are probably just hanzi, or simplified CN later on, just for ease. If I post or use traditional characters, I will clarify.
I likely wont post pinyin for everything, sorry. However I will make a resource list that I will update when I find things. So that you can find the answers you need!
Pinyin is a representation of how sounds are pronounced in Chinese using English letters. Each like word is made up of three parts, an initial sound, a final and a tone. Pinyin was created for Chinese students, so much of it's pronunciation does not follow English conventions. I don't plan on focusing on pronunciation much here.
HSK
HSK stands for Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi
Which is a test that measures Chinese proficiency and is the standard test in Mainland China.
I hope this is enough information that you will be able to expect what posts are to follow!
I won't vote for you either.
