How to learn Chinese on your own. How to learn Chinese - the choice of method, difficulties, useful tips for self-study. Where can I hear the tones

The Chinese language is considered one of the most difficult in the world and for good reason: its writing and phonetics are radically different from those familiar to us. Before you dare to learn such a complex language, you should learn about the pitfalls along the way. We learned from Yaroslava Meshcheryakova, director and senior lecturer Chinese language school "Orientalist", how Chinese is easier than Russian, how many hieroglyphs you need to learn to read newspapers, and how long you have to study.

Where to start learning

In classical Soviet textbooks, they began to learn Chinese from phonetics and words suitable for it.

Children's textbooks start with simple phrases and dialogues.

Some techniques are based on the study of the simplest hieroglyphs.

None of these systems is perfect, since simple characters do not always stand for the most commonly used words. For example, the hieroglyphs "sun", "earth", "water" are difficult to immediately begin to use in speech. The most common phrases: "goodbye" - "zai zen" are not so easy to pronounce. The most important characters: "ni hao" - "hello" are difficult to write.

Modern Chinese textbooks and most teachers provide material in such proportions that include all aspects of the language and maintain the interest of students: the most common phrases are studied first, phonetics is passed from simple tones to complex ones, the study of hieroglyphs is based on the principle from simple and memorable to those that are used most often.

What is the difference between Chinese and Russian

The Russian language is very complex in terms of grammar: it has a large number of cases, declensions, conjugations, changes in gender and number. The Russian language establishes links within sentences between almost all words. In the phrases "white dog" and "no white dog" - a change in one word entails a change in another.

In Russian, we can interchange words without losing their meaning: “yesterday I went to the library”, “yesterday I went to the library”, “I went to the library yesterday”. Emphasis may change, but the meaning remains.

For some words, we need to learn all possible forms, because they change beyond recognition: "I - me - me", "I'm going - going - going."

Chinese is an isolating language, at least its written form. Strictly speaking, there are no genders, numbers, cases, tenses, and even strictly fixed parts of speech. Native speakers themselves claim that they have no grammar at all, it is enough to learn individual words and their order in the sentence.

It turns out that the grammar of the Russian language is more complicated than in Chinese.

In my opinion, the phonetics of the Chinese language is quite simple, especially for a Russian-speaking person. Pronunciation is completely dependent on the first teacher: a good Russian-speaking teacher can teach you to pronounce the sounds of the Chinese language correctly and clearly in a relatively short time. Chinese teachers usually cannot correctly explain with what “instruments” the sound is pronounced, and rejoice at the little, praise for any attempt by the student to say at least something.

The most difficult thing in Chinese

Hieroglyphics - in itself it is interesting, but often becomes the reason for the loss of motivation for learning the language. It can take a week to memorize one character. The term of learning the language is stretched, the student does not receive satisfaction from the “instant” mastery of it and gives up everything halfway through.

Differences between written and spoken language- there are such differences in any language, but in Chinese everything becomes more complicated due to the use of different characters in different styles, a large difference in wording, which makes it difficult to read texts even on familiar topics.

Tones - Chinese is a tonal language, remembering the pronunciation of a sound is not so difficult, but you will have to work hard on the correct intonation.

Phonetics - depends on the first teacher, as a rule, it is difficult to relearn.

Speech speed - the difficulty arises when communicating with native speakers, they adhere to a strange rule: if you are not understood, repeat faster.

The easiest thing in Chinese

Grammar - because the most important thing in the language - correct order words.

The logicality of the language - in the modern colloquial language, which has been formed over the past 100 years, two-syllable words have been formed from monosyllabic ones. For example, due to the combination of a sign and an object: “a flying machine” is an airplane, “electronic brains” is a computer, “a road in the shape of a cross” (pay attention to the shape of the hieroglyph 十) is a crossroads.

Is it difficult to learn hieroglyphs

Hieroglyphs have a huge history of both use and appearance. In different periods, the "inventors" of hieroglyphs used different logic when creating them.

The very first were hieroglyphs-pictures (pictograms), they outwardly imitated what a person saw in nature or everyday life. An example of such hieroglyphs:

木 - tree;

日 - sun;

鸟 - bird.

Then came hieroglyphic icons (ideograms), which denoted abstract concepts: happiness, love.

An example of such a character:

心 - heart, soul.

After the main hieroglyphs, which are called "keys", were formed, they began to be connected to each other to denote new concepts:

林 - two trees together mean "forest";

明 - hieroglyphs sun and moon together mean "light, bright";

怕 - the hieroglyphs heart and white in combination give the concept of "heart turned white" in the meaning of "to be afraid."

In some cases, we come across clues that suggest the reading of a hieroglyph, that is, the entire hieroglyph will be read in the same way as this key or in a similar way.

There are also clues that suggest the meaning of the hieroglyph: a tree indicates that the hieroglyph refers to some kind of plant or wooden object.

How many hieroglyphs do you need to know

In total, the Chinese language has more than 90 thousand characters according to modern dictionaries, but it is simply impossible to learn such a number. With the knowledge of 2 thousand, you will already be able to parse articles on topics of interest.

How long does it take to learn a language

It is possible to prepare for the first level of the international HSK Chinese exam in half a year of regular classes.

Is this knowledge enough for you in China? Probably not.

Can you, after 10 years of hard work, speak and translate from Chinese without looking into a dictionary? No.

But after all, the Chinese themselves constantly forget hieroglyphs, they may not understand each other, they use dictionaries.

The Chinese language has too long an intermediate level of language proficiency. You can speak with it and even read and translate a little. But you will never be able to master the language completely, even as a Chinese, so you should set yourself an adequate goal and constantly continue to study the language.

Is it possible to learn Chinese on your own?

It is possible if all the necessary materials for study are recommended to you by a great specialist in this matter. There are a huge number of textbooks, manuals, videos, articles, pages on social networks with free Chinese language courses appear every day, but it is too easy to fall for neophytes. Look for advice from professionals, but rather find a good teacher: first a Russian speaker, then a native speaker, and use all related materials at home to consolidate the material.

Find Chinese courses online and in your city

No hao! Why might you need to learn Chinese on your own? Well, for example, you, like me, want to go to China on your own. Read more about this. And the majority of the Chinese do not speak not only Russian, but also English! The exception is the cities bordering Russia, where almost the entire population also speaks Russian. And Beijing, where you can meet (or you may not meet) an English-speaking Chinese. But in general, not speaking any language other than their own There are many more Chinese. And for the most part, the inscriptions in China, oddly enough, are also in Chinese. Therefore, if you want at least a little guidance in what is happening, then learn Chinese on your own! And then - just somewhere "stick"!

I just want to dispel one myth. This myth says that Chinese is one of the most difficult languages ​​to learn! This is not true! It is one of the easiest languages! Anyway, conversational! With writing, it’s a little more difficult, but even here everything is not so deplorable. Don't believe me - read on!

I need to learn Chinese in a month

As I already wrote here, I had a need to learn Chinese “for work”. But I didn’t have time to really start Chinese on my own, as there was a trip to China. A month later!

I needed to start speaking some Chinese very quickly. And even better, study the hieroglyphs in order to understand a little what is written!

And I set about this difficult task - to learn Chinese on my own in a month!

Is Chinese difficult?

Well, in general, it is a myth that the Chinese language is very difficult. Let's take a look at spoken and written languages. What are the "zapodlyanki" and "nishtyaki" :) here and there

Oral Chinese.

Actually, it's pretty simple. In Chinese, it is very easy to construct a phrase in the past or future tense (compare with English :). In most cases, this can generally be understood from the context, and the phrase itself is constructed as in the present tense. The words themselves are short. It's easy to remember.

There are no articles in Chinese. Not plural. There are no births. All this is clear from the context.

Chinese phrases are built according to strict rules. Moreover, these rules are quite simple. It is very difficult to confuse something! The order of words in a sentence is strictly fixed!

As for the tonality that so intimidates beginners ...

Don't worry! You will be understood.. And you will understand from the context what they are saying.. This is actually NOT a problem! Even for those who have a bear dancing on their ears :) I’ll also say a little more about this ...

Already for a long time Milena Karlova is a Chinese teacher who gives private lessons. She created the textbook "Self-Teacher. Chinese for Beginners”, in which he shares his knowledge with readers. The book will help to master this amazing, but at the same time complex language. It is gaining more and more popularity and is likely to one day become a global language.

Using your knowledge of the language, you will be able to successfully conduct business negotiations, communicate with native speakers and study the culture of the country, you can easily go on a trip without worrying about the difficulties of communication.

The textbook details the material on the basics of the Chinese language, its features and some difficult cases. There is literally everything about hieroglyphs here, it is described what they mean, how to depict them correctly, there are prescriptions. With the help of phonetic material, you can work out pronunciation, which at the first stages of study seems to be very difficult. The book consists of many lessons, for each of which tasks and exercises are given to consolidate the new material.

The author gradually, very smoothly introduces things, so that the classes do not become too difficult or boring. The information is presented logically and sequentially, making it easy to digest. This book will answer many questions related to the interesting features of the Chinese language, and in a few months it will be possible to read simple texts.

On our website you can download the book "Self-Teacher. Chinese for Beginners" by Karlova Milena for free and without registration in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format, read the book online or buy the book in the online store.

Learning Chinese in the modern world has become fashion trend. Parents invite Chinese-speaking nannies or enroll their children in full immersion courses. Schools with in-depth study of the Chinese language accept students only after a preliminary interview, which you can get into by going through a long queue of applicants. In fact, it is not always easy to find a good Chinese teacher or a competent tutor who can teach in an accessible and competent way - offers often do not meet demand.

Chinese language training

Over the course of over a hundred years, English has evolved from a language spoken by several million people living on the island to a global language. He is still the most useful language in the world. However, the benefits of learning Chinese have grown significantly over the past two decades. In the world, Chinese is spoken by almost as many people as English - about 1.5 billion people. If you isolate Standard Chinese, then 909 million people have it as their first language. It is spoken in countries where large Chinese diasporas live: Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Mongolia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Macau, Brunei, Hong Kong and Australia (Cantonese is common in the USA).

Few people in China speak English. The often cited figure of 300 million English speakers is wildly overestimated, with the true number closer to 10 million, less than 1% of the population.

Standard Chinese or Putonghua (meaning a common language based on the Beijing dialect) is the official language of China, one of the most widely spoken spoken languages in the world and the mother tongue of the Han people. Chinese, considered as one language, consists of several main dialectic groups, within which there are collectively over 200 subdialects. Some linguists believe that Chinese is best viewed as a family of languages, with the main dialects classified as separate languages.

The linguistic diversity in China is comparable to the types of pronunciation in the UK, where almost every city seems to have its own specific English. Chinese citizens from different regions may not even understand each other and use Mandarin when communicating; in Russia it means "Chinese", and in Western countries it is referred to as Mandarin or Mandarin.

All Chinese dialects share a common written form, which has been developed and standardized over two millennia. The pinyin (phonetic spelling) system was developed in the mid-1950s under the guidance of the linguist Zhu Youguang, who is called the "father of pinyin", and approved in 1978 as the standard romanization system for Mandarin. In 2000, the phonetic alphabet, hanyu pinyin, at the legislative level became the unified standard for spelling and phonetic recording of the national language.

Why study?

Over the past two decades, China, thanks to the rapid growth of the economy, has become one of the world's leading powers. Domestic and international demand for Chinese products remains strong and the yuan is gaining momentum. China's economic growth has increased interest in the Chinese language. Understanding and speaking Chinese is essential for building cultural intelligence, especially for those doing business in China. In addition, China is taking steps to become a global power, expanding its economic activity abroad and welcomes foreign companies into its economic landscape. Many corporations that trade with China or have offices in China are looking for people who can speak Mandarin. Employment prospects are great, whether a person is hired to work in a foreign department or goes to China as an expat.

The Chinese people are proud of their culture and the history of one of ancient civilizations in the world. Learning Chinese will not only help you travel freely around the country, but will also open your eyes to a wide range of cultural characteristics. Native Chinese speakers are very friendly, they will literally "get out" to understand you, talk to you and help you correct mistakes. Language heritage great country noticeable in Korean and Japanese, and to some extent in Vietnamese. If you don't know Japanese, you can do without it when visiting Japan if you can speak Mandarin. The kanji used in Japanese writing are Chinese characters (translated as "Han letters"), just like Hanja in Korea.

You will be able to understand complex philosophical texts or read classic Chinese novels. Chinese literature (modern and ancient) is a huge and very deep cultural layer, many works have no analogues in the literary heritage of other cultures. Its history spans thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the urban genre that emerged during the Ming Dynasty to entertain literate Chinese. A large number of interesting materials not translated into other languages.

How many hieroglyphs are there, how many do you need to learn?

Many who want to learn Chinese are stopped by the difficulty factor. In fact, Standard Chinese is arguably the most overrated language in the world in terms of learning difficulty. It has a logical, consistent grammar: simple tenses, no conjugations, no plurals, few phonemes, the meaning of complex words is immediately obvious. The most difficult part is, of course, memorizing hieroglyphs.

There are more than 80,000 Chinese characters (Han) in the Chinese language, to be exact, according to the Zhonghua Zihai dictionary - 85,568 characters. The largest dictionary contains every Chinese character that has ever existed, from ancient Buddhist texts to symbols used by the Qing, Ming and Song dynasties. It sounds impressive, but in fact, many hieroglyphs are not currently used. A typical native speaker uses somewhere on the order of 3500 characters in all conversations.

It is expected that in primary school the child must learn about 2,500 hieroglyphs. The high school student then learns about 1,000 more specific characters. In general, high school graduates know about 4,500 characters; educated Chinese - from 8,000. Only very talented scientists and linguists, perhaps, approach the level of 80,000. But even the most gifted linguist admits that one of the biggest problems that Chinese creates is not the mechanics of the language, but the long and the hard work required to study.

Looking up characters in a Chinese dictionary, if paper binding is taken into account, is a multi-step process that takes quite a bit of time if you're not careful. Even a bilingual dictionary (for example, Chinese-Russian) will not be a sufficient reference tool. When learning Chinese, you may need at least three dictionaries to get a general idea of ​​what a particular character, word, or phrase means, and even then you need to apply some intellectual power to understand how to use the characters correctly. Many Chinese characters are in some way similar to small abstract pictures that even a toddler can draw.

In general, learning Chinese is never boring. Each character is designed to represent a specific meaning, a puzzle. Individual characters can be words on their own, but most words are made up of two or more characters.

An example of word formation:

• 手 (show: shǒu) - hand;
• if we combine the word hand or the hieroglyph 手 and the symbol 表 (biao: biǎo), dial, watch, we get a wrist watch - 手表 (shǒubiǎo);
• 手套 - gloves (shoutao: shǒutào), here 套 (tao) means wrapping, covering:
• 手机 (shǒujī) - mobile phone, 机 (ji) - generic phoneme in the names of devices, mechanisms, machines.

Another example for deciphering, using the characters 上 and 手:

上 (shan: shàng) - above, above; get up;

• 手 (show: shǒu) - hand;
• 上手 (shàngshǒu) - to begin, to begin, to master.

How many characters do beginners need to know Chinese to achieve fluency? The number of hieroglyphs and words that you need to learn depends on many components: the purpose of learning, the current level of language proficiency, and even the frequency of using certain hieroglyphs in colloquial speech.

How many words are in Chinese? It's a difficult question. Chinese is a living language, it is still evolving and new terms and expressions are being created every day. Hanyu yes tsidyan ( big dictionary Chinese words), lexicographically comparable to the Oxford English Dictionary, contains 370,000 words, but, as in the case of hieroglyphs, modern Chinese does not use many words (from the dictionary).

Phonetics

Pronunciation is the basis for mastering Mandarin. Pronunciation is not related to the writing of hieroglyphs. Pinyin (phonetic) - official system a romanization for standard Chinese that transcribes characters to teach them how to pronounce them correctly. It is important to understand that pinyin is not a way to write Chinese words in English language. This alphabet, developed by the Chinese, contains different rules about how each of the letters should be pronounced and their combinations. Each combination of letters can have up to 4 tones, so knowing how to read pinyin is not enough. The system includes four diacritics that represent tones.

The two main groups of letters in pinyin are called initials (a consonant at the beginning of a syllable) and finals (a vowel at the end of a syllable). Each syllable has three parts: initial, final and tone. Pinyin has 23 initials, 24 finals, 4 tones and a neutral tone.

For those who use the Cyrillic alphabet, the official standard is the Palladium or “palladica” system (transcription of Chinese characters into Cyrillic), created by the Russian sinologist and clergyman Pallady Kafarov in the 19th century, who spent thirty years of his life in China. However, pinyin also has to be learned and memorized!

Tones are the essence of correct pronunciation.

Many characters have the same sound, so when speaking Chinese, tones are needed to distinguish between different words:

1. First tone: high and even.
2. Second tone: ascending.
3. Third tone: descending-ascending.
4. Fourth tone: descending.

The neutral tone is not considered a separate tone, but it is an unstressed syllable.

The most common example used to teach pronunciation is: mā(mother), má(cannabis) mǎ(horse) mà(curse).

When a word consists of more than one syllable, which is the case in most cases, each syllable has its own tone. For example: the word apple is 苹果píngguǒ (pingo is the first syllable in tone 2, the second syllable in tone 3).

How to learn to speak Chinese? It is very important from the very beginning to be especially disciplined in regard to tones. Some beginners find it better to memorize vocabulary first and then add tones. It is not right. Then it will be very difficult to correct tonal errors or learn tones from scratch. It is more useful to practice tones in pairs or combinations, given that most Chinese words consist of several sounds, and each syllable carries its own tone.

Always try to learn the tone of each new character, for example, 雨 (rain) yǔ (yu) in tone 3!

When listening to Chinese speech, try to listen to the sounds, and not just parse the meaning!

Wrong tone changes the meaning of the sentence!

Grammar

How to learn Chinese? In order to truly understand a language, eventually to master it, knowledge of grammar is necessary. Understanding basic grammar is critical to fluency. This is the key to being able to write sentences correctly.

Grammar section - beginner level:

To say about the quantity, counting words (or numerators, classifiers) are used, which can be divided into several categories according to the semantic group of nouns or characteristic features of the subject. For example, 本 běn for books, 台 tái for cars, 座 zuò for large buildings and mountains, 只 (隻) zhī for animals, and so on.

Fortunately, there is a general-purpose counter word - 个 ge. The peculiarity is that it can be used for almost everything, although, of course, when possible, it is better to use specific classifiers.

Dialects

The second most widely spoken dialect after Putonghua (or Mandarin Chinese) is Cantonese (a Yue dialect). It is spoken mainly in the southern regions of China, in the province of Guangdong, in the eastern and southern parts of Guangxi, Cantonese is used in Hong Kong and Macau. Like standard Chinese, it also has tones, but instead of four tones plus a neutral one, Cantonese uses at least six tones. The two dialects are very different and completely incomprehensible to each other. There are many colloquial expressions in Cantonese. Historically, Chinese communities living in other countries speak Cantonese, due to the fact that the migration of Chinese people was mainly carried out from the south of China. Although overseas there are a large number of Chinese who speak Standard Chinese.

Linguists traditionally divide Chinese into seven main dialect groups or languages. But a large number of linguists additionally recognize three more groups. The official opinion about dialects is that they are variations common language, but this is a view shaped more by politics than by linguistics. Many linguists believe that Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese, as well as other dialects, are sufficiently different from each other to be classified as separate languages; they have different phonology, vocabulary.

The largest, in addition to the northern Chinese and Cantonese dialects, is wu, min (or Fujian; in Fujian and Taiwan), gan (in Jiangxi province), xiang (in most of Hunan province). Within each group there are several sub-dialects. For example, wu includes the dialects of Shanghai, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, which are mutually intelligible to some extent, but it also includes a number of other dialects that are very different from the three listed. Shanghainese has become very popular among young people communicating on the Internet in order to standardize and promote it as a separate language. There is only 31% lexical similarity between Wu and Mandarin Chinese, about the same as between English and French.

How to learn Chinese on your own from scratch - the choice of methodology

Given the complexity of writing, as opposed to comparatively simple grammar, most beginner Chinese practitioners focus primarily on speaking skills before tackling writing.

Methods that are used to learn Mandarin Chinese:

1. Audio-visual course (using audio and video as key tools makes learning easier and makes the learning process more interesting and less intimidating).
2. situational approach (each new lesson proposes topics based on practical, real situations; they are introduced different ways, which leads to the memorization of specific information and grammar).
3. Stimulation method (with the help of typical examples, the student learns language patterns, recognizes language features and masters the basics).

Programs designed to acquire conversational skills and mastery of writing. There are two main systems of Chinese writing used in the world today - Traditional and Simplified Chinese. Traditional characters are derived from ancient Chinese pictograms and have been used throughout most of the history of Chinese civilization. Many characters are both beautiful and complex and require a lot of time to learn how to reproduce them and form words.

From the middle of the 20th century, the government of mainland China began to spread an alternative Chinese writing system, which was called "simplified" in order to improve the literacy of the population throughout the country. For many characters, this system simplifies writing through a number of methods. For those who decide how to learn Chinese on their own faster, it is better to start with the "simplified" option. But those who are going to spend many years developing and improving their abilities need to start studying with traditional hieroglyphs and only then “impose” knowledge of simplified symbols on them.

Difficulties in learning

Learning Chinese characters is initially very difficult, simply because there is nothing to connect new information with. The class method involves learning 3,500 or so characters, which account for at least 99% of the use in writing. It is also difficult for native Chinese speakers, including, it usually requires routine and endless copying for a single year, in which case the Chinese can forget even the most ordinary characters. Discontent has been growing in China in recent years modern methods language teaching. Could there be a better technique?

Hieroglyphs are actually not as arbitrary and incomprehensibly diverse as it might seem. They consist of a rather limited number of sub-characters or radicals, which themselves consist of a set of standard dashes. Moreover, radicals often contain clues about meaning or pronunciation.

Exists general rules or traditional theory (六书Liù shū) to study the composition of characters and build them from radicals. For example, when you learn that a tree is 木 (mù), it's easier to remember that 林 (lín) is a forest, or even 森林(sēnlín). There are six types in the composition of hieroglyphs: pictogram, indicative, ideograph, phonetic connection, mutual explanation and phonetic borrowing. Strictly speaking, only the first four refer to the methods of composition, but in general the theory is correct and reveals the general patterns of the creation and development of Chinese characters.

How to Learn Chinese - Useful Apps

Speechling: Free Language Learning Tools

FluentU: one of the best apps that offers a huge collection of videos with subtitles of various content (music videos, commercials, news, dialogues, grammar lessons, interviews): the resource is free, but there is also paid content.

Anki: A flash program that uses a spaced repetition technique that is believed to improve memory for new words. For Android users it's free.

Skritter : A spaced repetition application recommended for those who take Chinese writing seriously.

Chinese Skill: A free application for beginners. The course consists of 45 topics (food, numbers, colors, and so on), focuses on learning vocabulary and grammar using the game mechanism.

Standard Mandarin: The application is specialized in correct pronunciation.

Words running application, based on the technique of the so-called unconscious mode of perception, offers 40 audio lessons, sets of popular words and colloquial expressions, a dictionary, a pronunciation simulator.

ChinesePod is the oldest platform for learning Chinese. Services include videos and podcasts organized by level, review exercises, cards with personalized word lists. The big advantage of the application is that you can download all the content and use it even without an internet connection.

Pros and Cons of Learning Online

There are many advantages of some online resources for learning Chinese, among them two main ones can be distinguished:

Information retrieval speed: With the help of an electronic dictionary (Big Chinese Russian Dictionary Online; Pleco), you can find the meaning of any word in a few seconds. Of course, it is much more interesting to open Skritter or Chinese Writer and draw hieroglyphs for hours without even noticing it.

However, it is worth bearing in mind that having quick access to everything we need is extremely distracting, especially if we are not exactly sure what to focus on. In understanding Chinese, it is important to create a solid foundation.

Technologies offered modern world, make us lazy: this is the other side of quick access to information that is offered literally on a silver platter. They are not able to teach us to think and analyze, to rely on our memory. And this is a big mistake, since it is the memory for learning that is the most valuable resource.

You need to learn how to use online resources correctly. It is foolish and anachronistic to leave them out altogether, but the advice is to filter, to use what we need when we need it, then we can really get the most out of it. Chinese needs to be learned step by step and with a lot of patience!!!

Benefits of Watching TV and Movies in Chinese

as the main source educational material or simply as an addition to your classes, watching TV in Mandarin is a great source for developing listening skills (any foreign language welcomes this practice). Mandarin subtitles are a big plus. They will allow our brain to associate sounds with written counterparts. Of course, this only works if you already know how Chinese characters are constructed and can recognize a small number of commonly used characters.

Useful resources:

Even at the initial stage (when you are still a zero in Chinese), you can usually follow the plot. Even understand the essence of what is happening, using only visual images.

Chinese films are not just entertainment, they provide a vivid insight into ancient and modern China and allow you to reflect on how attitudes and social values ​​have changed over time. This is a really important practical skill for communicating with native speakers. different ages. If you understand at least a little of their attitudes or the cultural connotation of the Chinese words they use, learning Chinese through watching movies will help improve your communication skills.

Advice - how to watch movies and TV shows. Educational value comes from active viewing. You need to review this or that scene several times, while reading the subtitles and following the conversation of the characters. There should always be a notebook nearby where to write down new words or sentence structures.

1. Live (活着, Huózhe) directed by Zhang Yimou.

An iconic epic film that tells the story of a family against the backdrop of great changes in modern China - from the 1940s to the end of the Cultural Revolution.

1. Blue kite (蓝风筝, Lán fēngzhēng), Tian Zhuangzhuang.

Possibly one of the most truthful portrayals of the communist regime, the story of a family is told by a boy nicknamed 铁头 (Tiě tóu) Iron Head, who grew up in Beijing in the 1950s-1960s.

1. Raise the Red Lantern (大红灯笼高高挂, Dàhóng dēnglóng gāo gāo guà), Zhang Yimou.

Songlian, an educated 19-year-old girl, is forced to become the fourth wife of a wealthy 50-year-old feudal lord after her father's death. She soon discovers that the status of wives and access to privileges is determined by a woman's ability to please her husband. The action takes place in the 1920s. The patriarchal values ​​of Confucian society, the family hierarchy, are faithfully portrayed for this period, when women were viewed simply as objects to be used and discarded at the whim of a man.

1. Painted Skin 畫皮, Huàpí), Gordon Chan.

Action fantasy, film adaptation of the story by Pu Songling (Lao Zhai) from the collection Description of the Miraculous from Liao's Office (Liao-zhai-zhi-yi). The time of action is the period of the Yuan Dynasty, 13-14th century. The story begins with Wang Sheng, the commander-in-chief of the army, rescuing the orphan girl Xiaowei from bandits and bringing her home, where his wife Peizhong is waiting for him. Three months later, a strange series of murders hits the city: Serial killer rips out the hearts of victims. Peizhong begins to suspect that Xiaowei is actually a bloodthirsty demon only disguised as a human, but Wei does not believe her. She calls for the help of General Pang Yun, who has left the service and, as it turns out, became friends with the demon hunter. Xia Bing pursued Xiaowei for years to avenge the murder of one of her relatives.

Secondly, it is necessary to develop the habit of previewing and reviewing educational material. A Chinese proverb says 磨刀不误砍柴工(Mó dāo bù wù kǎn chái gōng), which can be translated as the better the preparation, the faster the work is done. Each lesson must first be accompanied by a division into parts - and you need to start with the most difficult part.

Thirdly, you need to be as interactive as possible during training. In the age of the Internet, this is not difficult to do - a lot of useful resources are available online.

As part of a self-guided approach, set specific, long-term goals (to reach excellence in five years, for example). Decide how much time you will devote to learning Chinese each day. Perhaps in six months the beginner will be able to read children's material or light text. The real goal is, for example, to learn (say and write) 20 new characters per month.

In contact with

Do you know how many Chinese characters there are?
And why does the character "mother" consist of "woman" and "horse"?
What is the most common name in China?

Do you want to know about all this?

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In addition to new invaluable knowledge, you:

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When developing online lessons we took into account all the nuances that students may encounter.

And now we say with confidence that we will teach you REAL Chinese.

Professional approach
A team of highly qualified specialists works on the lessons. These are representatives of leading universities, and native speakers from different parts of China. Everything to ensure that you are engaged in proven and high-quality educational materials.

Time saving
The clear structure of the lesson will not allow you to be distracted by trifles:

• Main text
• Overview of new words
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• Tests and exercises to consolidate the studied material

All information is arranged logically and in the right amount for better perception.

Own dictionary

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• The most valuable information.
• No water.
• All characters from texts and dialogues are real people who find themselves in the same situations as you.

China is a major player in the global economic arena. More and more people associate their activities with the Middle State.

This includes the purchase of goods, and the conduct of a joint business, and the search for partners, and visiting exhibitions for entrepreneurs.

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And more than that...

We are constantly developing and coming up with new ways to learn Chinese. Soon you will be able to try our flash games and learn how to write hieroglyphs beautifully on Chinese calligraphy course.

And also for those who want their children to develop comprehensively and learn a lot of interesting and useful things about China and the Chinese language, we are working on a special course " Chinese - for children».

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