Blogs are a great source for ideas, tips and inspiration. It’s a pity that some of them don’t get the audience they deserve. This is my personal top ten of blogs on the topic of learning Mandarin Chinese.
Blogs come an go and some of them have already turned into online fossils. So when I made this top 10, I looked for four things:
Hacking Chinese is a blog by Mandarin expert Olle Linge from Sweden who has studied for four years in Taiwan and teaches Chinese and English. Having a solid background in linguistics, he answers almost all questions related to successfully learning Mandarin Chinese. His main advice for language learners: “If you don’t take responsibility and think for yourself, it will take ages to reach a decent level, but if you become aware of how to learn and study efficiently, fluency is within reach.” Olle also organizes the “monthly extensive reading challenge“. The main goal here is not “intensive reading” but reading as much Chinese as you can below or at your current level.
This is a great blog by John Pasden, a Mandarin expert “who’s been around” for a long time. He has published a great series of graded readers for Mandarin learners. Check out his list of resources and inspiring podcasts. It’s a great starting point by someone who knows every obstacle on the way, but maybe a little too nerdy and old-school for some.
You’re learning but you feel a little stuck? Visit Steve Kaufmann’s blog for inspiration and tips. Steve is probably one of the most experienced language learners out there. He speaks Mandarin as well as 19 other languages.
Chinese Zero to Hero is not a blog, it’s a very rich website for Chinese learners. Lots of useful resources for listening, reading and grammar and the Zero to Hero team keeps improving and expanding the website. I’ve grown very fond of the transcribed YouTube videos and their music database. You can even adjust the website’s settings to your personal taste (show / hide Pinyin, simplified / traditional characters etc.). Great work.
Looking for the best learning tools and apps for learning Mandarin? Or a quick overview of what’s out there? All Language Resources is all about reviewing learning resources for Mandarin Chinese and giving you their best recommendations. The author takes his time for testing and knows what he’s writing about.
You may have heard about their Chinese dictionary add-on for Pleco. These guys are Hanzi experts who want to share their knowledge with the world. Want to ease your suffering studying Chinese characters? This is the place to look for new ideas and efficient study methods.
FluentU is more like a corporate blog which has a team of (freelance) writers blogging for them. They don’t always share the most practical advice, they do post a lot of relevant tips and ideas though. If you’re wondering what apps you might want to use and which Chinese movies to watch, this is the right place.
This is another corporate blog and similar to FluentU you’ll find a broad variety of topics here, not everything directly related to learning Mandarin, but interesting and engaging articles nonetheless. If you’re a fan of the Chineasy approach to character learning, you’ve come to the right place. What the blog lacks, is a categorization of content by topic, level, date etc.
This website as well is a lot broader than just focusing on mastering Mandarin. I included it because of its practical tips for foreigners interested in traveling or even living in China.
This blog by native Chinese speaker Grace (currently living in Toronto, Canada) hasn’t been updated for several years and has some technical issues, but its content and resources are just to great to ignore. If you are looking for free reading material on your level, you might get lucky here. Or look for tips, for example on how to express disagreement in Chinese.
What’s your favorite Chinese learning blog? Please feel free to comment down below.
Hi there, my name is Jorrit, content editor, runner and lifelong language learner from the Netherlands - currently based in Berlin. Here on Kaohongshu, I share my obsession with learning Mandarin.
