What resources do you actively use to study Chinese, and why?

Question

Resource questions are sometimes closed and redirected to Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese, but the number of links is a bit overwhelming. So...

Q: What resources do you actively use to study Chinese, and why?

I ask the community to describe the tools they actually use for learning Chinese, and explain how they use them.

• Please indicate your Chinese level.
• Please don't include anything you don't actually use, i.e., quality control.
• Please don't copy/paste from the links (i.e., explain how you use it; don't just repeat advertisements), i.e., quality control.
• Please ignore other answers when writing your own. Obsolete answers are meant to "drop to the bottom".

Answers sorted by activity...

The idea is for users to sort the answers by activity, and thus see non-obsolete answers on top.

Answer 1

My recommendations are below; everything in bold I actively use. (My current level: I'm at the early/mid stages of HSK6.)

Electronic resources...

1. Mobile dictionary: I use Pleco on my iPhone as a portable dictionary. I find it useful for inputting characters by drawing them by hand, and searching for partial words e.g. ？然. It's also useful for breaking apart words into characters, and characters into components.

2. Web dictionary: My primary web dictionary is YouDao, which also gives example sentences. I also occasionally use MDBG, Xiaoma Cidian, Yabla dictionary, Dict.cn, and LineDict; sometimes it's useful to compare multiple definitions. (I also use the thesaurus JinYiFanYi and Collocation Search. Sometimes Baidu gives collocations, e.g. ？？英雄.)

   I also find it useful to simply download the whole CC-CEDICT dictionary and search for it using command line functions like grep.

3. Web popup dictionary: I use the Zhongwen: Chinese-English Dictionary as a Firefox browser popup dictionary (i.e., you hover your mouse over the Chinese and the popup contains a translation); it gives the CC-CEDICT definitions. There's a bunch of others.

4. Web example sentences: I sometimes use Jukuu for example sentences (aside from YouDao). It's not perfect (many examples are far too lengthy and technical), but it's okay. Alternatives include ZaoJuWang and ChinesePod. However, sometimes simply using Baidu works (clicking 资讯 = "information" gives more reliable examples).

5. Chinese grammar: I use the Chinese Grammar Wiki. It's incomplete, but seems to be the most reliable resource I'm aware of.

6. Translation: I use Google Translate. The results are often mediocre, so it's important to edit the results. It's useful to copy/paste the results into Baidu to compare against native Chinese sentences. Another possibility is the MDBG Translate which can segment and annotate the text.

7. OCR: The Baidu Hanyu iPhone app has good enough OCR to work with my handwriting.

8. Writing: I've started writing daily posts on LangCorrect (see my account) and I get multiple native speakers giving corrections.

9. Handwriting: I've used Skritter (paid) and TOFU Learn (free); there are multiple alternatives. Nowadays I don't think it's worthwhile recalling Chinese characters from English words. 抖音 (with a Chinese Apple account) has many useful videos of handwriting, identifying common mistakes (examples 1 2).

10. Web search by radical: I think the best option is the MDBG Radical/Strokes Lookup, although Chinese-Tools Search by Radical is also good.

11. Creating Chinese names: I use RenRenWang for creating character names in my writing.

12. Reading practice: I mostly read native Chinese opinion pieces from Sina, MSN 中国, and ABC Chinese and on apps such as 看点快报 and 今日头条; I find CCTV News and the Chinese New York Times too difficult. I also use DuChinese on my iPhone (without paying). I sometimes read news articles at Chinese News Club (there's also The Chairman's Bao, FourthTone Mandarin, and HSK Reading, although I don't often use them). RuiWang has essays written by Chinese primary school children sorted by year level (I read 五年级 = grade 5).

    Many novels can be downloaded from Blah.me and web novels from ZhWenPg. Sometimes I listen to audiobooks via 懒人听书.

13. HSK: I'm finding ChineseEddieG汉语艾迪's reading of the HSK6 Standard Course textbooks useful. Previously I've watched the HSK6 Coursera course from 北京大学 (there's also HSK 1 2 3 4 5; it's also on YouTube), but struggled with memorizing vocabulary: a lot of it focused on the test, rather than learning Chinese. Chinese HSK also offers useful test advice. I practice past HSK6 listening on YouTube.

    For analyzing the difficulty of a sample text, I use HSK东西, selecting "Analyse HSK words", "Analyse HSK characters", and "Big block of text". I make use of the HSK 2012 vocabulary list along with HSK东西's data files. I used the HSK-5 Online Test app to take a past HSK-5 test.

14. Videos: I'm getting into Dr. Huang's "muggle classes": these give a friendly introduction to various medical topics for native speakers. I paid for Mandarin Corner (100 yuan; it's great value) and watch them when they come out. I find ShuoshuoChinese说说中文 videos useful, but they're becoming more commercial nowadays.

15. LaTeX: For writing Chinese in LaTeX, I use the XeLaTeX compiler with the xeCJK package and gbsn00lp.ttf font. The xpinyin package is useful for adding pinyin.

16. Wikipedia: The pages Appendix:Mandarin Frequency lists and Appendix:Easily confused Chinese characters are useful references.

I also use Chinese Stack Exchange and Reddit's /r/ChineseLanguage and Reddit's /r/LanguageLearning. I sometimes read Hacking Chinese, and listen to the YouCanLearnChinese podcast. I track the time I spend studying Chinese using Toggl.

I don't use flashcards, but I hear Anki is the standard. I previously used Closemaster for fill-in-the-gaps exercises, but it's buggy and too costly.

I also use XX-net to get around Google, etc., being blocked in China.

Non-electronic resources...

1. Chinese tutor: I have a tutor from LTL Mandarin School (I'm in Beijing currently). It's not cheap, but I've found it worthwhile. (I hear italki is the norm for web classes, but I have never used it.)

2. Textbooks: I'm slowly working through 发展汉语；高级口语（I) and a grade-3 语文 textbook (having finished this one). Previously, I finished HSK4标准教程 "HSK Standard Course 4" (both 上 and 下), but they're too boring. (Most of the grammar points are on now the Chinese Grammar Wiki: 上 and 下.)

   I bought the book 21天征服新HSK六级写作 to help with the HSK6 composition (缩写) component although I haven't started it yet. I also use the reference books HSK汉语水平考试 - 精选词汇辨析与练习 and 1700对近义词语用法对比 for distinguishing between near-synonyms.

3. Novels: I've previously read Matilda (玛蒂尔达) and The Witches (女巫), and I currently read Fog Magic (穿越魔雾), and on-and-off read The Hobbit (霍比特人).

   I have a bunch of Chinese-author books which I've bought, but they're just too hard (they're punishing and not enjoyable, and I don't learn much): 喜欢你，我也是 (teen romance), 猫城记 (science fiction), 听你的 (prose), 一只特立独行的猪 (historical), 活着 (historical), and 山楂树之恋 (historical). (There's a Reddit post which calculates the difficulty of a large selection of Chinese books.)

4. Movies: I often watch movies in Chinese both on TV and at the cinemas (here in Beijing); rom-coms are mostly understandable. It's very satisfying (and reinforcing) when I've studied some grammar point and see it on the big screen. My movie recommendations for learning Chinese: 我的女友是机器人, 北京遇上西雅图, 半个喜剧, 宠爱, and 亲爱的新年好. (Graded watching is a list of movies and TV series sorted by difficulty.)

5. Newspapers: I've taken to reading the Global Times 环球时报 which I buy in physical form so I can spend less time on the computer and highlight things. I find it easier to read than other newspapers, and they often discuss international topics.