Resources for learning Mandarin Chinese

Question

This is a specifically created Community Wiki which gathers resources for learning Mandarin Chinese and it has been approved by the Community itself.

It should be clear that the resources are not written by one user or only by the mods, but by whoever wants to contribute.

Just write in the appropriate answer/section. If you have concerns, questions, post a meta question, so we don't clutter the comments, but you can link your meta question from the comments.

Questions regarding such resources are not allowed anymore, except for very specific and on topic requests (ask on Meta if you're unsure about your question). Follow the instructions made in the question about how to post, what can be posted, etc.

Organization

• Answers have a type of resource each.
• If possible, state whether the material is directed towards a beginner, intermediate or an advanced audience.
• Do not include links that lead to illegal content or sites that host such content. If you see any, please flag for moderator attention and choose "other" so you can point us to the content. We'll delete it as soon as we see the flag.
• Both free and commercial resources are allowed, but make sure to include a note if they are. Remember the rules about self-promotion. Include also if registration is required.
• Include links to the sites only, don't post images, they would take too much space.
• Add the resources in alphabetical order so they're easier to find. :)

Note: new rules could be added in the future.

Alphabetical Index

• Add-ons (browser)
• Apps
• Audiobooks
• Books
• Dictionaries
• Dictionaries (Technical Terms)
• Language Exchanges
• Newspapers
• Online courses
• Podcasts
• Software
• Television
• Textbooks
• Websites

Answer 1

Add-ons

• Perapera Chinese (Firefox, Chrome), an add-on that displays pop-up definitions and pronunciations (including tone marks & color coding) for Chinese characters in the web browser.
• Zhongwen: A Chinese-English Popup Dictionary (extension for Google Chrome)
• New Tong Wen Tang (Chrome, Firefox), and add-on which transliterates between simplified and traditional Chinese on web sites.
• Chinese Tutor (Firefox, Chrome: Flashcards, Speaking, Dictionary, Extension)
• Nciku (Chrome), an extension that allows quick searching in the Nciku site and has an option for pop-up definitions and pronunciation.

Answer 2

Websites

• 9610 Shufazidian, database of calligraphic variants (mostly supports Simplified Character entries and provides its traditional appearance in calligraphy)
• Allset Learning Chinese Grammar Wiki, a site with over 1000 categorized grammatical structures with explanations and examples.
• Baidu Tieba
• BliuBliu: n + 1 word reading material with glossary (free and subscription)
• Canto Dict, Supports Mandarin and Cantonese translations (pinyin and jyutping). Search characters using Chinese, English, Pinyin, Jyutping. Community maintained Chinese-English dictionary, User forums, Tests, and more.
• CCHATTY, free video, lecture, article and 1-on-1 lesson.
• Centre for Teaching Chinese @ Oxford Grammar Notes, a to the point collection of grammar aspects by Centre for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language University of Oxford. Great explanations and samples.
• Chinese forum on WordReference.com, an active forum for discussing anything about the Chinese language.
• ChineseKuang!, funny free videos with free online practice exercises to improve reading, writing and listening skills. Also additional free learning material like manga comics with vocabulary lists.
• Chinese Linguipedia, online database providing brief scholarly explanations of glyph origins
• ChinesePoetry - Ancient Chinese Poetry.
• Chinese Reading Practice gives Chinese articles for reading practice at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels.
• chinesestoriesplatform.com, a site with many lower intermediate & intermediate practice texts
• Chinese text project, open-access online digital library of many digitised and not-yet-digitised pre-modern Chinese texts.
• Chinese Tutor Flashcards, a site that works like flashcards to help memorize the Pinyin for Chinese words/phrases.
• Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants, extensive database of historical character variants in their regular script forms
• edu.tw, a site that provides stroke order for traditional Chinese characters (Taiwan order)
• edu.tw, a site that explains (in Chinese) the usage of Chinese punctuation.
• FluentU, a site that provides short Chinese videos with subtitles with characters, pinyin and English.
• Global Language Online Support System (GLOSS), 700+ self-contained lessons with vocab and quizzes for intermediate-advanced Mandarin (and dozens of other languages if you're interested
• Hacking Chinese: a very rich selection of articles and ressources related to learning Mandarin, with a focus on methods/strategies for learning. It has something for all levels and is well worth checking out.
• HanziCraft, Breaks down character into radicals and assorted strokes. Also features a table list of homonyms.
• HelloTalk: Language Exchange with native speakers worldwide
• Lang-8: Language exchange platform where a community of native speakers will correct your writings (free and subscription)
• Lingomi, a site for helping Chinese learners master pinyin and tones (free).
• learnchineseez.com, a site that provides the stroke order for Chinese characters (Mainland China order)
• Multi-function Chinese Character Database, provides ancient character forms and glyph origin explanations from scholars in the field
• nciku.com, The nciku Chinese dictionary lets you look up Chinese and English words to see translations, pinyin, examples and stroke order animations, as well as listen to audio pronunciations of words and examples. Features include:
  • Over 163,000 entries, including 76,000 Chinese and 77,000 English words and phrases.
  • Search for an English or Chinese word, its meaning or (for Chinese words) its pinyin, or do an example search to find all examples containing that word.
  • Stroke order animations and definitions for all Chinese characters in a word, or links to longer words containing a single character. The interface is a very slick blend of Flash and javascript that puts other online handwriting recognition attempts to shame.
• Ninchanese provides self-paced lessons to learn to read, write, speak and understand Chinese. It combines game mechanics to keep learners motivated, with science-based learning techniques, including a space repeating learning system, an adaptive algorithm, instant voice-recognition, and multiplayer games. (free and paid)
• pin1yin1.com, a site that adds pinyin or Zhuyin to a text with English to help you understand a text.
• Ponddy Reader an online tool that can level imported Chinese articles and generate pinyin, vocab and grammar lists with built-in dictionary and library.
• Reddit r/ChineseLanguage (old style) is for discussions about the Chinese language.
• Sing Chinese Songs, a website that allows one to learn Chinese through song. You sing karaoke with pinyin/characters and then turn off the pinyin.
• RuiWen has many articles suitable for reading practice. Of particular relevance to learners is 作文, containing essays written by Chinese children.
• Skritter, a site for learning to write and study Chinese (or Japanese) characters.
• Täglich Chinesisch, explains the 2,000 most important (traditional) Chinese characters and their components through keywords and mnemonics (only in German).
• Tianya BBS
• Wengu: One of the best resources for classical Chinese works.
• XKCD comics in Chinese.
• Xiao xue tang, extensive database of ancient character variants, listing oracle bone, bronze, warring states, and seal script forms, and also providing an in-depth bibliography for these forms' explanations.
• Yabla, a site with videos including hanzi, pinyin, and english captions (paid). Popular PinYin Chart with audio.
• Yoyo Chinese Mandarin language learning website with free Pinyin chart with audio and video demonstrations, informative blog entries on language and culture with audio samples of vocabulary, and comprehensive 6 month Chinese courses.
• Zaoju Wang 造句网 allows you to search for example sentences.
• Zhihu, China's quora.
• zhongwen.com/中文.com, a resource for understanding the components (i.e. radicals) of Chinese characters.
• ZhWenPG provides free Chinese web novels.

Answer 3

Television

• Mandarin News Australia. SBS' Weekly Mandarin language news programme. Full episodes available online. English Subtitles. ~30min per episode. Also hosts full episodes of CCTV news.

• Wikipedia has a list of Chinese television series.

Streams

Please only post streams you have verified them to work. If you find a dead link in this list, mark it (cumulatively) with asterisks. If a link has enough asterisks, remove it. Don't remove it just because it failed once, sometimes they are down temporarily.

The links may not work if your browser is not configured to launch a media player for MMS links. You can use an external player such as VLC to play these streams.

• CCTV 4 (mms://8.3.230.132/cctv-4/cctvNews01.wmv)
• NJTV 1 - Nanjing TV (mms://218.94.122.203/njtvxw)
• XZTV1* (mms://218.3.205.21/xwzhpd)
• XZTV2* (mms://218.3.205.21/jjshpd)
• XZTV3* (mms://218.3.205.21/shzfpd)
• NYTV - Nanyang TV (mms://61.136.113.41/nytv_1)

Answer 4

Software

Free software - The user can make/add their own material to the software

• Anki 2 (PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS), a SRS program for learning. The version 2 comes with new additions. Chinese Flash card decks need to be downloaded or entered by the user.

• Flashonary (iOS) Flashcard dictionary. Custom flashcards can be created for words based on dictionary entries and studied using an SRS study system (new/unknown words shown more often, known words shown less often). Has audio pronunciations (paid add-on). Can share made flashcards.

• Ibus Input bus for Unix / Linux. Depending on your distribution you may have this installed by default. If you do not have Ibus installed, first install Chinese support from language settings, and then install ibus and ibus-pinyin using your package manager.

• Mac OSX Chinese English Language Tools (see demo) - Follow this free guide (PDF only) to configure Mac OSX to speak Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, write Simplified or Traditional Characters, Includes multiple Chinese-English Dictionaries, Convert Characters to Pinyin, Input Cantonese Characters and more (author, Tommie C.). Download updated zip from Github or use the original zip file.

• Mnemosyne SRS program for learning. Chinese Flash card decks need to be downloaded.

Commercial software - Chinese is Integrated into the software

• Berlitz
• Hanping Chinese Dictionary Pro Android only. Includes handwriting recognition, native speaker audio, stroke animations, example sentences, idioms, HSK words as well as tools like realtime clipboard monitoring, homescreen widgets and soundboard. Multi-syllable audio, extra stroke animations and ABC dictionaries available as in-app purchases. Part of a suite of apps that include Hanping Camera (considered by many the best Chinese OCR app on smartphones) and Hanping Popup an innovative handle/cursor that floats over all apps allowing you to look up words much like in Browser Add-ons.
• HanWangJian software (Pinyin Input and Chinese learning).
• Pimsleur (isn't this audio only, that is course or podcast)
• Pleco (iOS/Android) Flashcard/dictionary. Perhaps the most comprehensive dictionary/flashcard learning software available. A lot of different dictionaries available. Lots of customization available. Text-to-speech, importing text from the clipboard, and input by radical are all features. In-app purchases provide features like looking up words via OCR using your phone's camera, handwriting input, and importing text files with on the fly popup translation.
• Rosetta Stone
• YìXué Chinese Dictionary (Windows Phone) Chinese Learning assistant. Includes flashcards, example sentences, and quizzes. Dictionary search results are sorted by frequency.
• Clozemaster is a language-learning game where you "fill in the blanks" in sentences; for Chinese, it includes HSK1 through HSK6. It has advanced features for paying users.

Answer 5

Podcasts

• 慢速中文 Slow Chinese, they provide audio + transcript. Audio can be listened to online or downloaded.
• 每日视频新闻, daily Chinese language news podcast found on iTunes.
• Popup Chinese An irreverent and cool take on learning colloquial Mandarin, as well as general Mainland culture and norms.
• Chinese Pod This is another nice podcast that provides an easy way to learn colloquial Mandarin.
• Melnyks This podcast has a lot of content, but you may find having to rewind often due to their content size, speed, and style of teaching.
• Talkify Reads websites out loud, great if one wants listen to spoken Chinese.
• ChineseClass101 Most of the programs contain a dialogue (formal, informal, school, family...), vocab explanation and grammar tips. You will find useful phrase in it.
• CCTV English has a Learn Chinese section which hosts a collection of free Chinese language videos (some featuring Da Shan).
• Videos: Learn Chinese Club is an index of Chinese-learning YouTube videos; some are hard to find ordinarily.

Answer 6

Language Exchanges

Various websites to find language exchange partners, people will meet in person or talk online and help each other learn each others' respective languages.

• Conversation Exchange
• My Language Exchange
• The Mixxer
• italki
• Hinative
• Lang-8
• PopOn
• Busuu
• LingQ
• Polyglot Club
• LangCorrect

Answer 7

Apps:

• Baidu Translate (百度翻译) Similar to Google Translate, C-E/E-C translations but more. OCR (an in-app purchase in Pleco), useful common phrases/expressions list, audio lookup, save your lookups. Android/iOS.

• Baidu Chinese (百度汉语) (iPhone). Free OCR (which works on my handwriting [Becky 李蓓]), compositions (作文), and Chinese poetry recital.

• Chinese HSK it has several HSK levels with some useful grammar and vocabulary games, great for practice. It has also dictionary and special levels (Android)

• ChineseSkill iOS and Android app that provides robust learning materials up to HSK4 and exercises in speaking, writing, listening and reading. It also has an internal flash card system that allows reviewing words and phrases in different ways. Available in 8 languages: English, Spanish, Portugese, Russian, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Korean.

• Hanping Chinese Dictionary Pro Android only. Includes handwriting recognition, native speaker audio, stroke animations, example sentences, idioms, HSK words as well as tools like realtime clipboard monitoring, homescreen widgets and soundboard. Multi-syllable audio, extra stroke animations and ABC dictionaries available as in-app purchases. Part of a suite of apps that include Hanping Camera (considered by many the best Chinese OCR app on smartphones) and Hanping Chinese Popup an innovative handle/cursor that floats over all apps allowing you to look up words much like in Browser Add-ons.

• HelloChinese is an app for improving speaking skills based on speech recognition. The speaking exercises are very interesting.

• HelloTalk Language Exchange App This App has more than 10,000 native Chinese speakers seeking language exchange partners. It has text and voice exchange mode to count number texts and duration of talks between language partners.

• PinyinBrowser This is a special web browser for iPhone and iPad that adds Pinyin or Bopomofo readings to Chinese web pages in real time while you browse.

• Linqapp Connects you instantly to native Chinese speakers for language exchange or for answers to your questions about anything Chinese language/Chinese culture related. Post photos of characters for translation, ask for audio recordings on pronunciation, ask about a grammar structure, ask anything-- watch the answers roll in.

• NiHao! (see demo) This iPad-only game (Commercial) is both a grammar book and a puzzle game. Users are given Chinese puzzle to unravel as they learn Chinese grammar.

• Pinyiner Free Android app for pinyin annotation of copied text or book files

• Pleco (iOS/Android) Flashcard/dictionary/text reader. Perhaps the most comprehensive dictionary/flashcard/OCR learning software available. A lot of different dictionaries available. Lots of customization available. Text-to-speech, importing text from the clipboard, and input by radical are all features. Free version provides a lot; in-app purchases provide features like looking up words via OCR using your phone's camera, handwriting input, and importing text files with on the fly popup translation.

• Skritter is the best app for practice writing, very beautiful and responsive, web version is also great (iPhone & iPad， also with an Android beta)

• Wise Talk (see demo) This free iPhone app lets users hear and read Mandarin, English, and Cantonese using familiar idioms. Connects with system dictionaries to let users lookup Chinese and English word definitions. An unlocked version includes over 4880 idioms.

• Word Tracer - Learn Chinese is another great iPad app for practice writing. It lists characters by frequency ranks, stroke counts, radicals, pinyin, etc. and also lets you define your own custom lists of characters to tailor to your own learning experience.

• HSK Locker This is a very efficient free Android app that helps with practicing or growing your Chinese vocabulary (based on the HSK 1-6 levels) at your own pace.

• Beginner Chinese This is an effective Android app designed for beginners or enthusiasts as an introductory flashcard tool that uses the 'a-word-a-day' principle to slowly build your vocabulary from scratch.

• Inkstone (see demo video) An Android app that teaches how to draw Chinese characters. Contains stroke suggestions, enforces proper stroke order and direction. Has a built-in database of Pinyin, meanings and compositions. Source code available.

• TOFU Learn is for learning many languages including Chinese, and its app includes character writing practice (like Skritter). It's described as free, but it also has paid "pro" accounts.

• Anki is a flashcard learning system that has many Chinese 'card decks' created by the community. Some decks have sound, pictures and pinyin for C-E, E-C and sound-E learning. Apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and Web.

Answer 8

Online Courses

Most of these course also have free podcasts on iTunes, if you want to try them out.

• Popup Chinese An irreverent and cool take on learning colloquial Mandarin, as well as general Mainland culture and norms.
• Yoyo Chinese features short video lessons and authentic Mandarin dialogue from unscripted interviews done on the streets of China. One of the best programs for going from zero Mandarin skills to basic conversational fluency, with audio reviews, interactive flashcards and quizzes, and a dialogue replay tool to breakdown real Chinese conversations from the lessons.
• Chinese Pod This is another nice podcast that provides an easy way to learn colloquial Mandarin.
• Chinese Hulu has a bunch of tutoring video lessons. There is also one-on-one tutoring available, their teachers are experienced and patient. They use an interactive online learning method.
• Melnyks This podcast has a lot of content, but you may find having to rewind often due to their content size, speed, and style of teaching.
• Memrise.com, a Space Repeating Learning System. It provides a two steps learning. Graphical - Meaning, then Graphical - Pronunciation, then later it mixes the two. It adapts to your learning.
• CultureAlley.com/Mandarin, a great way to pick up Chinese Mandarin grammar and conversations using self paced lessons and games, all for free. They offer live expert help over chat and Skype lessons too.
• Chinese Learn Online: Progressive audio course, taught from Taiwan, split across 7 levels of difficulty. Lessons increase in difficulty as you progress. Transcripts and review exercises available on site.
• Lenguin: A free video course based on the FSI curriculum. The lessons feature native speakers and practice with simplified characters.
• edX Basic Mandarin: A MOOC which teaches you the basic beginner level grammar, tones, phrases and vocabulary. This course is taught by Prof. Estella Y. M. Chen
• Coursera: A popular MOOC similar to edx.

Answer 9

Textbooks

• A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners (with Workbook) by Dejin Li and Meizhen Cheng (2008, Beijing Language & Culture University Press). It is a bilingual version of English And Chinese. Good reference for grammar with some examples (only with characters).
• All the Grammar and Language Points For Each Of The Six Levels of the Chinese Language Proficiency Test (HSK) by Muhammad Wolfgang G. A. Schmidt (2018, Disserta Verlag). It covers essential grammar and language points ordered by level of the Chinese Language Proficiency Test (HSK).
• Colloquial Chinese by Kan Qian, Routledge: Both books offer dialogues, exercises, texts, grammar highlights, cultural highlights and audio CDs. The first book is for beginners, the second one is intermediate. They are good for self-study.
• Integrated Chinese 中文听说读写
• Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar by Charles N. Li and Sandra A. Thompson (1989, University of California Press). It provides a description of the grammar of Mandarin Chinese in functional terms, focusing on the role and meanings of word-level and sentence-level structures in actual conversations. Only pinyin (no characters).
• Modern Chinese: A Basic Course by the Faculty of Peking University (1971, Dover Publications).
• Mandarin Chinese - Language of the Middle Kingdom by Johan Björkstén, is an interactive textbook that adapts itself to your interests. The course is based on useful situations and covers pronunciation, grammar, calligraphy, character etymology and cultural tips.
• Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide (Modern Grammars) by Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma (2014, Routledge). Probably the most complete Chinese Grammar available in English. It is divided into two parts: part A covers traditional grammatical categories such as phrase order, nouns, verbs and specifiers; part B is organized around language functions and notions such as: communication strategies, making comparisons, giving and seeking information, expressing apologies, regrets and sympathies.
• New Practical Chinese Reader
• Practical Chinese Reader Beijing Language & Culture University Press
• Remembering Traditional Hanzi (1, 2) and Remembering Simplified Hanzi (1, 2) by James W. Heisig and Timothy W. Richardson. (A fan-made dataset for simplified characters is available from the Pleco forum.)
• Schaum's Outline of Chinese Grammar by Claudia Ross (2004). Compressed grammar book with examples and exercises. Similar to a Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide but more condensed.
• 新思路 (Business Chinese) series
• 汉语教程 (Hanyu Jiao Cheng) series, Beijing Language & Culture University Press
• 汉语听力教程 (Hanyu Tingli Jiao Cheng) listening comprehension series, Beijing Language & Culture University Press

Answer 10

Dictionaries

Online

• 3000 Hanzi. Searchable with pinyin or hanzi. Chinese-English, Chinese-French, Chinese-German dictionaries. Includes translated example sentences and detailed character information (including frequency).

• Almaany English-Chinese Dictionary. Free online English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionary with words and phrases. As of February 2018, remarkably extensive in some respects (certain phrases) and lacking in others (certain basic word translations). An interesting and helpful resource if you already have a basic foundation.

• Chinese Tutor Dictionary. Searchable using pinyin, hanzi, or English. Searches instantly, and has audio for most words.

• CiYang (辞洋). Site name is inspired by 辞海, a Chinese dictionary well-known in China. Query characters even if you don't know how to input them. For example, for 盆, inputting "分" and "皿" will show candidate characters.

• Collins Mandarin Chinese Dictionary. Free online English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionary with words and phrases. Good dictionary by a reputable publisher.

• Dict.cn

• Google Images. Can be used as a visual dictionary. Especially helpful for items that are not easily described in English, such as types of food.

• HanDian (汉典). Chinese only. The most comprehensive Chinese dictionary on the Internet.

• nciku Line Dict

• Linguee English-Chinese Dictionary (英中词典). Extensive translation database. English-Chinese and Chinese-English.

• MDBG English-Chinese

• Revised Mandarin Dictionary, Taiwan Academic Online 5th Edition Trial Version (《重編國語辭典修訂本》臺灣學術網路第五版試用版). This might be described better as a "beta" version than a "trial" version, as access is unrestricted but the editing notes refer to ongoing improvement efforts. Released December 2015. License: Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported. Maintained by 教育部國家教育研究院 (Ministry of Education National Academy for Educational Research).

• Tasty Mantou Chinese. Has a handwriting tool, example sentences, character stroke animations. Search using pinyin, hanzi, or English.

• Wikipedia. Can be used as a dictionary, especially of proper names, historical events, modern culture, etc. Simply go to the English language page on the topic you are interested in and click on the left-hand-side link to Chinese (中文) Wikipedia (if available). You will be taken to the Chinese page on the same topic.

• Wiktionary. Searchable using pinyin or hanzi.

• WordBuddy.com. A drilldown dictionary for exploring characters where you can save and quiz your own word lists.

• Xiaoma Cidian (小马词典). Has hanzi, pinyin, and English lookup.

• Youdao web version. See below for offline version.

---

Offline

• CC-CEDICT for GoldenDict/Stardict and OS X Dictionary. Recommended for use with GoldenDict on Windows/Linux/Android, or with Mac OS X's built-in Dictionary.

• Flashonary. Chinese-English and Chinese-German dictionary. Flashcards can be made from dictionary entries. For iOS (iPhone, iPod, iPad).

• Hanping Chinese Dictionary Pro for Android. Comprehensive paid version. (Free lite version also available.) Handwriting recognition, stroke animation, native speaker audio, soundboard, powerful tagging system, AnkiDroid export integration. No ads. Based on CC-CEDICT, with ABC Chinese-English and ABC English-Chinese available as in-app purchases. Smartphone camera OCR translation module available as a paid add-on (among others).

• Pleco. Smartphone/tablet app for Android or iOS. Mature and well-supported. The core dictionary app is free with no ads. Additional dictionaries (such as Chinese-French, or all-medical-terms) and features (such as flashcards and OCR) can be added, the better ones requiring money.

• Youdao. Various versions, for Android phone, iPhone, Mac desktop, iPad, Android tablet, Windows phone. See above for online version.

• Wenlin: Based on the ABC dictionary. Available for Windows and Mac OSX.

Answer 11

Newspapers

• 中国日报网 — ChinaDaily.com.cn
• FT中文网 - Financial Times Chinese
• 纽约时报中文网 - New York Times - displays articles as English-Chinese parallel text (example)
• MSN News has an English Education section with many 双语 (Chinese-English bilingual) articles.
• ABC中文: Australian ABC News in Chinese.

Answer 12

Books

• Chinese Breeze Graded Reader Series (Péking University Press)

  Many books, many short stories for all levels of Chinese. It's clearly indicated how many words in each book and the level you need to read it. Relatively interesting stories with lots of repetitions to make you practice each word. Definitely worth a try - for beginner to advanced level.

• Graded Chinese Reader (2 books) (Sinolingua)

  Selected Abridged Chinese Contemporary Short Stories. Contains about 2000 Chinese words based on level A and B listed in the HSK. Interesting stories about today's China and not too hard to read when you have a beginner to intermediate level.

• Mandarin Companion (12 books)

  Offers a new series of graded readers, currently 12 books, providing three different skill levels: Breakthrough Level, which use only 150 unique characters; Level 1, with up to 300 unique characters and Level 2, using at most 450 unique characters. They are accessible from a very early stage and also suitable both for beginners and intermediate learners.

• Yong Ho. Beginner's Chinese (Hippocrene Books)

  A great beginner's Chinese book which not only have Chinese grammatical structure and words but also have sections dedicated within each chapter specifically addressing Cultural insights that can help the learner understand some nuances that may not be otherwise apparent. The Dec 1997 publication of this book is plagued with errors in pinyin however these errors were later rectified in the Oct 2010 Book.
  ISBN-10: 0781812577 , ISBN-13: 978-0781812573

• Yong Ho. Intermediate Chinese (Hippocrene Books)

  Published almost a decade after Beginner's Chinese, this book acts as a vocabulary and grammatical supplementary to help take your Chinese to the next level. The only disappointing thing about this book is that there is not nearly as many cultural insights to help you along, however lots of new grammar structures are introduced and it is a perfect transition after having read the first book.

• Yip Po-Ching & Dan Rimmington. Chinese - An Essential Grammar (Routledge)

  A good reference guide for an English speaker learning Chinese who is just starting out or has years of experience. Can be read straight through or you can jump around and dive into a specific grammar point. Second edition uses simplified Chinese - I read that earlier editions only had pinyin, no Chinese, examples include pinyin and both literal and actual translations.

• Yuonne Li Walls and Jan W. Walls. Using Chinese - A guide to contemporary usage (Cambridge Univ Press)

  Not a grammar book per se, but the next to last section on grammar, just under 70 pages, is a great introduction to grammar for someone just starting out. The book as a whole is a great introduction to Chinese.

• Compilation by LTL Mandarin School. Ultimate Guide to learning Mandarin (Free Ebook)

  A series of articles written by Mandarin language learners offering tips and advice on their best methods and practice for studying Chinese. Useful tool for learners of any level looking for study tips.

• ShaoLan. Chineasy Everyday: Learning Chinese Through Its Culture (Harper Design)

  A unique and highly entertaining introduction to the richness of Chinese language, culture, and civilization, built on the groundbreaking and hugely popular Chineasy visual learning method. A brilliant book and I found it very useful as a beginner.

Answer 13

Facebook Chinese Learning Resources:

1.Hanbridge Mandarin Facebook share various Chinese language topics in a fun way.

2.Business Chinese Learning It is mainly for business man that there are a lot of posts about business Chinese vocabulary, job interview phrase, Chinese business culture and etiquette.

3.Learn Chinese characters It is a page where you can learn how to read and write the most common used Chinese characters.

4.All about ChineseThis page doesn’t share all the things about Chinese, and it is much more about motto in Chinese.

5.CCTV中文From this page, you can get acquainted with the latest happenings in China and learn Chinese at the same time.

Answer 14

Dictionaries (Technical Terms)

_{Disclaimer: nobody here can guarantee that translations of technical terms are always accurate; these resources are provided for informative purposes only; use at your own risk.}

• Computer Term Translations (電腦名詞譯名). Comprehensive dictionary for computer terminology compiled by IICM of Taiwan. Provides translation conventions from both Mainland China and Taiwan.

• Dr. Dict. Specialized web site focused on translation of medical terms. A simple search site with English-Chinese and Chinese-English.

• cosdna.com. For chemistry and cosmetics. As with any web site, of course use at your own risk.

• SciDict. Multi-disciplinary dictionary focusing on science, biomedical, mechanics, chemistry and computer science.

• Chinese Medicinal Material Images Database. It contains 420+ entries, each with names — in traditional Chinese, English and Latin —, description and usage. Maintained by the Hong Kong Baptist University.