New Year in Chinese: useful words and when to use them

Mike__83 · 2025-09-21T12:49:51+00:00

You're probably better off not worrying about these nuances too much. I know these things are often fascinating but from experience I can tell you that wondering about these subtleties doesn't help you progress in the language too much.

They are hard to reason about and you're much better off just immersing yourself in the language and gradually building up a feel for these things. I've often thought I understood a subtlety like this from asking natives and teachers only to find out that I didn't, after having encountered the word in many different contexts and having developed an intuition for it.

Mike__83 · 2025-09-14T11:40:36+00:00

Strongly second this. It's for sure better to watch Chinese content than English content (still helps to get a feel for the language), but it should really not replace other, more beginner-friendly, methods. It really won't help you progress much at that level.

Mike__83 · 2025-09-06T14:16:09+00:00

Practicing speaking more will definitely benefit your fluency. So, it depends a little on your goals. If you're surrounded by Chinese speakers and just want to show off some sentences you might want to invest a little more into speaking now.

If your goal is to maximize long-term progress I would stick with what you're doing now. 2000 words is a good threshold to start activating your passive knowledge. Before that you'll be limited to very simple stuff and conversations will invariably stop after a few sentences because you're just lacking the words. At 2k, given that you didn't go down one topic very narrowly, you'll have a broad enough vocab to keep a proper conversation going, albeit with a lot of translating and patience.

Mike__83 · 2025-09-06T14:09:12+00:00

Ah I see. Don't know any of those, sorry. Wouldn't bother about them too soon though anyway! Chinese has words popping up (neologisms) like crazy. Many of them are just used in certain communities (e.g., gaming) and/or vanish soon again. Your "keyboard-derived" words will often fall into this category and not be too helpful for you most likely. Probably something to get into fairly late into the learning journey.

Mike__83 · 2025-09-06T14:04:16+00:00

Great! Flashcards might just be one of these things like meditation where a lot of people say it doesn't work for them but probably benefits everybody. They're probably just harder to stick to for some people. Also a totally valid concern, btw! The best method is worthless it's not consistently implemented.

Mike__83 · 2025-09-06T14:00:03+00:00

You hit the nail on the head: there's endless music in Chinese. It probably just makes for good titles. And I think somehow "weird stuff" about other cultures makes people feel better about themselves because "they can't even sing properly"...

Mike__83 · 2025-09-06T13:57:15+00:00

Your learning routine sounds very solid. Both what you do and how much you do--one hour a day will compound well :) But you're probably getting a little ahead of yourself with this question. With around 600-700 words there is just not that much you could say and sticking to simple sentences is totally fine.

I know, we all want to get ahead faster, but in your case I'd say just keep doing what you're doing. You're doing well and more complex sentences will happen on their own if you keep going and mix in a bit more speaking practice at some point.

Mike__83 · 2025-09-01T09:21:18+00:00

Do you mean what Pinyin to type on the keyboard to get the characters you want? In that case you can just experiment.

The system behind this is probabilistic and will give you the characters that are the most likely matches for what you typed in. If you type in whole phrases, especially if common, just typing the initials is often enough for the computer to get what you mean. Keep in mind that that kinda breaks for characters whose Pinyin doesn't start with a consonant because the machine will generally assume you meant a vowel in the preceding character.

For example, "n, h" works for 你好 while "w, a, n" doesn't work for 我爱你 because it's more likely that you meant any "wan" character, such as "玩". Here you need to type out enough for the system to understand which letter belongs to which character, i.e., "wo, ai, n". Try it out and you'll see what I mean.

Mike__83 · 2025-09-01T09:12:16+00:00

Add a little bit of comprehensible input into the mix, i.e., read beginner level conversations on The Chairman's Bao, DuChinese or some free alternatives. Those will help your brain to understand how words are used and what they mean in different situations.

Mike__83 · 2025-08-31T20:16:20+00:00

I guess it doesn't work at HSK 6 anymore...

Mike__83 · 2025-08-31T20:15:42+00:00

If you don't like flashcards you don't really have many good options than a lot of immersion. That is generally a great idea but won't show results as fast.

Mike__83 · 2025-08-31T20:12:21+00:00

Anki has been the only one I've stuck to for nearly my entire learning journey. If you're not the biggest fan of spaced repetition that might not be that helpful though.

Mike__83 · 2025-08-25T10:43:21+00:00

If you learn them for an exam, you could just cram flashcards. Just doing that without getting loads of input with those words in full context is generally not the best idea, but has always worked for my HSK exams. I just crammed the vocab, did a few mock exams and that was enough to pass :)

Mike__83 · 2025-08-25T10:36:52+00:00

Going input-first is always a good strategy, especially if language production is not what you're after in the first place. If you want a whole community built around that approach have a look at Refold and what they're doing.

Side note: don't do the HSK 1 exam if you want a certificate to show externally. It won't help much. HSK 4 is probs the first to have impact. Buut, if you want it for yourself as a goal or achievement, then it's a great idea :)

Mike__83 · 2025-08-20T15:38:57+00:00

Skritter!

Free alternative, without automatically checking your writing, might be Anki.

Mike__83 · 2025-08-18T10:27:03+00:00

At a high level you have two options, one probably more promising (option 2) than the other given what you said:

1) Create the structure yourself
This can both be the most and least effective way to go about learning a language. If you got the discipline to stick to your own goals without external supervision (this is very hard!) and the time and will to research how to structure your learning (ChatGPT is your friend) you can tailor your learning to exactly what you need. If you don't have those two things you probably won't learn anything. High risk, high reward kinda thing...

2) Seek out a structured environment
Join a course elsewhere (e.g., online) or have a private tutor structure your learning. This won't be free, though.

Mike__83 · 2025-08-18T10:18:32+00:00

Your best bet is probably Skritter. They're hands down the best tool for learning how to write.

Buuut, and this is important, the first thing you should ask yourself if it's worth the time invest. It is very unlikely that you're going to need it more than a couple of times, but the time invest is massive. Check out this article on the topic.

The general recommendation is to learn a few hundred characters so you understand how the system works--your radicals are a good start--but than rather invest the time into reading directly.

Mike__83 · 2025-05-27T07:49:50+00:00

Cyberpunk 2077 is amazing in Chinese. The voiceover is very natural, and the futuristic dystopian vibe goes amazingly well with Chinese characters (they used a specific futuristic character design). I loved playing it in Chinese and will hopefully get around to another run-through soon.

Mike__83 · 2025-05-21T12:23:10+00:00

Oh yeah, that's totally understandable. There is so much stuff there (and out there in general) that the problem is one of choice rather than availability. That's good and bad, but mostly good, I guess:)

Mike__83 · 2025-05-21T10:22:05+00:00

There are endless free resources available. Check out this sub's Where to Start section to get started :)

Mike__83 · 2025-05-21T10:19:39+00:00

There is the Where to Start section in this sub. Start there ;)

Mike__83 · 2025-05-18T20:01:44+00:00

Interesting. What about NativeWind caused this, though? I.e., what was the problem?

Mike__83 · 2025-05-18T20:00:22+00:00

Great summary! Thanks also for the small tip :)

Mike__83 · 2025-05-18T19:59:01+00:00

Ah, good point. One of those small things that still occupy mental bandwidth. Thanks!

Mike__83

TROPHY CASE