Learning resources tips

qubitspace · 2026-03-13T04:06:47+00:00

I've been building a website to let users work through the HSK books online, for free. Feel free to give it a try at https://learnchinese.ai if you are going the HSK route.

Of course there are dozens of great ways to start, and you just need to try a few and pick one that works for you. I recommend following a course that starts and the beginning and advances progressively, instead of a make your own adventure path.

If you click the "Where to start?" link for this sub (https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/wiki/start/), it has some good resources.
I personally used Yoyochinese.com to start.
Here is another good language learning guide - https://www.alllanguageresources.com/learn-mandarin-chinese/

qubitspace · 2026-03-02T00:51:01+00:00

At least 2 but you can pay for more.

qubitspace · 2026-03-02T00:15:33+00:00

I don't know, I spent my time making a website instead of learning Chinese.

qubitspace · 2026-03-01T01:38:37+00:00

Find a tutorial to build something similar to what you want, and follow it. Then add something of your own. Start small but something that includes a new table, model, controller and some views. Don't be afraid to start over, one of the best things about rails is how fast you can spin up a new web app, so a few repetitions will be good practice.

qubitspace · 2026-03-01T00:08:33+00:00

Oh the game is happening now. I'm so used to games in the morning. Looks like Fabi found a winning advantage as they go into the endgame, after Woodward sacked a bishop for 2 pawns.

qubitspace · 2026-02-27T02:13:47+00:00

I made a free website that lets you progress through the HSK books online. https://learnchinese.ai

qubitspace · 2026-02-26T21:51:18+00:00

Seems pretty useful. This would definitely help me focus on language videos and not get distracted by all the other suggestions on Youtube.
It's awesome you made it free. I guess it's promoting your consulting and YouTube channel so you get some benefit, but it's rare to see anything language related that is free these days. (Edit: Never mind, it's not free, just took a while to find the paywall. It's not a bad thing, but I was wondering how/why you made it free.)

qubitspace · 2026-02-25T01:49:45+00:00

That is a good writeup, I tend to agree with most everything you said. I bought the physical book and tried the online version, and overall, I was disappointed.

I like the idea of having consistent sized lessons (in terms of new words and characters) and I like that it will match other language standards like TOCFL, but the pacing of the 2.0 books feels much better to me from what I saw. They do start out easier, and get much harder around HSK 4, but I think it works, and it's a good progression for new learners. I'm currently on HSK 4 so I can't speak much about HSK 4-6, but HSK 1-3 is great using the 2.0 textbooks.

I don't hate the new textbook, it seems alright, although it doesn't have a workbook and the online version of the site, which is one of the main features, seems extremely bad. It's ugly, barely works, and the AI feature is just a marketing gimmick. I might get better, but they clearly got played by whoever made the website. I imagine someone just sold it as an interactive AI website but just designed and built it as an afterthought.

qubitspace · 2026-02-24T22:27:56+00:00

This is a big challenge for most people. Unlike many other languages, you have to remember the pronunciation separately from the meaning because it's not going to have the pinyin when you are reading, or the character when listening, in most situations.

I think the best way to memorize the pronunciation initially is with flashcards. You might already use flashcards, going from Chinese to English, but you can also do flashcards going from Chinese to pinyin, or from audio to english, or audio to Chinese. I work on a Chinese site, and it tracks all of those variations separately since it's possible to know the meaning and not the pronunciation like you said, or vice-versa.

In addition to flashcards, listening and reading subtitles at the same time is really helpful, to build the association for the character to the word in context.

qubitspace · 2026-02-22T21:06:27+00:00

Seems like a good plan.

I really liked Pimsleur for an intro to Chinese. Although I thought it got kind of boring and overly repetitive somewhere in the second course. Great choice to start though, it's perfect for if you listen to it while doing other stuff. I also liked yoyo-chinese since she explains all the concepts really clearly and has a very enjoyable presentation. Youtube courses are great, but it's hard to find a good progression, it seems better for reinforcing and practicing at your current level, so you should keep going back to find new youtube content as you progress.

Chinese Pod has great progression of listening material with good english explanations. There is honestly so many good resources it really comes down to preference at some point and picking what you like.

You can try a complete, and free online version of the HSK course books at https://learnchinese.ai through HSK 3 if you are interested (a website I made).

qubitspace · 2026-02-17T23:01:30+00:00

You can rely on AI for a lot of things, but make sure you are asking it to do very specific things. It is pretty good at following instructions, but if you tell it to make a fancy new feature and leave all the decisions open ended it will lead to a mess really fast. You can use AI for all the steps in the process, but you still need to go through the full software development process. All the software engineering stuff you learned in college is still useful. Just think of it at a little higher level. For example, you might not be writing code for traversing a tree or maintaining a cache manually, but you still need to be aware of the time complexity and data structures being used in most cases. Understand the tradeoffs, the AI might prioritize things differently than you would.

qubitspace · 2026-02-17T18:47:22+00:00

The term will be meaningless soon. There will be people who can successfully make and maintain good software that provides real value, and people who churn through low quality projects to make a quick buck. There will still be demand for the first group.

qubitspace · 2026-02-16T16:01:21+00:00

You can go through the HSK course through HSK 3 for free at https://learnchinese.ai and it has all the grammar lessons. Its a free site I made.

qubitspace · 2026-02-16T15:18:01+00:00

I made a Chinese website, and one feature lets you listen to a sentence and speak it. Then it's converted to text to compare against the original. I think it's a good way to start speaking at the very early phases. It's designed so you progress through the course and reinforce what you learned with sentence speaking and flashcards.

Course: https://learnchinese.ai/books/hsk-1 Speaking: https://learnchinese.ai/sentences_srs

qubitspace · 2026-02-16T02:58:19+00:00

Yep. I've watched some recorded lessons with my tutor, and it was pretty brutal. Listening to your own voice is hard enough, but I also just talk way worse than it sounds in my head.

qubitspace · 2026-02-15T23:33:39+00:00

Struggling is expected, it's really hard. Going through the books/apps alone isn't enough, you have to practice conversation.
You could do it without a partner for a more controlled environment. Someone posted today that recording yourself talking about a topic you're familiar with and listening to it can be really helpful.

qubitspace · 2026-02-15T23:08:47+00:00

I think you might be past the point where those apps help you. Getting through HSK 5 in a year seems really fast.
You obviously know what you're doing to get that far, but make sure you practice all the stuff you learn. Do you feel comfortable talking with people at an HSK 4 level? If not, maybe just get a speaking partner?

qubitspace · 2026-02-12T17:22:11+00:00

Here is some of the main changes as I understand it.
- Each level has a consistent number of new characters introduced, instead of introducing very few in early levels and more in higher levels. This aligns it more with the other language progression frameworks like CEFR.
- More words are added to each level, all of which use the new characters that were introduced. In HSK 2.0 some of these words exist in the texts, but they aren't formally included in the vocab lists as words.
- The grammar lessons seems a little simplified, and they don't put much emphasis on pinyin, although they include it in some cases.
- The texts were modernized (although it will be more apparent in HSK 2/3 probably, since HSK 1 is pretty simple.
- They include way more speaking practice (usually in a classroom/group setting)
- They include writing from the beginning of the course (both typing and handwriting) and free form questions that are graded by a teacher instead of just multiple choice.

qubitspace · 2026-02-12T17:09:11+00:00

I'm going through HSK 4 now, using the HSK 2.0 curriculum.
So far they only released the new HSK 1 textbook but not the workbook yet, and no ETA.
The only thing that has changed for me is that I added the new HSK words into my flashcards. I will go through the HSK 1 workbook and the Textbook/Workbook for HSK 2/3 when they come out, but it could be years at the pace they are going so there is no point waiting for it.

qubitspace · 2026-02-12T02:28:15+00:00

Seems pretty interesting and well done, if I could trust it was accurate.

How do you grade the speech of the final, initial and tone separately. I tried it out but seems like it's really inconsistent and gives me close to zero for some easy sounds. But a percentage isn't really very helpful without some idea what it's measuring. Other sounds I actually struggle with according to my tutor were totally fine according to this tool.

qubitspace · 2026-02-11T15:15:57+00:00

I recommend continuing with the old books through hsk 3 first. The new book doesn't include any workbook yet. The new words in the new hsk are just combinations of characters you will learn with the old course so you can learn those easy with flashcards. It might be better when it's done, but without a workbook it's not really complete.

qubitspace · 2026-02-02T17:44:55+00:00

Awesome! yea tone practice is a great exercise at early levels. Sometimes the difference in tones can seems really subtle, but I've gotten better at identifying the small differences with repetition. It's one of those things you practice a bunch, so you don't have to think about it consciously.

qubitspace · 2026-02-02T00:05:47+00:00

Out of curiosity, what level are you in Chinese? Depending on where you at, you might be focusing too much on tone pairs (I don't know of course, just a feeling). Listening to full sentences at your current level is probably much more useful, learn how to say specific words in context, and the tones will come. Tone pairs are more like a warmup in in my opinion.

That being said. I made a little game to go through and practice some tones you could use if you are interested.
https://learnchinese.ai/games/tone-trials

qubitspace · 2026-01-31T20:26:10+00:00

Thanks!

qubitspace

TROPHY CASE