Pandapassport.com Dalian ForumHome ESL Teachers Tourists Students of Mandarin Other China Survival Kit for Mandarin Students:Contents: 2. Chinese Study Links from Google 3. Are there any online resources? 4. Where is the best place to study? 5. Useful links
1. What is the HSK test?HSK stands for Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi （汉语水平考试） or literally "Chinese Level Test." In a nutshell it is a test aimed at those studying Mandarin Chinese as a 2nd language, in order to evaluate their level. Emphasis is placed on listening ability, reading comprehension, and grammar. To learn more about the HSK test, click here. To read about the schedule, or registration procedures, and lots of other stuff, click here (or here for 中文, 日本語, Korean/韩语).
2. Chinese Study Links from Google:
3. Are there any online resources for learning Chinese?For Starters: Try Languageguide.org so that you can build a basic vocabulary of useful nouns and verbs and stuff, grouped into useful categories (i.e. parts of the body, etc). This site has pictures, which, when you hover the mouse over them, you can read pinyin and (more importantly) listen to audio showing you how it's supposed to be pronounced. There are other language resources on the site as well, such as English, and Japanese. For Listening and Speaking: Many P2P file sharing programs (such as Limewire, Kazaa, or Morpheus) might be a great resource for those looking to track down Chinese Audio lessons in MP3 format. If it were legal, it would be very useful to download Pimsleur Mandarin Lessons. Alas it is not legal, so I must formally recommend that you buy them. ;) ChinesePod Weblog is also a great listening resource, providing mp3 audio for various levels of Chinese study. I highly recommend it. Beginning 菜鸟 MP3, Elementary 初级 MP3, Intermediate 中级 MP3, and Advanced 高级MP3. For Advanced Reading: There is News in Chinese, which is pretty good if you're level is high enough to work your way through newspaper articles. This site has regularly updated news articles. If you don't know a character or a word, just hover your mouse over the word, and pinyin and an English translation will magically appear! How wonderful... 4. Where is the best place to study?The answer to this question is debatable. There are various universities with a reputation for having good Chinese Language Programmes, such as Peking University, or Beijing Foreign Languages University. But don't just limit yourself to Beijing. It may not be the best city for you. Keep in mind that there are countless dialects of Chinese all over the country, but it is widely agreed that the most standard Chinese (or putonghua 普通话）is spoken in Northern China, more specifically in the city of Harbin (哈尔滨). Don't buy into this "most standard Chinese" mumbo jumbo too much. It would be the equivalent of a Chinese student deciding to study in England as opposed to New Zealand, because he heard they speak "more standard" English there. Cities such as Shanghai, even with it's wacky dialect of Mandarin, are still popular destinations among students of Chinese, and perfectly legitimate places to study. 5. Other Uselful links:Dan Johnson's USEFUL CHINESE page Ting Dong: Chinese (& Japanese) Song Lyrics Oneaday.org - Learn a Chinese Idiom Everyday
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