Mandarin Chinese: Learn It Yourself (LIY)
One Stop Resources Available for All Levels of Chinese Learners
iKan Chinese Language Centre (ICLC) is pleased to keep posting some simple and easy Chinese materials for self-learning on this website, including some useful tips and tricks on the language study. Please bookmark it. To meet advanced learners' needs, we also write and post something for them to practise reading and writing skills in addition to oral presentation.
Any suggestion or comments are welcome, please email us.
Pinyin - the Most Powerful Tool
What's Pinyin?
Pinyin, which is also called Hanyu Pinyin, is the official romanization system for standard spoken Chinese in mainland China, Singapore and Taiwan. Pinyin in Mandarin Chinese literally means "spell the sound" of a Chinese character or phrase. It is the most powerful tool to help people learn the standard pronunciation of Chinese characters and words, as well as sentences.
How many alphabet letters are used in Pinyin?
In total, 26 individual letters are used in Pinyin. It includes letter ü and all letters of the English alphabet excluding letter v.
Is Pinyin used in general Chinese publications?
The short answer is No. Usually, Pinyin is not used in general Chinese publications.
Chinese Characters
How Many Chinese Characters?
Probably nobody knows how many Chinese characters there are nowadays. The largest Chinese character dictionary available for print, Zhonghua Zihai (中华字海, Zhōnghuá Zìhǎi), listed 85,568 different characters! Who can remember that many? Sounds scary, doesn’t it?
How many Chinese characters are commonly used?
Good news is, only very small percentage of the 85,568 characters are commonly used. Studies show that literate people in China know and use 3,000 - 4,000 characters (~4%). The Chinese Proficiency Test (Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì, HSK, 汉语水平考试) covers only 2,663 characters (3.1%) at its highest level (i.e. level 6).
Furthermore, Chart of Common Characters of Modern Chinese (现代汉语常用字表, Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo) contains 2,500 common characters and 1,000 less-than-common characters.
Tianzige: Chinese handwriting sheets
Want to write characters (i.e. hanzi or kanji) neatly? Using handwriting sheets (aka tianzige, tian-zi-ge or 田字格) is the most effective way. Download two types of tianzige from this page here.
Chinese Zodiac
Chinese Zodiac (生肖, shēngxiào) includes 12 animals, and each of them is assigned to each year in a repeating 12-year cycle. If you were born in the year of dog (狗 gǒu), for instance, you can say 我 属 狗 (Wǒ shǔ gǒu) in Mandarin.
2020 is the year of Mouse/Rat (鼠, shǔ). Were you born in the year of 鼠 (shǔ)? Let's Learn Mandarin (学汉语) every day!
