Since 1992, HSK (汉语水平考试 Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì, translated as the Chinese Proficiency Test) is the official standardized test for Mandarin — and in 2020 it was announced it would get its second big overhaul. On March 31, 2021, China’s Ministry of Education announced the new HSK levels details, which (from 260 pages in Chinese) we […]
All you need to know to pronounce like a pro. Here’s GoEast Mandarin taking you through the Chinese language pronunciation: Initials, finals & accents, and even some tongue-twisters at the end. Scroll down for the video. Chinese language accents If you’ve been an English teacher in China, especially in mainland China, then you will know […]
Correct Chinese pronunciation is one of the hardest parts of the Mandarin language. There are not just the tones, but some of these sounds you need to pronounce are absent in many Western languages, so you’ll have to train your mouth and tongue on how to speak them. If you haven’t, first read our guide […]
A common question about the ‘Chinese alphabet’ we get from students is: “I heard Chinese is a box-like ‘character language’, does it have an alphabet?” And yes, opposite to the English language, the Chinese language is an ideographic language. However, Chinese people have always been working on different methods to show how the characters are […]
Hanzi, or Chinese characters, are easier to learn with the right study material and learning tips. Aside from learning them with GoEast’s Hanzi course, that is… Scroll down for the history, how to memorize and write Chinese characters. How many Chinese characters are there? Here’s a graph with some important numbers. >50,000 Hanzi characters is […]
Before we talk all about Chinese grammar, we’d better reach an agreement: learning Chinese grammar is crucial to learning the Mandarin language. Even though this sounds obvious, many Chinese learners approach learning Chinese as learning vocabulary only. This is not the right approach to fluency. Let’s also make clear what ‘grammar’ really means, so let’s […]
During our years of being Chinese teachers, many Mandarin learners have asked us the same question: “I learn really hard. I use flashcards, dictionaries. Every day I recite 20 words, I came to China, my vocabulary is 1000, 2000, or even 5000 words by now, but why do I still talk like a baby? Why […]