Questions and answers about learning Chinese

Today I will answer some questions related to learning Chinese. I have been learning Mandarin Chinese for three years now and I’m on elementary level at the moment, going strongly towards intermediate.

Here are some questions you typed to your favourite search engine before ending up to my blog.

Can I trust Skritter?

Seems like someone have been thinking of trying Skritter to learn Chinese, but is not sure if he/she wants to give them his/her credit card information. Skritter is a great way to keep all those words and characters on your mind. If you’re not familiar with it, you can first check out the post I wrote in January: Why I use Skritter to learn to write Chinese and why you should too?

From my experience I can say that you can fully trust Skritter as I have never had any problems with it. I do understand if you still don’t want to use your credit card or perhaps you don’t have one. In that case you can contact them by email and I’m sure they will find a solution that will work for you.

How do people know what to eat at McDonald’s in China?

This one is easy. Even you can’t speak or read Chinese they have a picture menu and you can just point what you want.

I know 1500 Chinese characters. What’s my level?

This isn’t easy to answer. When you say you know 1500 characters do you mean that you can read them? Or that you understand what they mean? Or that you can write them? In my opinion knowing x amount of characters should include all the aspects: meaning, pronunciation (pinyin) and writing.

Also being able to read or/and write isn’t enough. How is your listening and speaking skills?

You could test your Chinese by taking a HSK exam. That’s the official Chinese proficiency test. Well, to be exact there are two HSK’s at the moment, the old version and the new version. But no matter which one you take, it will be a good way to find out your level. More information about the old HSK can be found here: hsk.org.cn. For new HSK go to chinesetesting.cn.

No time to do that? Then you could try this Chinese level system.

Is learning Chinese hard?

There’s a huge debate going on whether Chinese is a hard language or not. This one I already answered last year in my post: Is learning Chinese hard or not?

Do you have any other questions about learning Chinese?