Best Websites For Learning Mandarin Chinese

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I have compiled some of the best FREE Chinese resource websites from countries around the world such as China, Taiwan, Singapore, US, and UK, etc.  These websites offer a wealth of learning opportunities in games, videos, books, free downloads, tools, and various other activities.  

 

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1. Chinese ONLY Resource Websites

2. Make Your Own Flashcards

3. Create Free Chinese Worksheets

4. Learn Chinese Songs

5. Chinese Learning Games

6. Learn Chinese With Videos

7. Learn Pinyin 学拼音

8. Learn Chinese Idioms 学成语

9. Chinese Culture 中国文化

10. Chinese Grammar

11. Chinese Learning Blogs

12. Animated Strokes

underconstruction313. More Educational Websites With Chinese Resources (organization under construction)

 

 

1. Chinese ONLY Resource Websites

Sometimes the best way to learn is to go directly to Chinese speaking countries and immerse yourself !

  • Animated Chinese Picture Book 繪本動書 Tons of children animated picture books in FLASH.  The videos are all HD and remind me of Scholastic books on video.  Many of these books are translated into Chinese from foreign books.  There are activities related to each book for reader to do.  This website is from Taiwan therefore it uses traditional Chinese.

picture books

  • 宝宝 Bao Bao Books This page has hundreds of children picture books for you to read and print (cannot download).  Most of these books are foreign children books from the United States and other countries translated into Chinese.  Therefore, American children will be very familiar with some of these books.  They even have some books just in English to print.  

 

  • http://www.tom61.com/    This Chinese website offers a wealth of games and various educational tools for learning and playing.  This is a website used by children in China.  Even if you cannot read Chinese, click on different links or the pictures and you are sure to find something interesting.  To make it easier for families that cannot read Chinese.  I have listed 4 of the most interesting links from this  website below with explanations.

  1. http://www.tom61.com/ertongyingyuan/ertongdonghuapian/  this page offer many cartoons in Mandarin.  You will need Flash in order to watch the cartoons.
  2. http://www.tom61.com/FLASHzhiyuang/kantushizi/  this page contains Chinese characters with pictures and audio for learning.  This is a great tool for learning how to read, write, and say Chinese characters.  All characters are in simplified form.
  3. http://www.tom61.com/ertonggequ/  this page contains short videos of Chinese children songs.  Again, you will need to use Flash to see the videos.
  4. http://www.tom61.com/huibengushi/youertushu/index.html  this page contains reading of children books.  Many of which are American picture books such as Froggy books and The Very Hungry Caterpillar 

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  • Yes-Chinese Graded Readers Technically this website also has English.  There are a wealth of resources from flashcard makers to graded readers.  I like these readers because they go from prekindergarten to college/adult level.  You can read these small books with or without Mandarin.

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2. Make Your Own Flashcards

chinese flash card

  • Flashcards Galore Quizlet This great website serves a tool for learning Chinese whether you want to search for already made flashcards by others or make some yourself.  For each set of words it also comes with pronunciation in target language as well as other activities.  Great resource for student of any age!

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  • Create Chinese Flashcards This website allows you to input Chinese characters and a set of flashcards based on the Chinese characters in the text you provided will be automatically created for you.  The flashcards will include all the various words that can be created from just the characters you input as well.

3. Create Free Chinese Worksheets

chinese writing paper

  • Make Chinese Worksheets Great website with lots of pre-made Chinese worksheets that you can download and print for FREE.  If you want to create large character cards, writing worksheets, or other worksheets you have to play money.

 

  • Yes! Chinese Character Practice This is a great website that allows you to type in a character and print out the stroke order practice sheet for free as well as picture flashcards.  It also reads the character for you, makes phrases using your character, and has activities for you to practice writing it on the screen.

  • Screen Shot 2014-09-20 at 10.26.53 AM Create Character Worksheets in PDF Create free worksheets of Chinese characters in traditional or simplified.

 

  • Chinese Character Practice Creator Make your own character practice worksheets for free.  It is very simple to use.  It doesn’t have pinyin or the writing strokes either.

 

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4. Learn Chinese Songs

animated singing

  • Learn to Sing Chinese Songs This is the best website for anyone that wants to sing Chinese songs.  Each song comes with music and lyrics (with pinyin) in karaoke style.  Each song has English and short bio for the singer.  It’s FREE! Check it out you will be amazed.

卡拉OK

  • Christmas Songs in Chinese A compilation of Christmas songs and lyrics in Chinese.  You can download both the songs and lyrics from this webpage.

    chinese songs free

 

  • Chinese Song and Rhymes This blog by Mama Lisa has songs and rhymes from many different  cultures.  This page is specifically on Mandarin song and rhymes.  I think this is a very good list of traditional Chinese rhymes.

 

  • Chinese Pop Songs Learn to Sing Mandarin Pop Songs.  This website has songs in Chinese, pinyin, and English.

5. Chinese Learning Games

animated video games

  • Digital Dialects Games Great website with games for kids to play in Chinese in various subjects such as fruits, vegetables, and months.

digital dialects

howdoilearnchinese

  • BBC Teaches Mandarin Chinese This cute website offers vocabulary words for different topics like colors or family words.  Each vocabulary word also comes with pronunciation.  There are also games and videos to watch.  Good for beginning Chinese learners especially younger kids.

  • LearnLanguage.com Learn Chinese words in many categories with free Chinese flash cards and the dangerously addictive Lingo Dingo review game. The flash cards and the Lingo Dingo will teach you basic Chinese words with audio from native speakers.

  • http://howdoilearnchinese.com/ Some songs and games for learning Mandarin.

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  • Learning Chocolate Make sure you select Mandarin as the language you want to learn.  Then start playing various games to learn different Mandarin vocabulary.

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  • Languageguide.org This is technically not a game page but it has a good number of vocabulary separated into categories with audio.  Pressing on a character or a picture to hear the sound can certainly be made into a game.

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  • Lingohut Games Learn Chinese words with free flashcards and free games such as memory, tic tac toe, and concentration.  There are 109 free lessons.

Free Online Lessons

6. Learn Chinese With Videos

watching video

快了汉语视屏

  • Growing Up With Chinese Videos  成长汉语 Growing up with Chinese is a 100 episodes series produced by CCTV.  Each episode is fifteen minutes in length. The purpose of the series is to situational skits to teach 300 of the most commonly spoken Chinese phrases to teenagers. It is hosted by Charlotte MacInnis, a television host who is known to Chinese audiences as Ai Hua.  The original CCTV page also has all the videos with script in simplified Chinese, pinyin, and English for each episode.  Press here to access the original CCTV page.  

100 Videos to Learn Chinese

100 Videos to Learn Chinese

  • Online Free Chinese Learning This website from BBC offers a lively introduction to Mandarin Chinese in 10 short parts with video clips from the Real Chinese TV series.  To access 7 full episodes of Real Chinese TV series on YouTube press here.

Real Chinese, a BBC series

Real Chinese, a BBC series

  • 41 Chinese Cartoon Videos  There are 41 short videos designed for children in a non native Chinese environment.  The videos begin with  你好 (níhǎo) to more complicated sentence structures.

78baby

  • Chinese Lessons and Videos   China Highlights offer 13 free videos and lessons teaching common Chinese subjects like greetings to food.

china highlights

  • Online Videos with Text Book This website has great videos that correspond with each lesson.  You can also download the script for more learning.

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7. Learn Pinyin 学拼音

pinyin chart

  •  Learn Pinyin Online This page gives FREE pinyin lessons.  It also has an entire book about China with mp3 for downloading.  I read this book it’s a great overview of China and it’s language.  The book is also on sale on Amazon.com for about $10.

 

  • Learn Pinyin With A Dinosaur This website contains interactive videos that teach pinyin with a dinosaur.  Some of the interactive videos are good for intermediate Chinese students.

dinosaur pinyin

8. Learn Chinese Idioms 学成语

成语

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  • Learn Chinese Idioms A great website that has a long list of Chinese idioms, pinyin, and the English meaning.

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9. Chinese Culture 中国文化

animated chinese food

  • Chinese Cooking Videos  Hungry for some Chinese food?  Check out a compilation of videos that teach you how to make many delicious Chinese dishes.

chinese cooking

  • Discover Chinese Culture This is the cultural webpage of the Confucius Institute or 孔子学院.  There are many articles and videos on various cultural points such as food, travel, and holidays.

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10. Chinese Grammar

 

chinese grammar

  • Measurement Words Picture Cards In Chinese, each noun has one or more specific measure words that should be used to create plural forms. There is often a link between the measure word and the shape of object. Visit this blog called Mandarin Chinese From Scratch for picture cards of measurement words and more.

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poster 量词

11. Chinese Learning Blogs

 

  • Highgate Primary Mandarin Blog A resourceful Mandarin blog with videos, flashcards, and tons of ideas!  It is kept very up to date and it is worth checking out.  I personally love blogs, because I feel that they have the best ideas.

Flashcards  I linked to the page from Highgate Primary Mandarin blog with a set of pre-made flashcards using my favorite flashcard maker Quizlet.

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  • Free Chinese Lessons This website uses the FSI Standard Chinese Course which was developed in 1974 by the Foreign Service Institute of the US State Department to train US and Canadian diplomats.  The core course consists of 55 lessons broken into 9 modules focused on various aspects of daily life.  This website is working on transcribing these lessons into web-friendly and hopefully useable format for modern day users.

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  • Parenting Joy This website is a jewel with loads of great ideas for teaching Chinese as well as many other subjects important to parents.  I found many valuable downloadable resources and ideas that I can implement.

 

  • Chinese Reading Practice Everyone knows that the best way to practice reading is by reading more texts.  This blog contains reading practice of simplified Chinese organized into 3 levels of difficulty.  This blog has not been updated in a long time though.

chinese girls holding hands

  • Ms. Shen’s Teacher Blog This is a Chinese teacher’s blog with many pictures of activities she does with her class and other resources.  I always love looking at what other teachers are doing to help me get more ideas.

 

  • Mandarin Baobao This is a cute blog started by a Chinese mom.  It has a good amount of Chinese stories read in a soothing voice with proper pronunciation.  Each story also comes with Chinese text.  English definition will appear if you run your mouse over the Chinese text.  The audio stories are suitable for intermediate and higher Chinese learners or heritage children.

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  • Learn Chinese Blog I love Chinese learning blogs, because I feel that sometimes they have the best ideas.  I linked to the page on this blog with lots of pre-made flashcards using my favorite flashcards maker Quizlet.

 

  • Bilingual Babe Spot Very cute blog with resources on learning Mandarin as second language.

  • Mandarin And Me This website is simple and easy to navigate.  It offers many cute ideas on topics such as festivals, songs, and crafts.  It is in traditional Chinese.  Worth checking out!

 

  • Mommy Speaks Chinese I like this site.  This is a cute blog created by a mom of 2 kids that wants her kids to speak Chinese.  Hmm… it sounds like why I started Mandarin For Me.  This blog has useful content for parents and kids such as common every day Chinese phrases and easy games to engage young kids.

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  • Learn Chinese with Ten Ten This is a useful blog that teaches some useful Chinese topics in both traditional and simplified characters. Unfortunately, it has not been updated since 2013, but it still has useful information worth checking out.

 

  • Mandarin Mama Blog is in her words “raising multi-ethnic children in a mostly mono-ethnic world.”  It is kept up to date and has Chinese language resources where she shares insightful reviews and ideas (mostly for traditional Chinese characters).

 

  •  Mrs. Scoggins Web Site  This is a teacher’s blog with downloadable resources for her Chinese class as well as some other academic classes.  It’s always good to check other teacher’s blogs to get ideas and share resources.

 

12. Animated Strokes

  • Animated Character Strokes This is so simple and easy.  Simply type or copy a Chinese character into the blank box and watch the word come alive stroke by stroke.

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  • 书法集 Character Strokes and Flash Video Maker This is a useful site from China that not only shows you the stroke order, but it also lets you download an animated version of your character being written by a paint brush.  I made a flash video of my last name 陈, check it out below.

13. More Educational Websites With Chinese Resources

(organization in progress…)

 

  • CCTV Everything About China This website is very comprehensive.  It has current events, videos, information, just about everything you want to know about China.  It is the CCTV’s English version.  The simplified Chinese version of the website is here.

cctv 央视网

 

 

  • Chinese New Year Activities This website is a hub of various websites that will provide you with great resources for a number of topics related to this most important Chinese holiday. Ideas within this section include resources such as calendars, puppets, food, and more.

 

  • http://www.pep.com.cn/xiaoyu/jiaoshi/tbjx/tb1/  This website shows all the Chinese textbooks used from elementary school through high school in Mainland China.  It has electronic version of the texts including reading of some texts.

人民教材

  • Learn Chinese Lessons in Traditional Chinese Huayu World offers great teaching resources for teaching Chinese.  Each lesson contains lesson plan, Powerpoint, and worksheet.  It is only in traditional Chinese, but educators/parents can modify it to simplified Chinese as needed.  Great resource for teaching Chinese.

hauyuworld

  • Make Sense of Chinese Money Great website that explains how to recognize Chinese money and it also has sounds of how to say the money.

    chinese money picture

朗朗中文

 

  • http://www.chinese4kids.net  This website is in English.  It has many resources for kids to learn Chinese such as Chinese mini books and songs.

 

  • Chinese flashcards Family and Jobs This is a website from China.  It has many flashcards in full color with pinyin.  The only downside is it doesn’t have English so more suitable for Chinese heritage learners.

 

  • Kai Xin 开心 Chinese  This is a great website with free lessons in Chinese that covers useful topics.  It also has sections for culture and history.

 

 

  • Chinese Demo Lesson This website is part of Confucius Institute and on this page you can watch a Chinese teacher doing an entire lesson with foreign students.  She is very animated and changes activities frequently to make the lesson more interactive and fun.

confucius institute teacher

  • Chinese Character Animated Cards This website is part of Confucius Institute and on this page you have access to wide variety of Chinese vocabulary such as animals, common objects, and even antonyms, etc.  Learn how to recognize and say these words.

character basics

 

  • Chinese For Kids This page belongs to an online Chinese learning center and it does cost money to use the services.  This particular link takes you to a page where they share 100 free resources such as nursery rhymes and stories all with pinyin, English, and audio.

echineselearning

 

  • Text to Speech Input any amount of Chinese into the box and the website will read it back to you in Mandarin.  Good way for non speakers or struggling readers to hear the language.

microphone

  • Learn Chinese Calendar Type in the current month using Western calendar and you will get the equivalent Chinese lunar calendar.  Great way to learn what holidays on happening during the month.

calendar

  • Free Chinese Lessons I Love Learning Chinese is a website that has free Chinese learning lessons and attractive picture cards with some essential Chinese words.

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  • 中文 Chinese Textbook This is a free set of Chinese books for overseas children learning Mandarin.  You can download the entire set of books for free with the above link.  Click here for the interactive supplemental learning including audio and games that goes with the textbooks.

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  • Mandarin Spot This is a very useful website in your study of Chinese language and reading Chinese.  It has an annotation function where you can paste Chinese text and it translates it into English for you when you run your mouse over it.  I also use it to annotate Chinese characters on this site.

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  • Learn Chinese Simplified Characters This site has a list of common Chinese characters.  If you click on a character it will show you the meaning, animated strokes, and pronunciation.  However, it does not read the character for you.

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  • Yellowbridge Etymology Explorer One of the best ways to remember a character is by learning the etymology of it. Seeing its original form, breaking down parts of the word, can aid with long term memory.  Yellowbridge allows you to draw the character (using a mouse) to aid lookup. There are other methods of lookup too; English, Pinyin and others. After finding the hanzi, the explorer can then show the formation method, simplification method and character decomposition.

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  • Arch Chinese Animation and Dictionary This website is similar to Yellowbridge except it doesn’t have the mouse writing functionality and no ads either (this is a positive).  You can look up the etymology of the word, pronunciation, animated strokes with names, parts of speech, and even print out worksheets with stroke order (creating worksheets is costly.)

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