I’ve been learning Chinese for about 6 months and I’ve found that it’s getting harder for me to find suitable reading materials. I’m a student so I couldn’t afford to buy some courses or subscriptions. My main problem now is vocabulary. I’ve found many resources for reading Chinese, but it’s too hard for my level. I realized that while I read it and use Pleco dictionary to help me with words that I don’t know (which is a lot), I didn’t get the feeling of real comprehension like I did when reading stuff from my native language or English. I merely got the general idea of the sentence. So I’m wondering whether or not I’m doing the right thing. I thought about adding the unknown words to the flashcard, but I don’t think it’s working for me. Currently, I’m doing reading and translating using Pleco, trying to memorize it and hope that I can encounter the word over and over again so it will eventually stick to my mind.

I’d love to hear your tips and suggestions.

Many thanks,
陈勇麒

What are you interested in? Beyond learning Chinese, I mean. It’s somewhat surprising to me that you find it hard to find hard reading materials. I think I’ve never heard anyone ask this before! 🙂 Just read any text written for a professional audience and you’ll find plenty of stuff to learn. Exactly what articles you read depends on what you’re interested in, of course, but university textbooks, academic article, technical journals, law, politics, and so on. Since you’re at a level where you can read most texts, just read what you like reading about in your native language! If you’re not into fiction, it’s certainly okay to stay away from novels!

Thanks!

Agreed! I especially like how you said to focus on one thing (or a few things) and not try to improve everything at once. Personally, I’m more focused on reading/writing than listening/speaking, so my focus is on expanding my character recognition ability.

Also I agree with you about listening: just because you listen for hundreds of hours doesn’t mean you significantly improve. One thing I’m trying to do is keep a notebook with me when I do my favorite Chinese-learning activity: watching Chinese Youtube. Then, when I come across a word I don’t know, I look it up and write it down immediately. Then I have an organic vocab list of words that actually mean something to me 🙂

I had a strong feeling a few months ago that I was in this plateau, but by reading a novel and doing some reading and listening everyday I’m feeling more positive. I also noticed when I went back to more joyless textbook style materials i’d been using before I felt an improvement in my reading fluency.

Ha! I never thought about that possibility! Thanks Olle- you have expanded my listening material greatly!

Best regards,

Ean

A little bird told me that maybe what you’re looking for could actually be available on a major, free video platform near you.

Thank you for another interesting article. I just wanted to ask you, how are you currently listening to an audio version of 刘慈欣’s 黑暗森林? I would like to find such audiobooks myself. I have read the text versions and really liked them. I have seen the Audible US has a new Chinese section, but they still don’t have much content.

Best regards

Ean

After school it takes around 2 to 4 hours to finish the homework, it includes reading and listening. We have three classes of comprehensive, one listening and one speaking class per week. I also like watching Chinese series on Netflix or Viki and listen to some Youtube videos like ChinesePod or Chinese Zero to Hero, I have taken an HSK 4 level course on Zero to Hero. I try to include as much as I can into my daily life. Sometimes I understand better by listening than reading because I have heard the word before but if I have to read I might not even know that the word I´m looking at is something I already know. I have noticed that happening when taking the HSK 4 sample test. I listen, I understand and then look the words in front of me and they are not familiar and then when I later hear the word that I didn´t recognize I feel kind of stupid. I took music classes when I started learning Chinese so I could hear tone differences better and wouldn’t make mistakes with my own pronunciation. It really helped with listening and understanding what is said. And it did make that part easier. But now it feels like going from HSK 4 listening (and the level I´m trying to get better at) to HSK 6 writing where there is a huge vocabulary gap. I have a week to figure out how to plan my studying so I can follow the course and catch up on the missing part and not feel overwhelmed doing that.

Aiming to finish the book no matter how much students learn is, unfortunately, rather common. I do of course understand the need to have goals for how much to progress in a given semester, but students’ learning should of course be in focus!

It’s not clear from your description how much you’re actually spending on learning Chinese. You mention 90 minutes of lessons per day, which is a good start, but depending on what you do during the lessons, it might leave very big holes in what you need to do. Based on what I know about other students, my first question would be how much you spend on listening and reading to things you mostly understand, i.e. extensive listening and reading? Graded readers? Audio versions of them? Learner podcasts? That kind of thing.