There are five tones in Mandarin Chinese. Flat, rising, dip, falling, and neutral. Practice using the five tones with words that you know. This can be very hard for English speakers who have never spoken in tones before.
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​You can really tell a polished learner of Chinese when they are nailing their tones correctly. 
At the same time, is also really obvious when someone speaks Chinese with the wrong or just random tones. 

I think a tutor or coach at this stage is also crucial to make sure you are pronouncing tones correctly. You should also listen to correct pronunciation, and practice repeating what you hear.
Keep in mind some tone combinations have special rules and do not always sound the same. ​​

When learning Chinese for the first time, chances are that you will mispronounce Pinyin, which is the Romanized spelling of Chinese sounds. If you don't properly learn these sounds early on, chances are that it will mess up your Chinese down the road because you will be memorizing and practicing the right sounds. In this blog, we will point out commonly mispronounced Pinyin Sounds and teach you how to master the sounds of Chinese. 

About the author: I am an American English native speaker who has been studying Chinese for almost two decades. I also hold a Bachelor's degree in Chinese and I know what it takes to become fluent in Mandarin as a native English speaker.

The first step to learning a language is making a plan. Revisiting your study plan often and making adjustments as necessary will also help boost your effectiveness in learning Chinese. In this blog, we will present a ten step process for creating the perfect Chinese language study plan.  

​​About the author: I am an American English native speaker  has been studying Chinese for almost two decades. I also hold a Bachelor's degree in Chinese and I know what it takes to become fluent in Mandarin as a native English speaker.

Let's get this list started!

Chinese is considered the most spoken language in the world, and knowing it can help you build personal and business ties in Asia and throughout the world. However, before you start learning Chinese, it's important to get an understanding of the best resources available so that you can best use your time learning Chinese effectively. In this blog, we will introduce some of the best resources, such as books, apps, and other methods we have personally used to become proficient in Mandarin Chinese.

​About the author: I am an American English native speaker who has been studying Chinese for almost two decades. I also hold a Bachelor's degree in Chinese and I know what it takes to become fluent in Mandarin as a native English speaker.

Learning Mandarin Chinese can be a difficult task, especially for Westerners. It has often been ranked as one of the hardest languages in the world for English native speakers to learn. However, with these tips you should be on your way to learning fluent Chinese.

Below is a list of ten steps to master Mandarin Chinese. 

About the author: I am an American English native speaker that has been studying Chinese for almost two decades. I also hold a Bachelor's degree in Chinese and I know what it takes to become fluent in Mandarin as a native English speaker.

Let's get this list started!

I am a native born American learning Mandarin Chinese as a second language. I have a bachelor's degree in Chinese, and at this stage in my Chinese learning, I have hit a peak with spoken Chinese and I have been putting all my energy into learning more written Chinese. Chinese idioms are special because normally they are only four characters and you need to memorize what they mean in order to understand; this is the education that is taught in Taiwan elementary schools that I was never able to be a part of. If you can memorize these, you can drastically improve your formal Chinese reading and formal Chinese writing skills.

It can be hard to pick up idioms just out of context. However there are not a lot of English resources that focus on just idioms, and the ones that do don't filter out the commonly used idioms. Chinese idiom dictionaries also have too many idioms that are not widely known or used, or are too formal for normal writing or speech. Some idioms are more formal variations of other more common idioms with the same meaning. In this blog, I am focusing on the more commonly used idioms that most native speakers will recognize, and which are commonly used in formal speech and writing such as news reports and newspapers.

Therefore I have created this list using commonly used idioms selected from the dictionary with the help native speaker, filtering the idioms by asking whether or not the native speaker has ever heard of or knows of the idiom.

This is a major project, and it will probably take me a few years to catalog all of the useful idioms in the dictionary. The list below is organized according to character stroke order and will be added upon regularly. Some words have two definitions, which are separated by a semicolon. Similar meanings are separated by a comma.
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FYI: the reason I do not use a table is for SEO purposes, so this list can be found in Google. Also, all these English translations are from yours truly, using a Chinese to Chinese idiom dictionary, translated with my knowledge of Chinese and referencing various other dictionaries when needed. 

Just so you know, you can also get a big discount on Chinese (and English) classes and tutoring on Tutor ABC by using our promo code: FOREIGNERS10

在這個階段我的中文學習主要專注於閲讀及寫作。成語特別難因爲每一個都需要背起來，但是有太多沒有用的成語，所以我請了一位台灣朋友幫我整理比較常見的成語。以下是常用成語的中翻英對照表，我會陸陸續續把字典裏面所有有用的成語寫上去，可能要花個幾年的時間。以下所有翻譯都是我親自從中文字典里面的解釋直接翻成英文，如果有問題可以在下面留言。