okay please don’t flame me for this because i am genuinely curious.

can you lip read in a tonal language? lip reading is obviously doable in english, but i’m curious about a language that relies on tones. this is potentially an idiotic question but it comes from a place of true curiosity and interest.

For quite a long time I have wondered how many characters one needs to know to know 90%, 95% or even 99% of Chinese characters in an average text.

On the internet numbers of about 2000 get thrown around frequently, but rarely more concrete evidence is provided. In this post I would like to showcase the following short python script and graph:

Using the data from https://huggingface.co/datasets/zetavg/tw-sinica-corpus-word-freequency/raw/main/words.json and the script

```python import numpy as np import plotly.graph_objects as go import json

def gen_normalization_table(): return str.maketrans({"麽": "麼", "爲": "為", "爲": "為", "説": "說", "裏": "裡"})

def normalize_chinese(txt, table=gen_normalization_table()): return txt.translate(table)

def getFreqDict(): with open("words.json") as f: freqList = json.load(f)

freqDict = {}
total = 0

for x in freqList:
    freq = x["frequency"]
    word = normalize_chinese(x["word"])
    total += freq * len(word)
    for c in word:
        freqDict[c] = freqDict.get(c, 0) + freq

return {word: freq / total for word, freq in freqDict.items()}

d = getFreqDict()

X = np.arange(1, len(d) + 1)

vals = [val for _, val in sorted(d.items(), key=lambda item: -item[1])] Y = np.cumsum(np.fromiter(vals, float))

fig = go.Figure()

fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(x=X, y=Y, mode="lines"))

fig.update_layout( xaxis=dict(dtick=500, showgrid=True), yaxis=dict(dtick=0.10, showgrid=True), template="plotly_white", )

fig.show()

Export as interactive HTML

fig.write_html("plot.html", full_html=True, include_plotlyjs=True) ```

I generated the figure you can see above. On [https://valentin-herrmann.de/p/how-many-chinese-characters-do-you-need-to-learn-to-know-99-out-of-100-in-an-average-text/](my blog) you can also play around with an interactive version of the graph.

From this graph we can read off the following table:

So for knowledge of 99% of characters in an average text one needs to know at least 2700 characters.

I just finished travelling in China alone at 18, and I loved it so much that I started looking for uni courses/ways to learn the language and move there. My city's uni has a crazy good opportunity course (and coincidentally the only one in the uk) which is a dual degree with a Beijing uni so you spend 2 years there, and the degree is learning mandarin as well as a little culture/history. Even though it says it's only for beginners I still worry about how realistic it is even in a structured sense like this.. I am decently smart like I got 3 A's at A-Level, and this course is so niche that theres max 10 people and currently 3, almost like private tutoring. I just worry I start it and find I just can't do it

Hi everyone! Every Chinese widget post here gets the same comments from Android people asking where theirs is. So I made some, and they're free.

The part I haven't seen anywhere else...next to the word you get a real line from an actual Chinese video where someone says it, and ▶ plays that exact moment. So you see how people really use it, not a textbook sentence.

Word widget: word of the day, one HSK level (1-6) or your own saved words. Put two next to each other with different levels

🔊 to hear it, ↻ for the next word, new word every 15 min up to once a day

pinyin, characters and meaning on or off, simplified or traditional, dark mode, colourblind friendly colours

Real line widget and a tiny streak one

Full disclosure: they're inside my app LanLan (懒懒, a very lazy panda), where you scroll real Chinese videos with hanzi, pinyin and English under every line. The app has a paid Premium, the widgets don't need it.

Not sure links are ok here, so if you want it, search LanLan: Learn Chinese Lazily on Google Play or just DM me. What should the next widget be? Chengyu of the day, a slang word of the day, something for the lock screen? Whatever gets asked most in the comments is the next thing I build.

I am taking Chinese 101 at my University. They gave me a name which is 商冬 (Shāng Dōng). They mentioned that Shāng means business, trade, commerce, and I chose the "winter" meaning of Dōng. They said together it could mean to "perserve through the winter". What other meanings would a chinese native derive from my name?

How long have you been learning Chinese? Do you find Chinese characters difficult to remember or write?

If you're learning Chinese, do you prefer practicing with flashcards, handwriting exercises, or dictation? What helps you remember characters and vocabulary better?

I've been working on HanziPress, a tool where you can practice writing Chinese characters, create your own flashcards and printable worksheets, study HSK 1–9 vocabulary and pronunciation, practice dictation, and play character games.

I'd love to hear what works best for you!

I've been studying chinese only for a month. I already speak some Japanese (5 years) so I have no trouble with reading or writing it. But the pronunciation of some letters is driving me crazy.

My teacher is a Chinese woman and she teaches like her way is the only right way of speaking. She akwnoleges the existence of other "dialects", but, we have a Taiwanese teacher assistance that dissagrees with her often.

This context is relevant, because I know Chinese varies a lot from place to place and even Mandarin can have diferences, the same way UK English is diferent from US English (or even more).

My problem is that Pinyin makes absolutly no sense to me. I already speak 4 languages, so I can understand the diference between T/D, G/K and P/B for example (even if I would't have solved that problem the same way). But once I enter the realm of CH/Q, X/SH and J/R/ZH I get completely lost.

I found some charts and videos. But these leters, specially ZH and R seem to be pronounced very diferently in every source I found. Even in the audios the teacher uses in class.

For what I gathered, most people seem to agree ZH is prononunced like the J in Joe. But my teacher insist is kind of a pinyin Q. I even got points retracted in an exam because I confused 去 and 住 when the teacher pronounced it. The same with R. I heard it prononced like a soft R in some audios, but the teacher says is like a J...

So, for my class, J and R are very similar (and Y, but that is a comon issue for me). And ZH, Q and CH are also almost the same...

Is one of the pronunciations the corect one? Or is this a regional thing? If i say "jonguen" would an average chinese person understand I'm sayin "中文"?

Sorry for the long storytime ^^"

A core dialect, but from an innovative/Younger-generation speaker

Uni student. Want to learn Mandarin and cant seem to find any resource that makes sense to me and while there are plenty of them, they all feel very scattered. I dont mind paying but is there any proper "self-study" track i can take on that provides a proper walkthrough of the language from HSK level standards?

Hello all, my name is Ranjan and I started learning Mandarin about a month ago, intimidating but fun! Here's something funny I just discovered, when I say "Hello, I am Ranjan" this sounds like 你好，我是软件。Apparently, this means: "Hello, I am software"!!! I've been mistaken for AI before, but it's not nice! Any suggestions about how I can avoid this -- should I shorten my first name, or have a 'Chinese name'?

Hi everyone,

I passed HSK 4 at the end of August (self studied, with HSKK) and currently studying HSK 5 with a 1 to 1 tutor in China, just finished chapter 6 in the first book.

I've noticed a massive difference at this level compared to HSK 3 and 4, obviously it's supposed to get more challenging as the levels increase, but I'm finding all the grammar points especially difficult to grasp. Many of them I feel I haven't heard in everyday life compared to the easy ones from 3 and 4. The examples in the textbook are often not so helpful. For example, each grammar point gives context, the usage, and usually a structure template, then followed by 1-2 examples and some don't even use the template structure that was just referenced.

I attempt to complete the grammar exercises using the given structure and meaning, but the tutor either says I've used it incorrectly or the meaning doesn't make sense, and they provide their answer for the question how it should have been answered. I can only draw upon my experience of the grammar point in English first, then translate that response to Chinese, but often told that this is the wrong way to do the exercise - but if I've never heard the grammar in real life, how would I know how else to complete the exercises without using L1 as a basis?

The tutor asks me to freely construct a sentence using the grammar point, I do this based on the example provided, then often told "no, that's not the right way we say this" etc.

Is this a normal experience for those who've already studied HSK 5?

Aside from "read more real life material" or "watch more movies and TV shows", is there some approach I'm missing or is the tutor missing a teaching method?

Hi everyone, I'd love some native-speaker intuition on 待 (dāi) and 留 (liú).

When both mean “stay,” when do you actually use 待, and when do you use 留?

For example:

· 多待几天 vs. 多留几天 · 待在家里 vs. 留在家里

Are they interchangeable? Does 待 sound more casual? Does 留 sound more like “remain / stay behind”?

And are there cases where only one of them works?

Thanks in advance!

I'm a Chinese heritage speaker who was born and raised in America. My parents are both from Shanghai and speak Shanghainese at home, but I grew up speaking a mixture of Mandarin and English to my parents. I've been trying to pass some level of Chinese proficiency to my kids, but my own level is only that of a learner or a child, my spouse does not speak Chinese, and visits to my parents are sporadic, so I've been using online tutoring with them and practicing the things they learn in class at home.

As we've been doing this, I've become aware that the standard Mandarin vocabulary and pronunciation that is taught is very different than how my we speak. For example for us, there isn't really any difference between z,c,s and zh,ch,sh. We pronounce r like l (然 sounds like lán). There's also some word choices that are different. My mom almost always says 讲 instead of 说, and 礼拜 instead of 周 or 星期 for days of the week.

I'm aware that some of these are differences between Northern and Southern Chinese, but I feel that some could also just be idiosyncrasies of the way my parents speak, and I would love to read more about this, but it's hard to find information about this. There seems to be very few English resources about this subject.

Just got my Chinese name from my teacher! Pretty excited and wanted to share it! 倪 珂琳

or Ní Kēlín in pinyin!

Hi everyone, what's the difference between 街坊 (jiēfāng) and 邻居 (línjū)?

I know 邻居 is the general word for "neighbor." Is 街坊 more colloquial / northern / old-fashioned? Are they interchangeable in everyday speech?

Also, could you give me one example sentence where only one of them sounds natural?

Thanks!

what languages are easiest for native chinese speakers to learn?

which dialects are closest to Mandarin? definitely not Cantonese.

你好 Reddit!

I've been learning Chinese a little bit now, but I have a problem, it's very difficult to find resources that don't use the Generative IA in some way. Does anyone know about any Chinese learning resources that don't use it?

Thank you in advance!

I’ve said 买东西 my whole life and only recently stopped to think about how strange it sounds literally: “buy east and west.”

There’s a story that it comes from the east and west markets in ancient Chang’an. I’ve heard it a lot, but it turns out there isn’t much evidence for that explanation.

Then there’s 东家. That “east” seems easier to explain: in an old host–guest ritual, the host used the eastern steps and the guest the western ones. Hence 房东 and 作东.

Did you hear the market story too? Or a different explanation?

Hi, I'm trying to download a Chinese-Spanish dictionary on .txt format, a good option I found is the Chinese Multilingual Dictionary in Pleco Collection (https://github.com/meap158/Pleco-Collection). However, I can't import it to Pleco and then export it as a .txt file because I don't have the flashcards premium feature, so I was wondering if anyone would be able to do that for me.

Thank you in advance and thanks for reading.

https://reddit.com/link/1xbnmo2/video/ixcd051frtwh1/player

Hello everyone.

I’m 26 years old and it is my dream to go to China to learn the language for at least a year but I would need a student visa and find a Chinese university. I have some money saved and ready to go to china anytime as long as I find a university and apply for a visa.

I already speak French, Arabic and English and a bit of Spanish. I’m currently learning Chinese on my own at the moment.

However, I’m not sure which city or university to choose.
In the long term, I would also like to stay in China for a longer period and do e-commerce there.