Learn Chinese Online

I've been taking my six-year-old to Chinese School, every Saturday morning for the past six or eight weeks. The folks who run this program are true believers in use of a Taiwanese calligraphic phonetic alphabet called 'bopomofo,' as opposed to pinyin, a form of Romanization popular on the mainland. So I've been hunting (and hunting, and hunting) for online resources that could help me master yet another system for inaccurately representing the real sounds of spoken Chinese.

Finally, this past weekend -- success! The blog Pandagator has a lovely set of mouseover bopomofo training tools that perfectly fit the bill.

Even more exciting, I discovered ChinesePod, a Shanghai-based Mandarin-learning site that publishes free daily language lessons in podcast form -- over 400 lessons and counting. Subscribers (prices are very reasonable) also get access to printed lesson materials, study aids, learning games, and intro to several international communities of Chinese learners.

Having learned French back in the late 80s, typing on Minitel terminals, I have a great belief in the ability of computers and networks to facilitate language study. There's something about the combination of automated "move at your own pace," non-judgemental scoring, and semi-anonymous communities of like-minded souls that make the whole business of language learning a lot less fraught.

Posted by John Jainschigg at 02:21 PM  Permalink

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