Day 21:5 top tech tips for studying Chinese

Here are my quick top five tech tips for studying Chinese. These are tools I find very useful in learning. I use them myself.


1. Youtube

Youtube is such a useful tool in improving listening skills. It can be either TV shows in Chinese, news items or even videos that provide mini lessons. I use youtube all the time and not just for learning Chinese of course.

It is also interesting to see how different teachers integrate technology. One of my teachers at TLI has skillfully integrated tech into my lessons which has the added bonus of extending my learning outside of class. She put me onto 大学生了没 Da xuesheng le mei, a Taiwanese chat show that talks about anything current to young peoples lives. As my teacher said, such programs also give a learner an insight into how people think, what is current etc so it is a great cultural pool of information. Check out this fun TV show. 

2. Google translate app

I am a Mac user simply because that is the tool I use at work. My favorite translator app is Google Translate on my iPhone 4S. I like it because during this trip to Taiwan, my teacher has given sets of words which I must learn over the week. I simply search those Chinese words, star them and then I have a list of words on my phone. The best feature is the expand view for Chinese characters! It helps to see those more detailed characters in a larger view. 

3. Pleco

I like this app a lot. The best thing about the dictionary is that one does not need wifi which is useful. I also love the optical character reader. There are those times when you just can not find a character and this function is great. If you purchase the full version it will not only give the character with pinyin but also the meaning when using OCR. Without the full version you will have to search in the dictionary after you get the phonetics. Very, very useful. 

Case example, in class this week my teacher and I  were searching a character under xun, not xuan. I got stuck and so I used the optical reader to discover the phonetic was xuan. I think this technology will become more and more prominent in character recognition in the future.

4. Any Chinese word processing program 

I know we all should be handwriting but the truth of the matter is most do not. My challenge is that I must handwrite more but word processing programs are great for non native learners and they promote literacy in a faster and speedier manner. 

I use Mac so my iPad, laptop and iPhone all come with standard programs. I love it here in Taiwan watching people on trains posting their FB comments or simply texting or chatting using the Apple handwriting tool. It does look awkward but people are very fast here when they use this method for inputting characters. I love it when their handwritten characters look so messy too. Makes me feel better!

5. Doodle buddy App

This is for beginner learners ... forget the pen and paper. I just use Doodle buddy set on black and it makes a great character practice tool!

That is my top five tech tips. Now I must head out. The thing about living in a shoebox studio apartment is that you just have to go out everyday otherwise you go crazy! I must say though, I would not mind a little studio apartment in every city I visit that I could temporarily call home. 

I have my Chinese characters starred in Google Translate. I have a cafe on my agenda today so I will be able to do a bit of study whilst on the move.