You are reading a mandarin story book, Oh oh… you come across an unknown character. What do you do?
This post fits nicely into our Chinese New Year Season as I share how I improved my ‘cannot make it’ Chinese with an awesome app as my buddy teacher! I use my Chinese-English App whenever I come across foreign words.
For an idea on my chinese background, read Here.
As I posted my Chinese learning Series Videos on my instagram, I realised that there are parents who like me, are as lost in teaching mandarin due to the weak foundation that we have. What intrigued me was the few non-chinese foreigners who followed my instagram to learn our mother tongue! I was highly inspired by their willingness and keen interest in our language.
Prior to this, I had posted on how I use this online app on my laptop Here. However, that site has become ‘The Line’ and it has changed quite a bit.
Here is my updated application of the Line (Chinese-English Dictionary).
I hope this simple but effective app can encourage and motivate you to learn our beautiful language.
- Download the free App from Google Play. To learn a new chinese character, Do the following: Click on the magnifying glass icon.
2) This screen will appear and you can click on the brush icon.
3. Next, once you see this screen, you can draw your chinese character inside the grey box area.
4) Upon completion of your character, it will present a range of characters. Select the correct one and click on it.
5) It will bring you to the English meaning of the character. Click on it.
6) It will give you the order of the strokes and further examples on how to use this word.
This app has many other usage. You can type in Han Yu Pin Yin(HYPY) and search for the relevant character or type in the english word to get the translated chinese characters.
As compared to how we need to laboriously search by flipping the Chinese dictionary book, this method instantly provides the HYPY and meaning for us to check an unfamiliar word. This is how I improve my chinese. My children also learn together with me!
I will be posting on how I use 四五快读 series to teach my kids to give you a better idea on how this chinese programme works. Another area that I wish to start will be on a family vocabulary building strategy for both the Chinese and English Language.
How do You teach mandarin? I’d love to hear you share your learning journey!
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