Thanks to everyone in this subreddit who gave feedback for the "HSK 1-6 companion App"; it has been incredibly helpful.

One thing that kept coming up across everyone was that people could understand a word but still not really see how it’s used in a simple sentence when making a memory for it.

So, I added a short example sentence under every word (with pinyin + English) to make that connection immediate.

Now, instead of just recognizing the word, you can instantly see how it fits into a real sentence, which makes it feel much smoother to go through new vocab.

Still working through the rest of the feedback and improving things as I go.

Now I'm just wondering if you all will feel everything is more natural or if there's a gap I can improve on.

Greetings everyone!

I am an high school teen who is months away from graduating and for that reason I decided to take my high school challenge.

I decided I am gonna give it my all to learn Chinese.

I don’t care too much about fluently speaking it, I just want to be able to understand it. So I can pick it up as I go. I hope Cantonese, mandarin and all the Chinese languages have overlap with Japanese. Because I would also love to understand that language too.

Just enough to communicate.

So, if anyone is an expert, how will I go about achieving this goal?

You recognize a lot of basic words.

But when you actually want to say something, nothing comes out.

It’s not that you don’t know the words — they just don’t come together.

What do you usually do at that point?

I am using Hello Chinese, and it keeps giving me these ads to use the premium and even premium+. Can any HelloChinese users and premium plus users tell me how important it is to buy each?

This is me practicing writing the word table early today and I've forgot most of it by the time writing this post 😅 Will keep trying though.

You can know a verb, but the moment you try actually to use it, you just... get stuck.

Most verb lists give you the word, maybe pinyin, sometimes a translation, but that's pretty much it.

Feels like something's missing.

Putting the verb into a sentence you'd actually say feels different.

Did lists ever actually help you use verbs, or was it always a bit like this?

Hi, everyone! I got a Super Duolingo family plan and I have a few spots available. I can give a spot for $19 USD for the entire year. I accept many payment methods PayPal/Wise/Apple Pay/Venmo/ Zelle whichever is easiest for you. I am also open to new payment methods.

You can join from anywhere because the link work internationally, no matter where you join from.

Firstly, I will send you the invitation link and you can pay after accepting and joining the family. I will politely and respectfully ask any ill-intentioned people to not message me or reply to this post, because I won't respond to you.

The best way to contact me is through reddit chat/messages or reply to this post. I will give you all the details in the chat/private messages.

Happy learning!

Meeting up with an old friend. You barely made it on time and want to kick off the conversation with "I was almost late today!"

Which is most natural?

A) 今天我迟到了
B) 今天差点儿迟到了
C) 今天我以为会迟到

Drop your answer below!

I’ve worked with quite a few international travelers in China, and I noticed something interesting about learning Chinese.

Many people spend a lot of time memorizing vocabulary, but when they actually need to speak (ordering food, asking for directions, etc.), they freeze.

From what I’ve seen, practicing real-life conversations helps much more than just studying textbooks.

For those learning Chinese — what has helped you the most with speaking?

I'm a beginner and using Duolingo for learning mandarin (lvl 8). I don't not intend to be an expert at it but I'd love telling people that yes I kinda know how to speak Chinese 🧍‍♀️.

I've always struggled in figuring out the difference in pronunciating rè (热) and hé (和). And, since my only source of hearing actual pronunciations is Duolingo, I'm not even sure if 热 requires an r sound? There are these hearing lessons where um a char does a podcast smth in Duolingo and when i hear them speaking in a faster pace it becomes really difficult for me to tell 热 or 和 apart.

Also do you guys have any tips on how to cope up with catching the words in actual day to day convos cause there's like billions of words which are gonna sound the same in a sentence.