It can be intimidating to start a new language, but with the right tools, a big task will become a lot less daunting. This article covers how to use textbooks and Anki to quickly build a solid foundation in Chinese. Textbooks are a fantastic way to get started learning a new language, but you need to know how to use them correctly. The idea of using a textbook may be off-putting because it reminds you of school, but language textbooks are not nearly as dry as math textbooks. Language textbooks offer well-structured lessons and will slowly introduce new grammar and vocabulary. This is great, especially for a complex language like Chinese. This guide uses the HSK textbook series, but you can apply this information to any textbook, you will just have to find or make your own Anki cards. Below, are the resources necessary to get started using the HSK textbooks. The HSK series is designed in a way that introduces you to the Chinese language very gradually. It provides lots of examples and opportunities to practice what you’ve learned. I recommend using the HSK textbooks up until HSK 4 after which you will have a solid enough foundation you can move on to other, more fun, resources.
When going through a textbook lesson I recommend starting by reading through the lesson first with audio and then watching the grammar explanation video, you should also be studying the Anki flashcards alongside the main lesson. However, you may alter the order of study depending on what works best for you.
When you first start an HSK lesson, it will present you with a dialogue. Read the dialogue out loud to the best of your ability. You are not expected to be able to understand it all, it is a preview of what will be covered in the lesson. Next, you will be presented with a list of new words. Briefly read through the new words to get an idea of what will be in the lesson. This is a good place to start studying vocabulary flashcards, but you do not need to go through all the vocabulary flashcards before reading the rest of the lesson. You will pick up a lot of the vocabulary you need through context as you read through the lesson. Vocabulary is also not something that should be crammed. You should only study as much as you feel you can remember.
The audio for all HSK lessons can easily be found on YouTube. Listening to the dialog will reaffirm the pronunciation and the rhythm of the language. You can also try to mimic the dialog to practice your pronunciation. Listen to the dialog a few times until you feel comfortable with the material. If it’s all already familiar to you that’s great! Go ahead a move on to the next section.
Next, you’ll come to the grammar section. Read through the explanation and sentences. This is just your first introduction to these grammar patterns. It’s great if you immediately understand them, but also ok if you don’t. You will review these sentence patterns again when you watch the explanation video and when you go through the exercises.
The HSK series also has a variety of practical exercises. Doing exercises such as the one below is a great way to start building sentences. In this exercise, simply plug vocabulary words into the example sentence. You can either write down your answer or say it out loud. Also, you can always refer back to the vocab list for these exercises if you don’t have all the words memorized yet. The point of these exercises is to build familiarity.
The videos below will help you review the grammar for each HSK lesson. Watch these to reiterate what you read in the lesson. Don’t worry too much about understanding every word, you will review all of this information multiple times. Also, some of the example words he uses in the video are words you probably haven’t seen yet. Don’t worry about memorizing them, you’ll see them again later. Click on view on YouTube in the lower right corner of the video to see the full playlist with all lessons.
Anki Flashcards
Anki flashcards should be studied alongside the main lesson since vocabulary is best picked up over time with repetition. You can find the HSK flashcards by clicking on “Anki decks.” You’ll want to download the deck labeled HSK 1-4. When you open the deck in Anki, it will look like the image below. You will likely need to adjust the number of new cards and reviews you see every day to match your study schedule and lifestyle. Go into the deck “options” and set the number of new words to what feels like a good amount for you. You may need to adjust it a few times as you get used to studying vocabulary. For more information on this, view “How to use Anki.” This HSK deck was created by Bianca Learns, and you can find the original linked below. The version in Anki Decks is one I updated to fit my learning style, and it is compatible with dark mode. Which version you use is up to personal preference.
There are three different card types you will be presented with. The first card type is a listening card. You will hear a word and have to recall the meaning. When you are ready to see the answer click “show answer.” Each card is also tagged so you can see what type of card it is and what lesson it comes from. This card is from HSK 1 lesson 1.
The back side of the card will give you the hanzi, the pinyin, and the English definition. It’s good to start familiarizing yourself with the hanzi here, but you’ll focus more on learning to read it with reading flashcards. Grade yourself on how well you were able to recall the meaning of the Chinese word.
The second type of card is a reading card. It will ask you to read the Chinese sentence and test your ability to understand and pronounce the Chinese characters. This card is from HSK 1 lesson 8.
On the back, you will see the pinyin reading of the sentence, hear the audio, and see the key vocabulary word. Grade yourself on how well you were able to read and understand the sentence.
The last card type is a writing card. You will be given an audio prompt for a vocabulary word and an example of that word in a sentence. You can either type out that word or write it down on a piece of paper if you would like to practice writing by hand.
When you flip over the card, it will tell you if you typed the correct word. If you choose to write it by hand, you can check the stroke order animation to see if you wrote it correctly.
You will notice that everything is in hanzi from the beginning. This is to get you used to reading as early as possible. Hanzi is one of the hardest parts of Chinese, so learning it early will make it a lot easier when you want to use native sources later. If you come across a hanzi you don’t know or forgot, copy it, and look it up in a Chinese-English dictionary. You will spend a lot of time looking up words in the dictionary, so this is great practice for later. If you want to change something on a card, you can click “edit” in the bottom left corner and alter any of the card fields.
Advanced decks
After you have completed the HSK deck, you’ll likely want to continue your studies with some more advanced Anki decks. You can find advanced sentence and vocabulary decks with thousands of premade cards sorted in order of difficulty linked below. The vocabulary practice deck has two different card types. For the first card type, you will be presented with a word and an example sentence with that word in it. Your goal is to recognize the word’s meaning and reading.
On the back side of the card, you will see the reading, and meaning, as well as hear an audio recording.
The second card type will ask you to recall the Chinese vocabulary word. You will be given the example sentence with the word removed and the English translation, and your goal is to type out the word correctly.
Grade yourself on how well you recalled the vocabulary word. Recognizing and recalling words is one of the best ways to build up your Chinese vocabulary.
The sentence practice deck has thousands of practice sentences ordered by difficulty and is designed to help increase your reading and listening abilities. There are also two card types in this deck. The first type presents you with a sentence to read, and you grade yourself based on your ability to recall the reading and meaning of the sentence.
The second type of card presents you with an audio recording, and you grade yourself based on how well you understood the meaning of the sentence.
Both of these decks will significantly help you advance your Chinese, and because Anki is fully customizable you can alter the decks to fit your study style and add additional cards.
Other Options
If you would prefer not to use a textbook and learn grammar as you go along, then you can do that, however, the lack of structure may be a little overwhelming. If you’re interested in learning grammar as you come across it, then check out the following article on Chinese grammar websites.
Acknowledgments
The HSK deck and the practice sentences deck are decks originally made by other people that I altered to fit my study preferences and needs. If you would like to check out the original decks and creators, they are linked below. I also did not make the advanced Chinese vocabulary deck, although I did alter it a lot, so it is quite different from the original. However, the original seems to no longer be available, and I don’t know who made it.
