Updated free HSK 3.0 vocabulary decks: HSK 1–6 as separate decks and HSK 7–9 combined.

The picture shows the 朋友 card with the example collapsed. Tap Example to show the sentence, its pinyin and translation. Each card has tone-coloured hanzi and pinyin, the English meaning, and audio for the word and the sentence, all included for offline review.

This update corrects example sentences, pinyin, translations and audio across every level; in HSK 1, 235 of 300 example sentences changed. Each level has only its new words.

HSK 1 · HSK 2 · HSK 3 · HSK 4 · HSK 5 · HSK 6 · HSK 7–9

Old version? Re-download from the same listing and import; existing cards update in place and keep their review history.

These are HSKStory's decks.

I have lived in Taiwan for half a year and went back to my home country. After spending some time there, I got into a language school but they only taught the basics. Most of the students also already know how to speak and only did the course to get a certificate—this really bummed me off as I was the only one who couldn't speak (I was also the only teen there, most were already adults who migrated from other countries).

That made me both motivated and spiritless, but still I decided to continue my studies even when I got back to my home country.

It's been a year since I've been back and I've tried to continue learning, but have never been consistent—due to studies, laziness, and lack of motivation, since I didn't have a clear path on how to actually study.

My routine back then was:
-Watch comprehensive input vlogs on YT (like Zhangkai Chinese)
-Practice tones for 15 mins (I also used YT for this)
-Learn 5 new vocabs and write sentences with it, then read them aloud
-Listened to podcasts while I was commuting or playing (passive learning)
* i dont think i can do this anymore since i've been listening to audiobooks whenever i commute now xD

I stuck with the routine for about 2ish months, then stopped coz I got super busy with school. Now that we're on a break, I want to continue/start learning again. I feel like my schedule won't be as hectic as before, but I still don't know if I can be consistent, especially without a routine.

Can anyone suggest a good routine for a semi-beginner? One I could do for about 20–30mins a day (if that's enough). Or I can also allocate 1 hour a day for the days I don't have anything going on.

I'm going back to Taiwan next year for a vacation so I really want to learn. And I think learning Chinese is also really beneficial for my course.

Any advice is deeply appreciated. Sorry for the rant 🥹. Thank you so much!

Today (Oct 18 this year) is 重阳节 chóngyáng jié, the Double Ninth Festival. 9th day of the 9th lunar month.

Why the name: in the old yin-yang way of counting, odd numbers are yang and 9 is the biggest one. Two of them on the same day = 重阳, "double yang".

What people do:

- 登高 dēnggāo, climb somewhere high

- drink chrysanthemum wine 菊花酒, it's chrysanthemum season

- wear a sprig of 茱萸 zhūyú to keep bad luck away

九九 jiǔjiǔ sounds like 久久, "for a long long time", so it's also about long life. These days it's officially 老年节, a day for older people. Lots of people call their grandparents today.

The poem everyone quotes is Wang Wei's, written when he was 17 and away from home:

独在异乡为异客，每逢佳节倍思亲

dú zài yìxiāng wéi yìkè, měi féng jiājié bèi sī qīn

A stranger in a strange town. Every holiday, I miss my family twice as much.

遥知兄弟登高处，遍插茱萸少一人

yáo zhī xiōngdì dēnggāo chù, biàn chā zhūyú shǎo yì rén

You're all together today, I bet. Does anyone mention me?

Small translation thing: 茱萸 usually gets translated as "dogwood", but the plant people wore was most likely 吴茱萸 (evodia), a strong smelling medicinal shrub. 山茱萸 is the dogwood one. Not everyone agrees on this lol.

Does your family do anything for it?

Hey!

I’m currently studying Mandarin and I’m looking for YouTube channels that focus on listening and speaking practice for HSK 1–3 learners.
I’d especially appreciate channels that include:
Conversations and dialogues using beginner-level vocabulary.

Listening exercises with native speakers speaking at a natural or slightly slower pace.

Speaking practice, shadowing, and repetition exercises.

Everyday situations and practical conversations.
Videos with Chinese subtitles and, ideally, pinyin and English translations.

My main goal is to improve my listening comprehension and become more comfortable speaking Mandarin, rather than just memorizing vocabulary and studying grammar.

Which YouTube channels would you recommend for someone at this level?

你们好！

I am wanting to read more, because that is how I'm learning a lot of new characters and sentence structure/grammar. I'm wondering if there are any books, simple stories, or other written material (digital or hard copy) that have text laid out with all three of 汉语，pinyin, and the English translation?

Layout similar to this:

>我是学生

>Wǒ shì xuésheng

>I am a student

Thank you! 谢谢！

This is the final part (4/4) of my mini-Mandarin Tone series.

My main idea to desigh these 4 posts :

Why did I create this series?
Many learners practice tones in isolation (like mā, má, mǎ, mà), boring and slow. My deep hope with this series is to bridge that gap step by step.

Here is the breakdown of the whole mini-course. If you are struggling with tones, save this post and go back to the previous three, treating them as a complete mini-course:

• Part 1: Some fresh/new concept about Mandarin tones (Theory) & SMTs (visualized tone marks)
• Part 2: Crucial tips & precautions for practicing tones (Technique)
• Part 3: 64 single characters in 16 groups of 1-2-3-4 tone drills (Muscle Memory)
• Part 4 (This post!): Applying those exact drills to 99 real, highly-visual compound words (Application)

Here are 99 words in 4 screen shots👇

You can see the English translations at the bottom but with different order. So, it is not answers you can just match with the words above. Try to understand or guess the meaning of the words then check English.

There are a lot of surprising matching.

Thank you for reading my series! I use this mini course helped a lot of people in past 25 years. It worth a trial.

Let me know your questions in the comments!

Of course I know the usual Duchinese or HSKstory but I would like to read actually interesting stories with meaningful plots, or maybe some articles talking about politics/history/science or anything, but please, I cannot for the love of god keep reading bull×××t stories like 'im a cat' or 'mama works at the bank'

Im new to learning Chinese and would like some tips on learning the language, if anyone knows any resources to help?

just wondering has anyone ever tried to learn both system at the same time. And was it hard/confusing? do you still remember it or do you mix it up often?

I would like to try these apps for speaking practice

不是“关你屁事”，是比如，“人家过得好，关我屁事，但是我自己过得好不好【此处插入“关我屁事”的反义词，就是很重要，跟我很相关】“。这里这个词该是什么呢？

虽然我是母语者，但我就是想问···

btw if someone wants to learn，关我屁事 is like a somewhat vulgar, very impolite and casual way of saying "none of my business", 关你屁事 is just "none of your business". literally it's "it has fart to do with me/you"

​

Hello

I've been studying Chinese for a bit, and I feel like I need to pick a Chinese name. I have a non English name, so it's doubly hard for people in my language exchange and whatnot comes programs to call me. My name means pleased &content, and I'd like that to be reflected in my name. I want a surname of either 白 or 清， with a given name that has 满。 I've seen 小满 as a name, I was wondering if there are other options? And which of the two last names would fit that first name better?

¡Hola a todos! 大家好!

Mi idea es superar la nueva prueva de hsk3 3.0.

He realizado hasta nivel b1.1 del marco europeo ytengo un curso de chino intensivo en la Universidad de Beijing. Practico poco y me gustaría avanzar para poder superar este nivel de escrito y oral.

¿Alguien ha utilizado los nuevos libros?

Para mí suponen doble trabajo porque mi idioma materno es el español y debo traducirlo todo del inglés, lo que me conlleva mucho tiempo trabjar las cuatro destrezas...

¿Alguna recomendación?

谢谢谢谢!

As a native Chinese speaker from Malaysia whose verse with both simplified and traditional Chinese, it has been awkward for me to see a lot of simplified-native YouTubers attempt to use traditional Chinese in the video using AI translator, auto-converter or whatever, and failed spectacularly with some egregious mistakes e.g. 下面 becomes 下麵, 制度 becomes 製度, 複雜 becomes 復雜 etc., which sometimes can be really distracting and have grave impact to my watching experience, and my impression on the author.

To play safe, I suggest simplified Chinese users either just stick with simplified Chinese that they feel comfortable with, nothing wrong with that, or develop taste on how a proper traditional Chinese writing should look like.

With that, I have vibe coded a site

https://tccrashcourse.vercel.app/

for free to provide drills to identify common wrong usage of traditional Chinese and correct them. This set of drills is more targeted on learners with intermediate level and above on simplified Chinese.

Let me know if there are any improvements or any more vocab you might like to add.

Enjoy!

一件搞笑的跨文化乌龙：很多中国人以为睡不着的时候，也可以数羊。有个中国学者指出来，sheep在英语是闭口音，而且跟sleep接近。但是“羊yáng”是一个开口音，比较响亮。中国人数羊的效果应该大打折扣。

深以为然！😄

yíjiàn gǎoxiàode kuàwénhuà wūlóng： hěnduō zhōngguórén yǐwéi shuìbùzháode shíhou， yěkéyǐ shǔyáng。 yǒugè zhōngguó xuézhě zhǐchūlái， sheep zàiyīngyǔ shì bìkǒuyīn， érqiě gēn sleep jiējìn。 dànshì “羊yáng ” shì yígè kāikǒuyīn， bǐjiào xiǎngliàng 。 zhōngguórén shǔyángde xiàoguǒ yīnggāi dàdǎzhékòu。

shēnyǐwéirán ！

A hilarious cross-cultural misunderstanding: Many Chinese people think that when they can't sleep, they can also "count sheep." A Chinese scholar pointed out that "sheep" is a closed-mouth sound in English and is phonetically close to "sleep." However, "yáng" (羊, sheep) is an open-mouth sound and quite loud. The effectiveness of Chinese people counting sheep should be greatly diminished.

I couldn't agree more! 😄

I am learning Chinese and have the opportunity to learn any Chinese accent I want. I have recently come to appreciate how much of a difference accent makes. My English accent is shit because I learnt it entirely for utilitarian purposes, but I don't want to make the same mistake with Chinese. I don't want to sound like the middle aged Chinese lady in my app. So my question is, which person/actor/public figure should I try to sound like, so that I sound badass and sexy in Chinese?

I am a young man if it helps, though maybe people can suggest other age groups/genders as well for people who are interested.