By Kelly P
•Learning about the characters was very useful for me. It helped me to understand the connections between similar characters and also taught me a few new vocabulary words. I also feel that I gained an understanding in the thinking of Chinese people and culture by learning about these characters. Distinguishing between the strokes also helped me to recognize the differences between similar characters. I love the lack of English used in this course as well.
One major con for this course is that the tests require that students have some intermediate understanding of Chinese grammar. If this course is truly for beginners, then either those grammar aspects should be explained in the course or the fill in the blank sentences should be altered in some way that allows students to answer with limited knowledge of grammar. The good thing is that there's usually only one or two questions like that on each test. Also, some of the slides in the middle of the course also got messed up in some way where they skip over characters or repeat characters multiple times. That was confusing, but not impossible to understand. It needs to be fixed though.
Thanks to everyone who put this course together. I appreciate your hard work. 谢谢您们。
By Michael G
•A very wise native Chinese once told me, when I first began thinking about learning Chinese, that learning to write and read Chinese characters is paramount to learning Chinese language and culture. These days, there's far too little emphasis on learning to read and write Chinese. The focus is on speaking only at the simplest conversation level, often excluding listening in many cases. This course will get you on the right path toward learning Chinese properly, especially if you want to advance. The course is very well designed. You won't be disappointed in the long run. Learning to read and write Chinese is a long and sometimes difficult process which leads to insight. I wish there were more courses like this one!
By Catherine v D
•Hard, but so well worth the effort. After finishing the class, I am not intimidated to writing in Mandarin Chinese any more. The pace is quite sustained, so do not skip, as the lessons are carefully strung together so as to make the building blocks of the foundation of the written language more understandable, like a building code. 15-stroke words? Fine! I now can decipher their components AND I remember the vocabulary a lot better, because it is anchored as a visual marker as well. Good luck! Keep practicing! I loved every moment of my class and cannot recommend it highly enough.
By James K R
•Well Worth the Effort!
Having just completed the HSK Prep Certification Course, I knew I needed to focus on recognizing and understanding basic Chinese Characters. Completing this course has required me to continue daily contact with the Mandarin language skills from the HSK course and improve (somewhat), the vital reading and (to some extent) writing skills necessary to fully develop facility with this language.
I recommend this course of study specifically for those who've had an introduction to Mandarin, since the material here is (in my opinion) contextual and (of course) grounded in the grammatical structures of Mandarin, without a prior introduction this course material may appear abstract and self-referential.
I found the course to be a reinforcement of the lessons learned and not-quite learned during my HSK Prep course. Thank you for the well structured opportunity to continue my growth.
By Laura K
•The course is very useful for learning stroke order, although it doesn't say why stroke order is important.
A few things in the tests I had to look up in an online Chinese dictionary. Also I used this dictionary for further definitions when I paused the videos to write the additional vocabulary: https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin-dictionary.php?
Overall this course is a very useful introduction to Simplified Chinese and I really enjoyed learning the characters. I find writing Chinese characters very relaxing. This course gradually introduces more and more characters and I feel like I have learned a lot.
By Erlinda S
•I enjoyed my learning experience in this class and would continue on learning. I would like to take the next level Chinese characters for beginners 2. The instructor is very knowledgeable and I enjoy her teaching. Thank you very much. I also suggest to those that would like to learn the Chinese language to take the Chinese Characters for beginners first to build the foundation in learning how to read and write and understand the language. Again thank you. I took Chinese 101 in college as my electives and would like to learn more.
By Olga G
•Мне понравился курс. Задания тестов бывают трудными, поскольку там присутствует грамматика, которой в видео-уроках нет, но со словарями это можно преодолеть - все-таки это самообучение. Информации много, подана она достаточно логично. Конечно, требуется много самостоятельной работы (о чем было сказано еще в начале курса) - отрабатывать написание иероглифов каждый день. Будьте готовы к интенсивному обучению. И отличная графика, музыка - умиротворяет и настраивает на рабочий лад. Спасибо за курс!
By luis c
•ES EXCELENTE, PRACTICO; BUENISIMO,,
GRACIAS A TODOS Y A CADA UNO USTEDES Y A SUS ( FAMILIAS ) QUE DESARROLLARON ESTE CURSO. POR EL TIEMPO Y ESFUERZO, Y HACERLO DISPONIBLE DE MANERA GRATUITA , PORQUE EN OCASIONES HABEMOS PERSONAS QUE NOS INTERESA CAPACITARNOS Y PERO NO SE TIENEN LOS RECURSOS PARA OBTENERLOS..
SALUDOS,, FELICIDADES Y GRACIAS
By Jenny D M S
•¡Excelente curso! Muchas gracias por las explicaciones sobre el origen de los caracteres. Sugiero que en los cuestionarios se evalúe nuestro listening. Es muy importante. Aunque sé que este curso es sobre caracteres chinos, también m hubiera gustado practicar mas el audio de las palabras por medio de los cuestionarios. Muchas gracias.
By Deleted A
•I really enjoyed this course from the beginning to the end. Then, I really learned so much Chinese Characters and the origin of some of them. So, I will hope it would be the possibility of having a second part in order to learn more about Chinese Characters and have an additional complement to learn Chinese language.
谢谢!
By Jack V
•Outstanding course. I especially appreciate the thoroughgoing attention to the fundamentals of making the basic and compound strokes. That has greatly improved my Chinese penmanship. Thank you so much for covering writing Chinese characters like no course I have previously taken, beautiful as some of them were.
By Natalie L S A
•Ótimo, fácil compreender as perguntas mesmo que elas estejam apenas em caracteres, pois são todos os caracteres ensinados durante curso, e aí intuitivamente, você aprende a ordem da construção de frases em Mandarim, apesar de que o foco deste curso seja apenas aprender os caracteres chineses.
By Gayani P
•This course was really helpful for me to catch the ropes of the Chinese language. Since I am not a native speaker and not having any connection to the language, it was harder for me to grasp Chinese. but because of this course, I was able to fill out a lot of missing points
By Ale M
•This course is a great review material for those who have little knowledge of mandarin. I would recommend taking this course as additional to other grammar courses as it focuses mainly on vocabulary. Looking forward to taking the next course on characters for beginners.
By Harlee R
•I learned a lot, I would have liked to know more about Chinese culture, but in general, the course helped me to understand the origins of the characters and how they are supposed to be written, so now I will continue practicing every day.
谢谢,老师
By Angel D C A
•I enjoyed this course. There are some problems with some videos because there are some cut parts in the text. I have a doubt, about If some characters do not need accentuation when they appear in a sentence with two or more characters?
By FRANCISCO I D B
•Excellent course! I learned a lot and enjoyed learning Chinese characters every week.Sometimes the presentations have some details, such as images that go by very fast or some character is skipped, but they are occasional errors
By Ma. M P d L
•Thank you for this great course! What I found out about myself: I am good at Chinese vocabulary (words only with one or two characters) but not (yet) in reading long Chinese sentences. Will definitely learn more!
By Joseph G
•The course has given me basic building blocks for understanding Chinese characters. Personally, It has made the challenge of learning the characters less daunting and less intimidating. Thank you very much.
By Tracy T
•Excellent introduction to writing and reading Chinese Characters. This course doesn't help with pronunciation very much, but is a great way to explore, introduce, and practice the Chinese writing system.
By Mynor H
•It seems to be a really good course, but I am unable to find the textbook on Guatemala, I will do my best effort to learn, Maybe you can share this textbook as PDF file. Thanks in advanced.
By Angie M A S
•Excellent course for beginners, they teach you how to draw each character from the start, how it is pronounced and what is its meaning, I'm just in the first weak and I have learned a lot.
By Carlos B
•Great course so far. Still waiting for the book that I ordered, but right now just trying to remember the names of the different strokes, the other vocabulary is not so hard for me.
By Aimée G F
•Este curso enseña caracteres básicos y que se utilizan diariamente en conversaciones cotidianas. Los videos son fáciles de seguir, y cada quiz se encarga de reforzar conocimientos.
By vas m
•Good course, more characters and longer would be good too. The sound level is very low, you will need to turn up the volume - then jump when some other app on pc makes a noise!