I want to start learning Mandarin and all of the schools around me are expensive as shit, are there any good resources any of you have used and had success with?
There's a lot of videos with Chinese audio and subtitles on the net. You might even find some with English audio.
A good source for such content is Tudou but YouTube might also work.
For content of varying nature news sites like Xinhua have bilingual articles.
If you're of the weebish inclination, there are sites like dm5 that might cater to your tastes.
With regards to dictionaries, MDBG might do the job.
For learning characters try spaced repetition software like Anki.
>>16941292
Look up for the book "Remembering the Hanzi" which introduces the "Heisig method" for learning how to remember complex characters.
It's a great and easy way to memorize how to identify and remember complex Chinese and Japanese characters very quickly.
Trying to memorize the characters through repetition just doesn't work for most of us so the method really helps.
However do understand that learning how to identify and remember character doesn't that you'll learn to read it it just means that you'll at least have a hell of a lot easier time assigning meanings to the characters and learning the actual language when you already know most of the characters.
You can probably download the book off somewhere for free, but it's not all that expensive either.
Anki is a great flash card software to be used with the method
use pen and paper so you'll learn how to write the characters as well.
>>16941292
I don't know. I learned a lot of Spanish in Duolingo but as far as I am concerned Chinese is not available in Duolingo.
>>16941292
I use an app called 'hellochinese'
It's pretty good, teaches characters and makes sure you're getting the tones right
Tbh I wouldn't worry too much about the characters, as speaking will be much more useful
The best thing you can do is immerse yourself in an environment with a lot of chinese-speakers
I'm kinda lucky because I work in a pharmacy in chinatown, started learning how to speak it there
Good luck anon !! It's a fun language to learn
>>16941292
If you're going to learn Chinese, then learn traditional characters. You can always learn simplified later, but it's a lot harder the other way around.
You really should go to a Chinese school, until you get the hang of intonation and pronunciation. If you have no interest in anything cultural, you can teach yourself after that.
>>16941641
>I work in a pharmacy in chinatown
me too, small world.
>>16941641
>mfw I am a Pharmacy student in Hong Kong and nobody knows the names of complex medicines in Chinese as everything is taught in English
