New Members Leideren Posted February 22, 2015 at 11:21 AM New Members Report Posted February 22, 2015 at 11:21 AM Hello everyone, I've been learning mandarin on and off for years and I am able to hold a conversation but my reading is very poor. I would like to sit the hsk later this year. Can anyone give some advice on how I should improve my reading? I have tried using anki but I got frustrated when I couldn't remember the rapidly expanding vocabulary list, and its boring not having any context. I am considering working through the new practical Chinese reader books but I'm worried it will be boring for me because I already know a lot of the content. I would like to try graded readers but I haven't heard of any that align with hsk. Quote
jbradfor Posted February 23, 2015 at 04:57 AM Report Posted February 23, 2015 at 04:57 AM What HSK level? Start with the graded readers. At the basic level (e.g. up to 750 words) of the graded readers, you really can't go too far wrong with learning all the words. Plus, it will give you practice reading sentences, not words. At some point, anki (or similar) will probably be required. Quote
imron Posted February 23, 2015 at 05:23 AM Report Posted February 23, 2015 at 05:23 AM You might want to check out The Chairman's Bao, which has graded newspaper articles written to specific HSK levels. Quote
New Members Leideren Posted February 23, 2015 at 11:27 AM Author New Members Report Posted February 23, 2015 at 11:27 AM OK awesome thanks for the advice folks! Quote
Shelley Posted February 23, 2015 at 12:24 PM Report Posted February 23, 2015 at 12:24 PM You might like to try http://chinesereadingpractice.com/ I like the range of topics and the length of the stories is good. There is also help with reading and an English translation. Quote
HerrPetersen Posted February 23, 2015 at 07:21 PM Report Posted February 23, 2015 at 07:21 PM There is a somewhat new HSK deck for anki which provides example sentences for most entries. Don't know if that counts as context for you. https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/775653465 Quote
Flickserve Posted February 24, 2015 at 11:24 PM Report Posted February 24, 2015 at 11:24 PM The difficulty is that you need some functional use of the language to help it be more relevant. If you have a hobby, and want to read about it in chinese, for example photography, you just look up an article on the Internet and start from there. You don't have to know the most frequent 1000 words but most of those would come up as a matter of course. Although I do not read much, in photography, I worked out '小白' and '大白' refer to types of Canon lenses - the 70-200/4L and 70-200/2.8L (if that sort of thing interests you!). If you were to ask me to learn to read and write words for an exam, I'd probably just avoid taking the exam. Quote
zhouhaochen Posted February 25, 2015 at 04:14 AM Report Posted February 25, 2015 at 04:14 AM If you only want to learn how to read, Heisig might be an option http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembering_the_Kanji_and_Remembering_the_Hanzi It teaches you only to read and no pronuciation at all. Quote
Walkingtree Posted February 25, 2015 at 10:12 AM Report Posted February 25, 2015 at 10:12 AM If you are already conversant, what you need to do is map the characters to the sounds you already know. Skritter is super helpful at the very beginning. Quote
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