The Best Free Online Resources to Learn Chinese

Learning any language is difficult. Learning Chinese is especially so, because the four tones for pronouncing words and the different characters for each word make it quite complex. Fortunately, there is a wealth of free online resources that can help you learn Chinese and monitor your progress along the way. Here are some that I have found most useful personally, and that will hopefully help you out too.

Nciku.com: This has to be my absolute favorite Chinese resource ever. It is a free online dictionary, with a twist. You can search words by the Chinese characters, English words, Pinyin pronunciations, or by drawing the characters. Yes, that's right, you can draw the character on the screen with your mouse, and the site will look up the closest matches. This drawing function makes it possible to quickly look up words if you don't know the pinyin pronunciation-something that otherwise would be very difficult, if not impossible. Plus, this site offers daily tutorials, question and answer forums, simulated conversations, and much more. Thank you, nciku.com for making my life easier.

The Chinese Character test: This test, offered by Clavis Sinica, is also a great resource to keep track of how you are progressing. This multiple choice test will determine what level you are at-beginner, intermediate, or advanced, and also provide you with an estimate of how many characters you know. You can custom tailor the test each time, choosing how many questions you want the test to include. The more questions there are in the test, the more accurate your estimates will be. Bookmark this page and go back occasionally to see how much progress you have made.

Zhongwen.com: For another comprehensive online dictionary, visit Zhongwen.com. This one is searchable by character or pinyin or definition. What I like about this dictionary is that it includes the word roots, and also gives a list of the compound words containing each character that you look up. There is also a live chat function where you can connect with other learners; however, you can only use pinyin in the chat function. For more advanced learners, there is a small library of famous readings provided on the site, including such classics such as Mao Sayings, The Analects, and the Art of War. These writing are completely hyperlinked-you can click on any word in the text, and the definition of the word will appear in an adjacent pane. Very useful!

Those are some of my favorite sites for learning Chinese. Hope they help you out!