Learning Chinese

I believe it is important to learn a second language.  Preferably, this would start at a young age, like in most of Europe.  The fact that second language are put off until Middle School and sometimes even High School in America is simply deplorable.  Luckily, more dual language schools are being opened all the time, but there is still a long way to go.

Specifically for Chinese, there are a few good resources one can use for free!  Two of my personal favorites are popupchinese.com for podcasts ranging from beginner to advanced levels, you can get even more if you pay, but their free library is quite large and helpful, and the second is nciku.com which is a great dictionary.  It has a word of the day, a drawing application to look up characters you don't recognize, and a step by step stroke demonstration for all the characters.  You can also practice radicals, learn vocabulary, and utilize their other tools for free.

The best thing for learning any language however, is speaking it with other people, hopefully somebody who is fluent or near fluent.  This isn't always possible, but through some google searching, you can find a multitude of websites where you can chat with people who speak many languages for free to practice.  You can even chat to them in English to help them practice if you're feeling it.  Also, unfortunately this site doesn't offer Chinese yet, but it does have a lot of free language lessons.  Duolingo.com

Some people like to focus on writing characters, which is great, but I recommend beginners put most of their effort into learning vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.  Writing is something you can always learn down the line, and is easier to learn once you can speak more conversationally.  Good luck to all who are learning a second language, until next time!