Somewhat confusing site layout:
The site does have a little bit of a confusing layout, but with a little bit of time, you will get comfortable with the layout. There is a profusion of resources scattered all over the page which could have been presented in a more organized fashion. The table of contents lists 4 sections of lessons; the first three sections have 10 lessons each while the fourth has one final lesson. This is also supplemented by glossaries and dictionaries that among other items contains a table on Pinyin pronunciation and also lists out the complex forms of numbers.
Lesson Sections
The first section contains ten lessons on topics including phonetics, basic conversation, names, numbers, cities, countries, time, date, place and age. Section 2 has lessons on daily necessities, buying things, food, restaurants, Family and so on. The third section has lessons on means of transportation, duration of time, direction, position, asking the way and so on while the final section is about changing money. Each lesson is very comprehensively designed, with various learning tools incorporated into the lesson. For example, Lesson One is on phonetics and saying hello; it lists the various parts of the written form of the language – the 21 initials and the 38 finals. It also describes the four pitch tones and the toneless tone that exist in the language and also covers tone changes.
Conversation Section in Lessons
Followed by this is the conversation section, which gives two simple phrases in Chinese using Chinese characters, with the phonetics provided above each character. A box near the phrases gives a list of each character used in the phrases, its phonetic pronunciation, the part of speech that it belongs to and the English equivalent of the character as well. A small icon next to the phrase, when clicked on, links to the audio guide of the particular phrase which proves incredibly useful to grasp the pronunciation of each character. Further lessons have whole conversations, with English translations and MP3s of the audio conversation as well.
Calligraphy section in Lessons
Each lesson also has a calligraphy section, which displays the characters used in the lesson. By clicking on each character, you can learn more about the character, such as the words or phrases it is frequently used in as well as the stroke order with which to write it.
Interactive Section in Lessons
The final section in each lesson is a set of interactive lessons with which you can review and test what you have learned in that lesson.
Overall
Easily, it is one of the best free Chinese learning sites out there. It would be even better if they added more lessons and more conversations!
