Chinese writing tutors near me

The Biggest Challenge of the Chinese Language

Mandarin Chinese is definitely a good language to learn because it is one of the main languages in China, spoken by over a billion Chinese people in Asia and around the world.

Nevertheless, not that many foreigners actually learn Chinese because it is considered very difficult. Let's find out how true that cliche is.

In reality, Chinese is not much harder for English speakers than any other non-European language. Its vocabulary is mainly composed of native words and you may not get used to its phonetic tone system straight away.

At the same time, Chinese grammar is pretty straightforward as every word basically has one form. There is no declension or conjugation, like in English, French or Arabic.

However, one particular aspect of the Chinese language is truly difficult. It is its writing system. Unlike alphabets, Chinese characters don't represent sounds but rather groups of sounds and there are really a lot of them.

Even though mainland China now uses simplified versions of characters, reading a book or even an article in Chinese can be a real problem for students learning the language at school or on their own.

Luckily, there are ways to improve your level of writing in the Chinese script without too much headache if you use the right teaching method. Here are some simple tips to follow.

Start With The Most Essential Characters

When we are learning a new language, we should always start with what can be useful and easily put into practice. That applies to vocabulary for most languages and also to characters in the case of Chinese.

Though the total number of characters used in written literary texts can be really impressive, you won't need all of them in everyday life.

For example, over 90% of words that occur in Chinese newspapers are made up of the 2000 most common simplified characters.

That can be a good starting point. Each common simplified character learnt will make it easier for you to get by in China and communicate with people through writing.

Learning Techniques

Having a good visual memory can be helpful to get better at Chinese writing but even then, you probably won't be able to memorise each simplified Chinese character by just seeing them. For effective learning of the written language, you need to practise it.

To understand, why written practice is so helpful, let's see what happens when we reproduce a character.

First of all, we pay more attention to the strokes and start noticing the logic behind them.

Second, our hand remembers the movements, so we also use our motor memory to assimilate each written Chinese character.

Third, we use the character in combination with other simplified characters, which boosts our level of Chinese writing in general.

For example, when reading an easy article in Chinese, a good exercise can be to copy it out in writing. That way, you will not only analyse the meaning of the article in more detail but also boost your written language skills and expand your vocabulary.

Why is it Important to Learn Chinese Characters With a Teacher?

Writing simplified Chinese characters is an entire art with its own rules. For example, the strokes of each character should be written in a particular order and in certain proportions.

Writing is actually part of general education in China and its learning may take students several years even if they are native Mandarin speakers who learnt the language as children.

The advantage of having a good Chinese writing teacher is that they can explain the rules of the writing system to you and check your own written exercises.

For example, when you copy out an article in Mandarin Chinese, you may look up each word in a dictionary and understand its meaning but you will not know if your own writing would be intelligible to people in China.

A tutor can read over your script and spot each word that isn't in line with the Chinese written language rules. They can then point out the simplified characters that require additional practice.

Your writing will be more similar to what's taught in the school education system of China. Additionally, the teacher can clarify the meaning of each word as well as its etymology to help you remember vocabulary more easily.

Find a Chinese Writing Tutor on Superprof

Reading and writing is the best way to improve your level of written Chinese. If you are learning Mandarin Chinese at school or with a personal tutor, they will certainly explain the basics of the simplified writing system in one of the first lessons and give you written exercises.

However, if you feel that your Mandarin Chinese lessons are not enough to fully master the Chinese script, you can supplement your education with dedicated reading and writing lessons.

You can work on the strokes of every single word in detail independently of its meaning. You will master the simplified Chinese script a bit better and your writing will become more fluent.

Your teacher can select an article or a text to work on so you pick up the most useful Chinese characters and improve your level of skills effectively.

Learning the simplified script used in China will certainly pay off as you will gradually become able to read an article without using a dictionary, and expand your vocabulary and your overall level of Chinese.

On Superprof, there are excellent written Chinese tutors who can offer motivating classes for both children and adults. A beginner can take lessons in English, whereas students who already speak Mandarin Chinese can take writing classes in Chinese with a tutor from China.

Learning Chinese writing with Superprof is fun and you can achieve quick results.