I'm just a 40-Something gamer, writer, editor, role-player, multi fandom nerd. This blog is a wacky mix of anything that happens to catch my fancy so hold onto your butts.
Chinese hanfu | Xiqun (膝裙) or Xiku(膝裤) Knee Skirt by 三百篇, 猫的树浇水, 有霁, 鹑衣, 文茵居士, 葭月知丘, 拨雪寻春. Xiku primarily serves a decorative purpose. When walking, the swaying hem of the skirt may reveal the ankles. If thermal pants or long socks are worn underneath, the look can appear abrupt and mismatched. By revealing the xiqun instead, the overall styling appears more immaculate. Even without wearing a skirt, xiku can be styled as a standalone piece paired with Hanfu trousers, creating a layered aesthetic.
OP: The way of wearing the Tang-style hanfu (Qixiong Ruqun) may look simple, but it actually involves multiple layers. Some Hanfu studios now add shoulder straps to make it easier to wear. People who prefer a more historical style still favor the traditional way of wearing it. The types of Hanfu pieces that can be layered(mainly focuses on three representative dynasties: the Tang, Song, and Ming):
I DIY’d some accessories for the Evolution of the Mamianqun project—one of them was the 鹿胎冠 / lu4 tai1 guan1 / deerskin crown or headpiece that was used for the southern Song Dynasty look. This is just some documentation on the (kinda scuffed) design & fabrication process.
What is a 鹿胎冠?
A 冠 or guan is a headpiece worn on the head—you could reasonably translate it to hat, crown, crest, etc. Men and women both wore guan throughout most of ancient Chinese history, though different styles were popular for different time periods and different people. Guan were especially popular during the Song Dynasty, with materials and shapes getting more and more exaggerated as time went on.
鹿胎冠, also called 小鹿冠/xiao3 lu4 guan1/“little deer headpieces,” are 冠 made of deerskin/deer hide. From what I understand from the name these would be made specifically from fetal deer—I assume this is because they wanted to use the dappled pattern on the fur that disappears as the deer matures, though functionally I’m not really sure why fawns wouldn’t work as well.
If you want to see the nitty gritty research stuff with all the sources, stick around until the last section of this post—I put it at the end so people don’t get immediately bored by the citations and stuff.
A few stores in China have made 鹿胎冠, but they’re not super popular styles, so they’re pretty hard to find (and honestly kind of pricey). I figured I’d try my hand at making my own.
Construction Process
First let’s look out how guan are usually made these days. In ancient China they probably would’ve been carved, cast, leather worked, etc. These days, probably in the name of accessibility, guan are often 3D printed, and they look something like this.
I do have access to a 3D printer, but I’m really only trained in technical CAD and I really didn’t want to do sculptural stuff in Solidworks (one of these days I’ll learn Blender), so I went the crafty route instead.
This was done pretty quickly between classes with random stuff I had lying down. For the base, I used an empty roll of packaging tape that I had just used up.
I punched two holes in it with scissors, a utility knife, and a screwdriver (in that order lmao). This is where the hairpins to hold the guan in place will go. This was a significantly longer undertaking than it sounds.
For the main panels, I used the lid of a shoebox I had lying around. I think it was a heavyweight cardstock, somewhere between cardboard and like… greeting card cardstock.
I freehanded a curve on some folded up graph paper to make sure it would be symmetrical, cut it out as a pattern, and traced it onto the inside of the shoebox lid.
Once I cut those out I bent them a little bit to give them some curvature. This was partially just for the aesthetic and partially so that it would mold to the curvature of the packaging tape core when I attached it:
Next I attached the deerskin-patterned fabric to the cardstock pieces. I got the fabric off Etsy, it’s a minky fleece deer print that’s honestly not super realistic (that is absolutely not what deer hide looks like lmao) but it’d work for my purposes—again this was a DIY thing so it didn’t have to be perfect; worst case we don’t end up using it.
I used a razor blade to cut the backing a little bit bigger than each of the cardstock pieces. Probably anyone who’s worked with fur before knows this, but if you try to cut fur with scissors you’ll end up with a mountain of loose fluff that you severed in the process; instead you’re supposed to flip the fabric around and cut only through the backing with a knife or razor blade. Even then I had fluff particles flying around my kitchen for a week lol
I hot glued the cardstock pieces convex face down to the back of the fabric, then folded the edges over and glued them. It was a pretty messy process, especially since I didn’t notch any of it around the curve, but the thickness of the fluff kind of hid it from the outside anyway.
For the exposed sides of the packaging tape core, I cut out two rectangles of fabric to wrap around the sides. I punched holes in the fabric to clear the hairpin hole—I just made an X with the razor blade and made sure I could poke the hairpin through— and then did a circle around the hole with hot glue to support it structurally and make sure it didn’t collapse on itself.
I folded this over the top edge of the base, stuck the hairpin through to make sure all the holes were aligned, and then glued down the edges.
Next step is to put the two cardstock pieces on. I wanted them to lean outwards a little bit, so that the top was a little wider than the bottom, so to achieve this effect I added a strip of hot glue to the top edge of the base to prop the cardstock up and form an angle, like a shim. This took a few rounds of hot gluing/waiting for it to dry/putting another layer on top to increase its thickness and exaggerate the angle a bit more.
It’s sort of hard to see with all the fur, but the effect when I glued on the front and back pieces was that because the bottom was closer to the base than the top, they leaned outwards at a slight angle.
At this point I got tired and decided to resume work tomorrow. I thought it looked a little bit plain, though, so I wanted to add some pearl beads. I didn’t record the process of gluing the pearls down, but I added a line of them along the inside “seam” of each cardstock piece (some of them fell off though rip) and attached three to the front & back as decorations.
In hindsight I really should’ve punched holes in the cardstock and fabric and attached the pearls with wire, because the hot glue was really just clinging onto the fur fibers and the pearls were constantly in danger of falling off. Also the back was uh. Very much not aligned. But it’s fine!!!
~ Error Analysis ~
If I had more time I probably would’ve tried to figure out a prettier way to disguise the inside of the two cardstock pieces. They were white and I added that string of pearls, so it wasn’t too bad, but I think it would’ve been nice if I’d done a fabric backing or something like that.
Also, I realized while I was cutting the fabric that the pile of the fabric was in fact directional—the way I cut it, the fur fibers were kind of going from right to left. Initially I cut it like that because I wanted to align the bottom of the cutout with the non-fraying edge of the fabric, but it wasn’t until I’d already glued the fabric down that I realized the fur looked like it was kind of growing in the wrong direction. I didn’t really care enough to start over though lol.
The other thing is that, even though they were lined up perfectly and the glue circles ensured they wouldn’t collapse, the holes for the hairpins were pretty much invisible from the outside because of the length of the fur. Every time I wanted to insert the hairpin I was stabbing the shit out of the side for like five minutes before I found the hole. Eventually I figured out that I could feel the glue circle from the outside with my fingers so I’d have to locate the holes by touch first and then stab the hairpin through after, so it wasn’t too much of a problem in the end.
On the day of shooting we realized that I maybe should’ve made more hairpin homes though, possibly one in the front/back too. Even with two hairpins, the guan wasn’t very structurally secured on Emily’s (the model for the Song Dynasty set, ig: @/yoursgrim) hair, because there were only two points of contact. Three or four would’ve been more stable.
Research (More Nerdy Details)
The reason we know about deerskin guan is partially coincidental: it’s because they were temporarily outlawed during the northern Song Dynasty, and people recorded legal history and political stuff religiously. There are multiple historical sources pointing to the same edict, so it’s pretty clear that these things existed, even though there aren’t any physical artifacts (that I know of at least) still intact.
One source is the 麈史/zhu3 shi3/“Stag History” by 王得臣/wang2 de2 chen2/Wang Dechen, a record of various events during the northern Song Dynasty. The Chinese Text Projects has a copy of it that you can view here. There’s an English version of the site you can access by clicking English in the top left, but the text itself is still in Chinese so I’m not sure how helpful it really is.
There’s a section in the first volume regarding the construction of women’s headwear that states:
At first materials were used such as gold-coated platinum, or the hides of fetal deer, or tortoiseshells, original source: Yang Youzhe. Or for decoration colorful silk drapes could be added, to form the shape of clouds, mountains, and similar things. Now the use of fetal deer and tortoiseshell is prohibited, so animal horn is used instead, and can be decorated to look like imitation tortoiseshell.
Another source is the 宋朝事實/song4 chao2 shi4 shi2/“Truthful Events of the Song Dynasty,” another historical record of the Northern Song compiled by 李攸/li3 you2/Li You, an author from the Southern Song. Most of it was lost to history, though; the copy we have today was compiled during the Qing Dynasty, and it’s incomplete. You can read it here.
The third chapter recounts the outlawing of deerskin guan closely. An official states that:
Many people use fetal deer to make guan headpieces, as well as official’s wives wearing deerskin guan into the palace, to the extent that they [fetal deer] are being hunted everywhere, their livelihoods hurt and ended. This should be immediately prohibited.
Later the book quotes the consequent imperial edict outlawing deerskin guan:
“…Court officials and their families may not wear deerskin guan, and henceforth no one may kill fetal deer or make deerskin guan. If this edict is violated, the crime should be reported, [and] the criminal severely punished, those who report the crime of hunting fetal deer, shall be awarded twenty strings of money; and those who report the crime of wearing or making deerskin guan, shall be awarded fifty strings of money, to be paid by the perpetrator’s family.” After [this edict] fetal deer were no longer of use, so their hunters also disappeared.
*Preserved the location of punctuation in the translation to make it easier to match up with the quote, I know it reads kinda weird in English
So clearly they got banned sometime in the Northern Song Dynasty. Fast forward to Southern Song, though, and we see evidence of deerskin guan still in use. 夢粱錄/meng4 liang2 lu4/Dreaming of Liang was a book written by 咸淳/xian2 chun2/Xian Chun in 1274, one of the last years of the Song Dynasty. You can read it here. The thirteenth chapter’s last section, 諸色雜貨/zhu1 se4 za2 huo4/Miscellaneous Goods, describes various goods and services often for sale during this time period. Among those were streetside services for fixing and cleaning tools and accessories, including:
…fixing pots and pans, barrels, fixing shoes, fixing futou headwear, fixing guan, also taking combs, dyed ivory combs, stringing pearls, fixing and cleaning deerskin guan, fixing or honing knives, polishing mirrors, these were all services available from street-side workers, that could be all be called/requested on demand.
So clearly somewhere in between these guan getting banned and 1274, deerskin guan must have regained popularity, if people were regularly offering cleaning and mending services for them specifically (my guess is that similar to us needing to dry clean fur coats and stuff they probably needed specialized care because of the delicate material). It’s reasonable then to assume that there was a resurgence of 鹿胎冠 sometime near the very end of the Song Dynasty.
Now, while I’ve convinced myself that deerskin guan were probably pretty popular during this time period, there aren’t actually a ton of references for how exactly they would’ve looked, so I figured I’d just try to make a version of a guan whose shape I already knew, but covered with deer fur fabric.
Going back to 麈史，there’s a lengthy description of how different styles of guan evolved over time, one of which is the 山口冠/shan1 kou3 guan1/Mountain-Opening Guan, which is described as:
又以團冠少裁其兩邊，而高其前後，謂之山口。（卷上，35）
The round guan could also be shortened on two sides, and heightened at the front and back, to be called “Mountain-Opening.”
Assuming the round guan is… somewhat round, we can conclude that the 山口冠 is a tall guan with a very tall front and back, and openings on the left and right, which are shorter. We can connect this to a famous painting, 招涼仕女圖/zhao1 liang2 shi4 nv3 tu2/Painting of Gentlewomen Cooling Off, a painting that was exhibited in 2020 by the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. It was painted by 錢選/qian2 xuan3/Qian Xuan during the Southern Song Dynasty.
We can see in this painting that the woman on the left is wearing a tall guan that matches the description of the 山口冠: the front and back are very tall, while the left and right are shorter. This guan is transparent, so we can also see that it’s attached around a bun/topknot, which clues us in as to how exactly it’s staying on people’s heads.
That’s how I decided that I’d use this image as a reference and make a 鹿胎冠 with the shape of a 山口冠 :)
The Song Dynasty (960–1279) sits at the crossroads of culture, refinement, and quiet beauty. Its clothing inherited the grandeur of the Tang Dynasty, yet transformed into something uniquely understated—simple, elegant, and deeply humanistic.
Song Dynasty Hanfu wasn’t just fashion. It was a visual language that carried class identity, aesthetics, craftsmanship, and the spirit of an age that valued clarity and order.
Today, this thousand-year-old style is inspiring a new wave of modern Hanfu and minimalist fashion.
I. ✨ The Soul of Song Dynasty Hanfu
1. Colors & Fabrics
Song aesthetics favored subtle hues—blue, moon-white, ash-grey, pale brown. Nobility dressed in fine brocade and kesi silk, while commoners wore breathable linen and cotton.
It’s elegance without noise.
2. Silhouettes
Loose draping, natural lines, graceful movement. Not overly ornate, but refined in structure—beauty expressed through restraint.
3. Layering
Layering was essential. Women often wore high-waisted pleated skirts beneath flowing beizi; men wore straight-cut robes with belts.
Simple layers, harmonious proportions.
4. Details
Patterns of flowers, birds, clouds, and bamboo carried auspicious meanings. Decorative but never overwhelming—the Song ideal.
II. 👑 Clothing Across the Song Social Classes
Imperial & Noble Attire
Bright yellow dragon robes, phoenix crowns, xiapei shawls—status expressed through symbols and finery.
Scholar-Officials
Subdued colors, straightforward robes, futou hats. The clothing of Confucian dignity.
Commoners
Durable jackets, long trousers, cotton skirts, narrow sleeves—clothing made for life, work, and movement.
Monks & Taoists
Loose robes in muted tones, emphasizing simplicity and spiritual detachment.
III. 🌸 Song Dynasty Women’s Fashion — Styles That Defined an Era
1. Beizi
The iconic everyday outer garment. Loose, breathable, elegant on all body types.
2. Shan / Ao (Short & Long Styles)
Short, lively silhouettes in the Northern Song; longer and more diversified styles in the Southern Song.
3. Xiapei
A ceremonial embroidered shawl—symbol of status and beauty.
4. Moxiong & Guodu
Undergarments that shaped the silhouette, soft and delicately decorated.
5. Skirts
Baidiequn with flowing accordion pleats, sanjianqun with simple box pleats, and two-piece xuanqun for practicality.
Song skirts define movement through texture.
IV. 🌬 How Song Dynasty Hanfu Inspires Modern Fashion Today
From period dramas to cultural events, Song-style silhouettes have re-entered mainstream culture. Designers love its soft palette, fluid lines, and calming aesthetic.
Modern adaptations often include:
short beizi with updated tailoring
wide-sleeved tops with contemporary fabrics
minimalistic color schemes that echo Song-era calmness
🧩 How to Outline Without Feeling Like You’re Dying
(a non-suffering writer’s guide to structure, sanity, and staying mildly hydrated)
Hey besties. Let’s talk outlines. Specifically: how to do them without crawling into the floorboards and screaming like a Victorian ghost.
If just hearing the word “outline” sends your brain into chaos-mode, welcome. You’re not broken, you’re just a writer whose process has been hijacked by Very Serious Advice™ that doesn’t fit you. You don’t need to build a military-grade beat sheet. You don’t need a sixteen-tab spreadsheet. You don’t need to suffer to be legitimate. You just need a structure that feels like it’s helping you, not haunting you.
So. Here’s how to outline your book without losing your soul (or all your serotonin).
—
🍓 1. Stop thinking of it as “outlining.” That word is cursed. Try “story sketch.” “Narrative roadmap.” “Planning soup.” Whatever gets your brain to chill out. The goal here is to understand your story, not architect it to death.
Outlining isn’t predicting everything. It’s just building a scaffold so your plot doesn’t fall over mid-draft.
—
🧠 2. Find your plot skeleton. There are lots of plot structures floating around: 3-Act. Save the Cat. Hero’s Journey. Take what helps, ignore the rest.
If all else fails, try this dirt-simple one I use when my brain is mush:
Act I: What’s the problem?
Act II: Why can’t we fix it?
Act III: What finally makes us change?
Ending: What does that change cost?
You don’t need to fill in every detail. You just need to know what’s driving your character, what’s blocking them, and what choices will change them.
—
🛒 3. Make a “scene bucket list.” Before you start plotting in order, write down a list of scenes you know you want: key vibes, emotional beats, dramatic reveals, whatever.
These are your anchors. Even if you don’t know where they go yet, they’re proof your story already exists, it just needs connecting tissue.
Bonus: when you inevitably get stuck later, one of these might be the scene that pulls you back in.
—
🧩 4. Start with 5 key scenes. That’s it. Here’s a minimalist approach that won’t kill your momentum:
Opening (what sucks about their world?)
Catalyst (what throws them off course?)
Midpoint (what makes them confront themselves?)
Climax (what breaks or remakes them?)
Ending (what’s changed?)
Plot the spaces between those after you’ve nailed these. Think of it like nailing down corners of a poster before smoothing the rest.
You’re not “doing it wrong” if you start messy. A messy start is a start.
—
🔧 5. Use the outline to ask questions, not just answer them. Every section of your outline should provoke a question that the scene must answer.
Instead of: — “Chapter 5: Sarah finds a journal.”
Try: — “Chapter 5: What truth does Sarah find that complicates her next move?”
This makes your story active, not just a list of stuff that happens. Outlines aren’t just there to record, they’re tools for curiosity.
—
🪤 6. Beware of the Perfectionist Trap™. You will not get the entire plot perfect before you write. Don’t stall your momentum waiting for a divine lightning bolt of Clarity. You get clarity by writing.
Think of your outline as a map drawn in pencil, not ink. It’s allowed to evolve. It should evolve.
You’re not building a museum exhibit. You’re making a prototype.
—
🧼 7. Clean up after you start drafting. Here’s the secret: the first draft will teach you what the story’s actually about. You can go back and revise the outline to fit that. It’s not wasted work, it’s evolving scaffolding.
You don’t have to build the house before you live in it. You can live in the mess while you figure out where the kitchen goes.
—
🛟 8. If you’re a discovery writer, hybrid it. A lot of “pantsers” aren’t anti-outline, they’re just anti-stiff-outline. That’s fair.
Try using “signposts,” not full scenes:
Here’s a secret someone’s hiding.
Here’s the emotional breakdown scene.
Here’s a betrayal. Maybe not sure by who yet.
Let the plot breathe. Let the characters argue with your outline. That tension is where the fun happens.
—
🪴 TL;DR but emotionally: You don’t need a flawless outline to write a good book. You just need a loose net of ideas, a couple of emotional anchors, and the willingness to pivot when your story teaches you something new.
Outlines should support you, not suffocate you.
Let yourself try. Let it be imperfect. That’s where the good stuff lives.
Go forth and outline like a gently chaotic legend 🧃
— written with snacks in hand by Rin T. @ thewriteadviceforwriters 🍓🧠✍️
Sometimes the problem isn’t your plot. It’s your first 5 pages. Fix it here → 🖤 Free eBook: 5 Opening Pages Mistakes to Stop Making:
As more and more people are being forced to switch to Windows 11, Microsoft’s most AI-malware-ridden OS yet, I’ve been putting together articles and links for how to undo the damage and save your battery, your RAM, your disk space, your privacy, and your sanity from this bullshit.
FIRST:
The easiest way to get rid of the majority of the bullshit that Windows is forcing on us, as of October 2025, is this one-stop-one-click debloat solution from a modern day hero:
It’s very easy, even if you’re not tech savvy or get scared of pop up windows saying “ARE YOU SURE?” Yes, you are sure, I promise. This program takes maybe two minutes and will save you SO MUCH pain, time, and money (and exploitation).
Now that you’ve done that, here’s the cleanup, to catch the little shit that the debloat might have missed (most of this will already be done by debloat, but hey, it’s good to double check).
Even just reading about some of these features makes me angry. Fucking Copilot and “Discover” AI scrapers are in Notepad. NOTEPAD. And then there’s this uncanny valley garbage:
ALT
No uncanny valley video calls for me, thanks! (Also, what else is it doing while it scans your face and listens to your calls? What else, microsoft? Because there was a lot of memory being assigned to this program for a simple “smooths your skin” add on).
Now that this project has been delivered to its recipient, I can brag about it online a little.
I made this Elizabethan petal hussif for a friend who received an award for her historical costuming work. Hussifs were often used as sewing kits with spots for all of the notions you need for a project. Wives would send them with their husbands to war with extra uniform buttons and repair supplies. This one has an inner pouch area that can fit a small project or pieces thereof.
Free or Cheap Mandarin Chinese Learning Resources Because You Can’t Let John Cena One Up You Again
I will update this list as I learn of any more useful ones. If you want general language learning resources check out this other post. This list is Mandarin specific. Find lists for other specific languages here.
For the purposes of this list “free” means something that is either totally free or has a useful free tier. “Cheap” is a subscription under $10USD a month, a software license or lifetime membership purchase under $100USD, or a book under $30USD. If you want to suggest a resource for this list please suggest ones in that price range that are of decent quality and not AI generated.
WEBSITES
Dong Chinese - A website with lessons, a pinyin guide, a dictionary, and various videos and practice tests. With a free account you’re only allowed to do one lesson every 12 hours. To do as many lessons as quickly as you want it costs $10 a month or $80 a year.
Domino Chinese - A paid website with video based lessons from absolute beginner to college level. They claim they can get you ready to get a job in China. They offer a free trial and after that it’s $5 a month or pay what you can if you want to support their company.
Chinese Education Center - This is an organization that gives information to students interested in studying abroad in China. They have free text based lessons for beginners on vocab, grammar, and handwriting.
Pleco Dictionary App - This is a very popular dictionary app on both iOS and Android. It has a basic dictionary available for free but other features can be purchased individually or in bundles. A full bundle that has what most people would want is about $30 but there are more expensive options with more features.
MIT OpenCourseWare Chinese 123456 - These are actual archived online courses from MIT available for free. You will likely need to download them onto your computer.
Learn Chinese Everyday - A free word a day website. Every day the website posts a different word with pronunciation, stroke order, and example sentences. There’s also an archive of free downloadable worksheets related to previous words featured on the website.
Chinese Boost - A free website and blog with beginner lessons and articles about tips and various resources to try.
Chinese Forums - An old fashioned forum website for people learning Chinese to share resources and ask questions. It’s still active as of when I’m making this list.
Du Chinese - A free website and an app with lessons and reading and listening practice with dual transcripts in both Chinese characters and pinyin. They also have an English language blog with tips, lessons, and information on Chinese culture.
YOUTUBE CHANNELS
Chinese For Us - A channel that provides free video lessons for beginners. The channel is mostly in English.
Herbin Mandarin - A channel with a variety of lessons for beginners. The channel hasn’t uploaded in a while but there’s a fairly large archive of lessons to watch. The channel is mainly in English.
Mandarin Blueprint - This channel is by a couple of guys who also run a paid website. However on their YouTube channel there’s a lot of free videos with tips about how to go about learning Chinese, pronunciation and writing tips, and things of that nature. The channel is mainly in English.
Blabla Chinese - A comprehensible input channel with content about a variety of topics for beginner to intermediate. The video descriptions are in English but the videos themselves are all in Mandarin.
Lazy Chinese - A channel aimed at intermediate learners with videos on general topics, grammar, and culture. They also have a podcast. The channel has English descriptions but the videos are all in Mandarin.
Easy Mandarin - A channel associated with the easy languages network that interviews people on the street in Taiwan about everyday topics. The channel has on screen subtitles in traditional characters, pinyin, and English.
StickynoteChinese- A relatively new channel but it already has a decent amount of videos. Jun makes videos about culture and personal vlogs in Mandarin. The channel is aimed at learners from beginner to upper intermediate.
Story Learning Chinese With Annie - A comprehensible input channel almost entirely in Mandarin. The host teaches through stories and also makes videos about useful vocabulary words and cultural topics. It appears to be aimed at beginner to intermediate learners.
LinguaFlow Chinese - Another relatively new channel but they seem to be making new videos regularly. The channel is aimed at beginner to intermediate learners and teaches and provides listening practice with video games. The channel is mostly in Mandarin.
Lala Chinese - A channel with tips on grammar and pronunciation with the occasional vlog for listening practice, aimed at upper beginner to upper intermediate learners. Some videos are all in Mandarin while others use a mix of English and Mandarin. Most videos have dual language subtitles onscreen.
Grace Mandarin Chinese - A channel with general information on the nitty gritty of grammar, pronunciation, common mistakes, slang, and useful phrases for different levels of learners. Most videos are in English but some videos are fully in Mandarin.
READING PRACTICE
HSK Reading - A free website with articles sorted into beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Every article has comprehension questions. You can also mouse over individual characters and see the pinyin and possible translations. The website is in a mix of English and Mandarin.
chinesegradedreader.com - A free website with free short readings up to HSK level 3 or upper intermediate. Each article has an explaination at the beginning of key vocabulary words in English and you can mouse over individual characters to get translations.
Mandarin Companion - This company sells books that are translated and simplified versions of classic novels as well as a few originals for absolute beginners. They are available in both traditional and simplified Chinese. Their levels don’t appear to be aligned with any HSK curriculum but even their most advanced books don’t have more than 500 individual characters according to them so they’re likely mostly for beginners to advanced beginners. New paperbacks seem to usually be $14 but cheaper used copies, digital copies, and audiobooks are also available. The website is in English.
Graded Chinese Readers - Not to be confused with chinese graded reader, this is a website with information on different graded readers by different authors and different companies. The website tells you what the book is about, what level it’s for, whether or not it uses traditional or simplified characters, and gives you a link to where you can buy it on amazon. They seem to have links to books all the way from HSK 1 or beginner to HSK 6 or college level. A lot of the books seem to be under $10 but as they’re all from different companies your mileage and availability may vary. The website is in English.
Mandarin Bean - A website with free articles about Chinese culture and different short stories. Articles are sorted by HSK level from 1 to 6. The website also lets you switch between traditional or simplified characters and turn the pinyin on or off. It also lets you mouse over characters to get a translation. They have a relatively expensive paid tier that gives you access to video lessons and HSK practice tests and lesson notes but all articles and basic features on the site are available on the free tier without an account. The website is in a mix of Mandarin and English.
Mandarin Daily News - This is a daily newspaper from Taiwan made for children so the articles are simpler, have illustrations and pictures, and use easier characters. As it’s for native speaker kids in Taiwan, the site is completely in traditional Chinese.
New Tong Wen Tang for Chrome or Firefox- This is a free browser extension that can convert traditional characters to simplified characters or vice versa without a need to copy and paste things into a separate website.
PODCASTS
Melnyks Chinese - A podcast for more traditional audio Mandarin Chinese lessons for English speakers. The link I gave is to their website but they’re also available on most podcatcher apps.
Chinese Track - Another podcast aimed at learning Mandarin but this one goes a bit higher into lower intermediate levels.
Dimsum Mandarin - An older podcast archive of 30 episodes of dialogues aimed at beginner to upper beginner learners.
Dashu Mandarin - A podcast run by three Chinese teachers aimed at intermediate learners that discusses culture topics and gives tips for Mandarin learners. There are also male teachers on the podcast which I’m told is relatively rare for Mandarin material aimed at learners and could help if you’re struggling to understand more masculine speaking patterns.
Learning Chinese Through Stories - A storytelling podcast mostly aimed at intermediate learners but they do have some episodes aimed at beginner or advanced learners. They have various paid tiers for extra episodes and learning material on their patreon but there’s still a large amount of episodes available for free.
Haike Mandarin - A conversational podcast in Taiwanese Mandarin for intermediate learners. Every episode discusses a different everyday topic. The episode descriptions and titles are entirely in traditional Chinese characters. The hosts provide free transcripts and other materials related to the episodes on their blog.
Learn Chinese With Ju - A vocabulary building podcast aimed at intermediate learners. The podcast episodes are short at around 4-6 minutes and the host speaks about a variety of topics in a mix of English and Mandarin.
xiaoyuzhou fm -An iOS app for native speakers to listen to podcasts. I’m told it has a number of interactive features. If you have an android device you’ll likely have to do some finagling with third party apps to get this one working. As this app is for native speakers, the app is entirely in simplified Chinese.
Apple Podcast directories for Taiwan and China - Podcast pages directed towards users in those countries/regions.
SELF STUDY TEXTBOOKSAND DICTIONARIES
Learning Chinese Characters - This series is sorted by HSK levels and each volume in the series is around $11. Used and digital copies can also be found for cheaper.
HSK Standard Course Textbooks - These are textbooks designed around official Chinese government affiliated HSK tests including all of the simplified characters, grammar, vocab, and cultural knowledge necessary to pass each test. There are six books in total and the books prices range wildly depending on the level and the seller, going for as cheap as $14 to as expensive as $60 though as these are pretty common textbooks, used copies and cheaper online shops can be found with a little digging. The one I have linked to here is the HSK 1 textbook. Some textbook sellers will also bundle them with a workbook, some will not.
Chinese Made Easy for Kids - Although this series is aimed at children, I’m told that it’s also very useful for adult beginners. There’s a large number of textbooks and workbooks at various levels. The site I linked to is aimed at people placing orders in Hong Kong but the individual pages also have links to various other websites you can buy them from in other countries. The books range from $20-$35 but I include them because some of them are cheaper and they seem really easy to find used copies of.
Reading and Writing Chinese - This book contains guides on all 2300 characters in the HSK texts as of 2013. Although it is slightly outdated, it’s still useful for self study and is usually less than $20 new. Used copies are also easy to find.
Basic Chinese by Mcgraw Hill - This book also fuctions as a workbook so good quality used copies can be difficult to find. The book is usually $20 but it also often goes on sale on Amazon and they also sell a cheaper digital copy.
Collins Mandarin Chinese Visual Dictionary - A bilingual English/Mandarin visual dictionary that comes with a link to online audio files. A new copy goes for about $14 but used and digital versions are available.
Merriam-Webster’s Chinese to English Dictionary - In general Merriam Websters usually has the cheapest decent quality multilingual dictionaries out there, including for Mandarin Chinese. New editions usually go for around $8 each while older editions are usually even cheaper.
(at the end of the list here I will say I had a difficult time finding tv series specifically made for learners of Mandarin Chinese so if you know of any that are made for teenage or adult learners or are kids shows that would be interesting to adults and are free to watch without a subscription please let me know and I will add them to the list. There’s a lot of Mandarin language TV that’s easy to find but what I’m specifically interested in for these lists are free to watch series made for learners and/or easy to understand kids shows originally made in the target language that are free and easy to access worldwide)
for anyone in the UK, needing to access discord and unable or unwilling to provide an ID:
ALT
as someone with experience in the discord console, unfortunately they made it a little trickier than just ctrl + shift + i about four years ago, i believe.
specifically what you’re going to want to do is find settings.json in %appdata%/discord or the mac equivalent which is found with finder > go > go to folder. there is a setting there titled “DANGEROUS_ENABLE_DEVTOOLS_ONLY_ENABLE_IF_YOU_KNOW_WHAT_YOURE_DOING”: and if it is not, copy and paste “DANGEROUS_ENABLE_DEVTOOLS_ONLY_ENABLE_IF_YOU_KNOW_WHAT_YOURE_DOING”: true into the .json and then, only then you can do crtl + shift + i or command + option + i on mac.
best of luck!
So. ^THIS^ extra-step guide totally works!
When you’ve enabled dev tools and opened Discord’s console, input THIS code:
ALT
ALT
