u/Polyglot-Almost

I've studied Chinese on and off for years including formal academic study and professional training. In school I used flash cards. During the professional coursework our instructors told us that flashcards don't really help and that using words in context (listening, speaking, and writing) was what actually sets them in memory.

I'm partial to the learning-in-context approach (see an actual subway sign for example and the words becomes real.)

Thoughts? Do flash cards really create lasting word memory or are they just a way to pass a test and then quickly forgotten?

Anyone else get stuck in the app naming doom loop. I've been circling around the drain for days trying to find the right name for a language learning app. AI has been mostly useless. Constantly checking .com and .app domains to find names are already taken. Seems like a huge waste of time, but still can't settle on anything.

Tone changes have tripped me up for years. I found formulas like these to be mostly useless:

T1 before T1/T2/T3 --> T4

The best way for me to remember them is to learn actual sentences. For tone 1 (sandhi) here's an easy one.

A cup of coffee (一杯咖啡 ).

The first word yī(1) changes to yì(4). So the sentence is pronounced yì(4) beī(1) kā(1)feī(1) I want a cup of coffee almost every day so it's easy to remember.

Any favorites for the other variations?

Tone changes have tripped me up for years. I found formulas like these to be mostly useless:

T1 before T1/T2/T3 --> T4

The best way for me to remember them is to learn actual sentences. For tone 1 (sandhi) here's an easy one.

A cup of coffee (一杯咖啡 ).

The first word yī(1) changes to yì(4). So the sentence is pronounced yì(4) beī(1) kā(1)feī(1) I want a cup of coffee almost every day so it's easy to remember.

Any favorites for the other variations?

There are a ton of Chinese speaking videos on Youtube these days and one that caught my eye was saying that Chinese people don't say "ni hao" -- that's just textbook language.

Well, having just gotten back from a trip to China, I certainly heard people say "ni hao". Anyone else notice these supposedly helpful language tips that aren't very accurate?