戴的 ✦ Days with Dais ✦ 日子
Progress is progress, no matter how small.
小小的一步，也是往前。
Resources ✦ 資源
Hello & welcome to my Resources page! Here I will share all the things that helped me in my Chinese learning journey. Maybe in the future I will share resources for other aspects of my life, such as yoga, art or haircare 🙂
你好和歡迎來到我的資源頁！這裡我會分享所有在學習中文旅程中的幫助過我的東西。在未來我可能也會分享其他的資源，比如説瑜伽的，藝術的，護髮的等等 🙂
Pleco
If I could only have 5 apps on my phone, Pleco would be one of them. This is by far the most helpful Chinese learning app. It’s basically an English-Chinese dictionary, where you can look up words in English, traditional or simplified Chinese, using characters or pinyin. It gives you the tones, meaning, stroke order, etc and has a super easy to use interface.
如果我的手機上只能有五個APP，Pleco一定是這一個！這個絕對是我用過最有幫助的學習中文APP。它本質上是一個中文-英文字典，你可以用漢字或拼音找到英文，繁體中文或簡體中文的詞匯。它提供聲調，意思，筆順等等，而且有一個很容易用的界面。
中文 Zhongwen: Chinese-English Dictionary
This is an absolute life saver when it comes to reading Chinese online. It’s a Chrome extension that you download, and makes it so that if you hover over a Chinese word or character on a webpage, it will give you the English definition. It works for both simplified and traditional chinese, and helps so much with reading so you don’t have to copy and paste words into Google Translate.
這一個在網上閲讀中文時是一個救星（我剛剛用Pleco找到那個字！）它是一個可以下載的Chrome擴充功能，如果你把滑鼠游標放在中文字上面，它會顯示對應的英文翻譯。繁體字簡體字都可以翻譯，對閲讀非常有幫助，所以你不必把中文字複製貼上到谷歌翻譯裡。
Google Translate ✦ 谷歌翻譯
Google translate got me through my university degree hahaha. Of course, just using it to translate your homework into Chinese isn’t going to help you learn, but for quickly translating sentences or words it’s very good, and it’s actually very accurate with Chinese (maybe because Chinese and English grammar are quite similar!) I swear I didn’t write this page using only Google Translate….
谷歌翻譯讓我能夠完成大學學業哈哈哈。當然，只用它翻譯你的作業到中文一點點都不會幫你學中文，可是如果只是快速翻譯句子或單子，它真的非常好用。還有在中文方面其實很準確 （可能是因爲中文和英文的語法蠻相似）。我發誓我寫這篇文章不只是用谷歌翻譯的。。。
Anki
Anki is essentially a flashcard app. I always struggled with apps like Quizlet, that show you flashcards in the same order every time, because I would just memorise the order the words come in instead of recognising the words. Anki has a great system where it shows you words in a random order, with words you struggle with coming up more frequently so you can remember them easier. It’s great if you have an exam coming up or want to learn as much vocabulary as possible.
Anki本質上是一個單子卡APP。我覺得Quizlet那樣的APP很難用，因爲它每次單子都安排一樣順序顯示，所以我只記住單子出現的順序，不是真的認出單子的意思。Anki的系統很好，因爲它隨機顯示單子，還有把你不太熟悉的字更常出現，所以那些更容易記住。如果你快要考試，或只想盡可能多學詞匯，它是很有用的APP。
AI ✦ 人工智能
I am very much against AI in many areas (such as making art or music, replacing humans in the workplace, creating non-consensual photos of people or for general everyday use), but for something like learning a language I do think it’s an okay tool. I use it as sparingly as possible due to environmental concerns, as well as just believing that use of AI will make you stupider, lazier, less independent and probably will increase your likelihood of getting dementia in the future. But if you are stuck on a piece of grammar or just can’t figure out how to order a complex sentence and Google Translate isn’t helping, AI can be useful. Please though, don’t be one of those people who uses it to write your emails…
我在很多領域超級反對AI，比如説藝術或音樂創作，在工作取代人類，未經同意地創作別人照片，或日常用途等等，可是我覺得對學習語言它是還好的工具。因爲環保的問題，我盡可能少用AI，還有我覺得用AI會讓你變得更笨蛋，更懶惰，少獨立和很有可能在未來會增加罹患失智症的可能性。可是，如果你遇到語法的問題或是只不知道複雜句子的句式和谷歌翻譯幫不上忙, AI是可以用的。不過，拜托你別變成用AI寫自己的郵件的人。。。
Italki
This is the most scary one! I’m a very shy and anxious person by nature, particularly when speaking Chinese as I am mortified when I make mistakes (great choice deciding to learn languages, I know), but Italki is really worth the anxious tummy. I avoided it my whole time at university, until the very final speaking exams were coming up. I used Italki to prepare for them, explaining the potential topics to my teacher so she could help me specifically in those areas, and I ended up getting an extremely good grade. It’s also great because there are so many different pricepoints, you can choose a professional teacher who can teach you business Chinese or another specialised topic, or there’s a lot of cheaper options where you can just have conversations with a normal person.
這是最可怕的！！我天生是一個非常害羞和焦慮的人，特別是說中文時因爲我覺得説錯是尷尬要死的事（我知道，學語言不是聰明的決定），可是Italki很值得有不舒服的肚子。大學期間我一直避免用它，直到期末口語考試快到時。那時我用Italki來準備，告訴Italki的老師可能會出現的話題，這樣她就針對性地幫我了。最終我取得了非常好的成績。它也很棒，因爲價格選擇很多，你可以選專業的老師幫你學商務中文或其他專業科目，也可以便宜地跟普通人進行簡單的對話。
HelloTalk
Another great one for real-life exposure. This app will pair you with someone who speaks the language you’re learning, so you can text a real person daily, and maybe even make a friend. They may want to learn English, so you can switch back and forth between the two. I would recommend only talking to a few people at once, I found it took way too much brain power to keep up multiple conversations with multiple people in Chinese.
這個跟上一個一樣會給你真實生活的經驗。這個APP幫你找說你學習的語言的人，這樣你就可以每天跟真人發送訊息，甚至可能也會交到新朋友。他可能是學習英文的，所以你們可以輪流用中文和英文。我很建議只跟少數個人聊聊，我發現跟很多人用中文説話真的費腦力了。
Podcasts/播客 & Youtube
I’m not gonna lie, I’m definitely more of a music gal than a podcast one. I’m guilty of completely zoning out when listening to podcasts (even in English) and missing the entire thing. But here are some that myself and my Chinese-learning friends have used in the past and highly recommend:
老實説，我一定更喜歡音樂而不是播客。我承認，每次聼播客我只做白日夢，錯過整個内容（連英文的也會）。可是，一下是我和我學習中文的朋友用過和推薦的：
- 劉軒的How to人生學
- 大人的Small Talk
- 打個電話給你One Call Away
- 聊聊東西
- 故事FM: Very advanced lol✦非常高級哈哈
- Chillchat (Learn Chinese and Chill): Good for beginners, with both Chinese and English✦適合初學者，包括中文和英文兩個語言
- Youtube: Mandarin Corner
Let me know if you have any other to add to this list! ✦ 如果你知道其他很棒的，請你告訴我！
Intensive courses ✦ 強化課程
Of course, you need a lot of money to be able to study in China or Taiwan. My post-graduation classes in Taiwan were around £700 per semester. Plus you have to factor in rent, food, travel and so on. But, if you have the means to save up money or have some kind of passive/online income, it’s definitely the fastest way to learn the language. Additionally, you can see if there are any scholarships available to you. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship for my time there, which covered my tuition, rent and most of my food.
當然，如果你想在中國或台灣學習中文你需要很多錢。我在台灣的畢業後課程每個學期大概700英鎊。你還是要考慮房租，伙食，交通費等等。可是，如果你有能你存錢或是有被動收入/網路收入，我覺得强化課程一定是最快學習的方法。另外，你可以看看有沒有任何獎學金。我在台灣很幸運地獲得獎學金，所以學費，房租和一點點伙食費都被涵蓋了。
Thanks for reading, I’ll keep this page up to date if I come across or remember any other good resources! And if you’re looking for resources on how to use 了 correctly, I still have no idea.
謝謝你閲讀，如果我發現/記得別的資源我一定會把它放在這裡！還有如果你想了解如何正確使用 ‘了’，我還完全不知道。