Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

Sinosplice's John starts some dialog on handheld electronic dictionaries when learning Chinese. Check the comments for what other learners have found useful.

I often show students some of my works in progress to help them appreciate the use of metaphorical/global thinking and the higher need for cultural information. I show them that basic communication is a breeze and does not require sophisticated vocabulary or grammar skills.

Learning Chinese is becoming more and more popular in the Western nations. However we can see that China's visa policy becomes stricter every year. Are these people learning a language of a country they might not be allowed to enter in the future?

The 88s features this great post about Chinese inlaws experiencing American culture for the first time. For anyone that has Chinese inlaws, or has wanted to see how Chinese people handle themselves when they're the fish out of water, this is a must read.

The problem, as Dr. Liao presented it, is that many learners can reach a relatively high level of fluency in Mandarin Chinese, have excellent tonal accuracy for individual words, yet still make a large number of very unnatural tonal errors in natural speech. This is a common enough problem that educators really need to be looking for ways to address it. Here is a suggested solution.

No doubt the hardest part of learning Chinese is learning to write the characters. Thankfully, it just got easier with the introduction of a new online learning tool called Skritter, introduced here by John at Sinosplice. It's addictive.

In yet another continuing saga on how American businesses tend to lose the battle for their intellectual property rights in China, Pfizer loses rights to the slang term for their most famous product. I especially like the picture of Chinese Viagra packaging that's shown in the article. It puts Tiger Balm to shame.

This is a good Humanaught post about getting around in China that is easy to relate to.

I miss facets of streaming TV. That part of scheduled entertainment will forever be ingrained in my habits. Entertainment on demand does, to an extent, strip the expectation and suspense from the enjoyment on a show.