Confident Chinese

Passing the HSK exam and gaining a great score is certainly possible with good preparation. This article is a guide with helpful tips on what you need to make it.

0. Are you ready?

There is not much correlation between being able to pass the exam and being able to communicate effectively with other people in Mandarin. You can pass the test without being able to pronounce a word of Chinese correctly.

Even a native speaker may fail at some grammatical questions posed in the test (I’ve had a few Chinese friends take the grammatical questions of HSK6 and they answered incorrectly).

With a good learning strategy and practice, passing the test is entirely possible. The good news is also that you can always try again. It is possible to redo the test as often as required.

1. Find a test center and register

You can take the test at authorized test centers. There are test centers available in many countries and major cities. The test can only be taken on specific dates, so you need to plan ahead.

You can search for test centers in your area using the official website: Test Center Search. With the filters you can select your country/area and search for the test you would like to take.

When selecting a test center, the choice between paper-based and digital test is important. The paper-based test will require you to be able to write Chinese characters by hand. The digital test only requires knowledge of Pinyin.

2. Preparing for the test – Study System

To nail the HSK test you will need a well-thought out study system. Good intentions alone won’t get you there.

As the author James Clear puts it “You will not rise to the level of your goals, but fall to the level of your systems.”

You will need a schedule, the right tools and a big enough why to stick to it.

2.1 Structure of the Test

HSK1 and HSK2 consist of a listening and a reading part. Next to Chinese characters you are provided with Pinyin. All other HSK levels up to level HSK6 consist of listening, reading and writing. There will be no Pinyin, only characters.

2.2 Schedule

The most important thing about scheduling is having a schedule and making it work for you. It’s easy to put something on your calendar put not follow through with it. You should favor short periods over long periods of time with low frequency.

Better study just 20 minutes every day instead of six hours during the weekend.

3 Tools

Class book for studying

The most targeted class books for studying the HSK test are the HSK Standard Course Book series. They cover all vocabulary you will need and will prepare you for the exam.

Studying vocabulary

There are a lot of spaced repetition vocabulary study tools around. All of them offer basic functionality. Pick your favorite. There is no one size fits all.

Review and exam preparation

My tool number #1 for review and practising past exams is the app HSK Online. It is purposefully built for the exam and puts everything you need at your fingertips.

The app includes vocabulary review, example phrases, mock exercises, complete HSK tests as well as actual past exams.

The app luckily is quite affordable. You will not have to break the bank.

4 Taking the test

If you have used HSK Online and have done a few mock tests, you should be well prepared for the actual exam.

One of the first questions for new Chinese learners is to decide which Chinese dialect to learn. If you are looking to be smart about learning, making this choice can be difficult.

Usually the best choice is to go with Mandarin and learn simplified characters. It has the largest availability of learning materials, it is easier to learn and you will be able to communicate with more people.

To fully understand this recommendation you need background:

Chinese language did not develop linearly, but emerged over time. In Europe people do not use Latin anymore, however many languages are based on it. Similarly Chinese has a common set of written characters, but diversity in spoken word.

Over 1 Billion people speak some form of Chinese as their mother tongue. So if you can speak Chinese, you can speak to over 15% of the world population?! This is unfortunately not true, since Chinese is split into more or less close dialects.

Spoke Chinese – Dozens of Dialects

Spoken Chinese differs by location. The different varieties of Chinese are called ‘Dialects‘. Some of them are close to each other, while others are different and require learning even more Chinese native speakers.

A commonality between the dialects is that they are written with Chinese characters. So once you understand either simplified or traditional characters there’s a good chance you will get around in a lot of places.

Traditional vs. Simplified Characters

When learning Mandarin, you can learn simplified or traditional characters. Simplified characters are used in the People’s Republic of China, while Taiwan uses traditional characters.

The advantage of simplified characters is that they have less strokes and are therefore faster to write. Further there are more learning materials with simplified characters (although many online platforms support both). The disadvantage of is that simplified characters have lost some of their meaning, by cutting out or simplifying components.

If you intend to learn both types of character: Since traditional characters are more ‘complete’, some people say that its easier to learn traditional characters first and then switch to simplified.

From my experience it is not a large Challenge to go from simplified to traditional. I have started learning simplified characters myself first and then spend time in Taiwan. It took my some additional learning to be able to recognize traditional characters.

FluentU is a tool to learn a language through watching videos. It’s a great tool that can be very useful or not be right for you at all. Read about my experiences below to get a first impression.

1. Summary

My recommendation: Give the free trial a spin and see for yourself. I’ve only done the free trial myself so far and did not pay for the tool.

2. Detailed Review

FluentU is a great resource to learn how Chinese is used in a real-life context. It curates videos from YouTube and adds subtitles. The videos are shown in an interface that support your learning.

I’ve used FluentU during several periods in my learning journey and found it motivating.

Types of content available

Content ranges from slow conversation videos for beginners, to music videos, news, trailers, grammatical explanation or cultural knowledge. There certainly will be a video that interests you. Videos can be filtered by language level, type and topic.

Start learning

Once you open a video, you will see an overview of vocabulary used in the video. You can stop, get a voiceover and translation for individual terms and continue.

If you are unsure about how a term is used, you can directly jump to additional videos which use the exact same term. Learn, rinse and repeat. Without getting bored.

What I liked

The customization options and ability to personalize learning are one of the key advantages of FluentU. You can switch between traditional or simplified Chinese characters. Show or hide English subtitles.

If there’s something you don’t understand it takes less than a second to look up the meaning. And while you are looking it up you can jump to other videos using the same term.

I also enjoy the content of the videos at FluentU. Watching advertisements for Taiwanese businesses gave me insight into the culture of the country. Conversations and examples in Chinese course books are created to cover certain vocabulary or grammatical points. They do not resemble daily spoken language.

What I did not like

The main disadvantage for me is that FluentU does not guide you through the videos. There is a main screen with literally hundreds of videos to choose from.

For me all this choice creates anxiety and overwhelm. I prefer classes with a clear learning journey, where the instructor breaks down content for me in manageable chunks.

3. List of Features

• Over 2200 videos, on different learning levels.
• Both simplified and traditional characters are supported
• Real life content instead of simulated course book conversations
• Easily look-up and repeat words, while your video is on pause.
• Automatically save words you are unsure about.
• Support for other languages

4. Pricing

A part of the videos is available for free and you can use some of the features without paying at all.

The full set of features costs US$20 per month on annual billing and US$30 per month on monthly billing. There’s a free trial available for 14 days.

5. Summary

FluentU can be a great motivation to keep on learning Chinese by giving you a fun way of immersing yourself in country and language. However it should not be your first and only learning tool.

The lack of structure and support makes it less suitable for beginners. I would recommend FluentU if you’ve gotten started with Chinese already and acquired at least basic skills.