There is such an abundance of resources online for language learning that it can seem daunting, overwhelming, and difficult to choose which are going to be worth your time, and which are just going to waste it. This article will give you a select choice of resources for languages, with a particular focus on Mandarin Chinese, which should fit in with your daily habits and help you on your journey towards language mastery! Beyond applications that most Chinese learners already know such as Anki and Pleco, this blog will introduce some lesser-known but (in my opinion) extremely helpful language-learning resources.
These resources will be divided into three main categories with an introduction and evaluation of each resource. Enjoy!
Mobile applications and Google Chrome extensions:
1) One sec and LENGO
One sec is a mobile app which utilises the ‘shortcut’ function on Apple and Android devices, to encourage you to stop unnecessary social media (or any app) use. When you try and open your chosen app, One sec will force you to take a deep breath and choose either to close the app or continue on to your social media. The LENGO add-on allows you to incorporate vocabulary learning into One sec’s function, forcing you to answer a short vocabulary test before opening your social media (or other chosen) app. There are some basic words already in the One sec app, but you can import new vocabulary sets from LENGO after downloading.
This app helps you learn new vocabulary whilst encouraging you not to doomscroll or mindlessly click on social media apps, and is a useful way to force yourself to learn more passive vocabulary. The LENGO app is a language-learning app on its own too, and supports over 20 languages.
Some issues with this app pairing is that it was initially difficult to set up. This might have been an issue on my end but it was difficult at first trying to ‘import’ the vocabulary sets from LENGO to One sec. However, the One sec Help team is very fast at responding and helped me solve this issue. The other issue I would point out is that it is quite a basic flashcard system for vocabulary, there is usually only one translation for each word which can occasionally cause confusion, and there is no sound or pronunciation on the flashcards, so for languages such as Mandarin Chinese you would not get the tones or know the pronunciation of the new word.
Overall, I think this is a good supplementary resource, and a nice addition to the One sec app. The small issues do not take away from the overall use of the app, and I would suggest the best combination would be to use the LENGO app to learn the vocabulary properly, and then use the One sec and LENGO feature to revise the new vocabulary.
2) Language Reactor
This is a chrome extension which adds dual language subtitles to video streaming services, including Netflix and YouTube. This allows learners to use native materials without sacrificing either understanding or vocabulary. There are also choices to ‘hide’ either one of the translations, adjust playback speed, hover over vocabulary in the subtitles to view translations and example sentences, and select your ‘vocabulary level’ so that possible new words are highlighted. You can also browse through videos which have both your target and native language on their website.
The only real downside is that some features are behind a paywall, but the free features are incredibly useful. This is an excellent resource, supports many major languages and programs as long as there are subtitles. I often use this add-on, and it has been very helpful when watching fast-paced programs or shows with more colloquial vocabulary.
Translation websites
Context Reverso
On this website you can enter a term or phrase in either your target language or native language, and the website will bring up examples of the word or phrase in a sentence, providing you with information on how the phrase might be used, how frequently it is used, or providing an alternate translation if no examples can be found.
The results are gathered from a variety of online sources, from news headlines to blog posts, and so contain a range of different registers. This AI tool provides bilingual results for over 15 languages, and will show you many alternative translations of the same word for you to consider.
Context Reverso is a great tool, but sometimes its results needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. I have noticed that occasionally the sentence translations do not match up with the native language or vice versa, or that there are inappropriate results being returned for some words (often there will be a warning from the website, but occasionally these slip through). I usually use this website alongside other reliable dictionaries such as Pleco (for Chinese learners) or other translation tools. This website is possibly more appropriate for more advanced learners who would spot inconsistencies between the sentences, however it is a great place to start looking for translations or colloquialisms in context.
Language context websites – Chinese specific:
BBC Chinese
A BBC news website with articles in Chinese. This is a great online resource for intermediate/ upper intermediate Chinese learners, and allows you to read new stories from all over the world in Chinese. There are not any ‘language learning’ features attached to the website (so you would have to look up the new words yourself and so on), but it is still a very useful resource for picking up vocabulary and learning new grammar structures, particularly formal vocabulary and vocabulary specific to certain topics.
New York Times (Dual Text)
The Chinese edition of The New York Times offers articles on breaking news in Mandarin Chinese (similar to BBC Chinese above), but the most useful feature is the dual language feature button ‘中英双语’ (zhongying shuangyu) which you can find when you click on an article, in the top right hand corner (pink highlight in the image below). This will allow you to read the article in both Chinese and English side by side, which is an excellent way to gain translation skills and vocabulary, again learning some interesting and relevant news in Chinese at the same time.
New York Times (Dual Text)
The Chinese edition of The New York Times offers articles on breaking news in Mandarin Chinese (similar to BBC Chinese above), but the most useful feature is the dual language feature button ‘中英双语’ (zhongying shuangyu) which you can find when you click on an article, in the top right hand corner (pink highlight in the image below). This will allow you to read the article in both Chinese and English side by side, which is an excellent way to gain translation skills and vocabulary, again learning some interesting and relevant news in Chinese at the same time.
Conclusion
This article has introduced some lesser-known language resources and tools relevant for all languages, and then some specific for Mandarin Chinese learners. I use all of these resources on an almost-daily basis, and each is extremely useful to my language journey in different ways. Hopefully you can incorporate at least one of these resources into your daily life to increase target language exposure and language learning efficiency! Good luck!
