31 Twitter feeds to help you learn

Chinese
This weeks topic is fairly straightforward: How can we use Twitter to help us learning
Chinese? This can be divided into three separate categories:

Twitter

1. Learning how to learn Chinese

2. Language learning or general learning

3. Chinese input

Generally speaking, the first two categories are more interesting because its much
harder than you might think to find people who write mostly about how to learn. Thus,
this post is the result of hard work.

Naturally, this doesnt mean that I have managed to find everything of interest on
Twitter! In fact, part of the reason I write this article is to expand my horizons, so dont
hesitate to recommend more/better Twitter feeds, please leave a comment! Im
mostly interested in suggestions belonging to category one and two.

To view all these lists, please check my Twitter account here.

Learning how to learn Chinese on Twitter (view all on Twitter)

 Hacking Chinese

(keywords: language learning, learning strategies, learning Chinese)

Naturally, Im going to put myself as number one, simply because if you like what I do in
general, it makes sense to follow me on Twitter since I share most of what I read online
and offline. I also follow all users listed in this article and retweet the best.

All Japanese All the Time

(keywords: language learning, Japanese content, learning strategies)

Even though Khatzumoto writes mostly about Japanese (there is some Chinese in there,
too), this doesnt mean that what he writes is only for students of Japanese. He tweets
quite a lot and not everything is useful, but the really good tweets make it worth it
anyway.

Chinese Hacks

(keywords: about China/Taiwan, language learning, vocabulary and grammar)

Although superficially similar to Hacking Chinese, Dave actually covers a wider range of
topics than I do, including living in Taiwan, actual Chinese grammar and vocabulary
plus anything else of interest he finds related to Chinese. Excellent!
 Peckish Laowai

(keywords: learning Chinese, about China, vocabulary)

Generally worthwhile Twitter feed with a mixture of personal comments, notes about
vocabulary and occasional links to awesome articles. Dont miss articles on the website,
which are of a very high quality indeed.

Sinosplice

(keywords: learning Chinese, about China, Chinese media)

John Pasdens Twitter feed is a must for any Chinese learner. He provides a mixture of
commentary on China, Chinese and language learning, along with more personal
thoughts and observations.

East Asia Student

(keywords: about China, vocabulary and grammar, about East Asia)

As the name implies, this twitter feed provided by Hugh Grigg is mainly concerned with
East Asia, but I think China and Chinese are much more in focus than other countries.
Frequently comments on current events.
 Confused Laowai

(keywords: language learning, learning Chinese, Chinese content)

Niel de la Rouviere doesnt tweet often, but when he does, its worth looking at. Most
tweets are about learning Chinese in some way, but he also talks about language
learning in general, along with some personal commentary.

Critical Owl

(keywords: learning Chinese, teaching Chinese, language learning)

Jacob Gill tweets about something I think is almost unique, namely teaching Chinese.
Most people will tell you what or how to learn, but Jacob will let you know what its like
teaching Chinese. He also tweets about language learning and his life in Taiwan.

Brandon

(keywords: learning Chinese, about China, Chinese media)

Brandon tweets about a wide variety of topics, not all related to learning Chinese, but
most of them still interesting. When he tweets about Chinese, its most likely to be about
language learning or Chinese media. He also writes about life in China.
 ChinesePod

(keywords: podcasts, about China, learning Chinese)

ChinesePod was my favourite source of audio (especially the advanced lessens) for a
few years. This twitter feed provides much more than that, though, mainly tweeting
about China and Chinese language.

Lingomi

(keywords: learning Chinese, about Chinese, language learning)

This is Steven Daniels twitter feed, which sadly isnt updated very often, but often
contains interesting links about language learning in general and learning Chinese in
particular, along with insights into the Chinese language.

Chinese Teachers Blog

(keywords: learning Chinese, teaching Chinese, about Chinese)

Even though it says teacher, most of these tweets are actually about learning Chinese.
Sure, the angle will sometimes be a little bit different, but most things found here are
relevant for students and teachers alike.
 Living Taipei

(keywords: learning Chinese, learning languages, Taiwan)

Again, this feed isnt really about living in Taipei, but more about learning Chinese and
teaching English. This means that although some links are irrelevant, most are still
about language learning in general or Chinese in particular. Good stuff.

The Mandarin Review

(keywords: about Chinese, grammar, vocabulary and word usage)

This feed isnt updated very often, but when it is, the links are usually worth following.
Topics are mostly about grammar or word usage, but language learning also pops up
now and then. Few reviews though, so the name is a bit misleading.

Chineese SE

(keyword: q&a, discussion, about Chinese)

This is the twitter account linked to Chinese Stack Exchange (a website for questions
and answers about Chinese). The twitter feed merely updates with new questions, but
following on Twitter is probably easier than subscribing to the website.
 Zhongwen Movies (keywords: TV and film, learning Chinese,

about China)
Even though TV and film are prominent features of this feed, its actually about much
more than that, including language learning, vocabulary, idioms and much more.
Belongs both in this list and the one below about Chinese content.

The World of Chinese

(keywords: about China, about Chinese, Chinese culture)

An aptly named feed that keeps track of whats going on in China, but focusing on things
that are language related. Mostly posts about website updates, but is still worth
following.

Language learning or general learning on Twitter (view all on Twitter)

Scott Young

(keywords: productivity, general learning, life)

As far as I know, Scott has never learnt Chinese, but I include his feed here anyway,
simply because he posts so many useful links, both to his own website and to others. A
must, both for learning and other purposes.
 Aaron G. Myers

(keywords: language learning, learning strategies)

Even though almost none of Aarons tweets are related to learning Chinese in particular,
most of what he tweets about is still relevant for Chinese learners. I particularly like his
unconventional, hands-on language learning tips.

Wiktor Kostrzewski

(keywords: language learning, language teaching)

This is Polish guy who tweets about learning English, but like most of the articles on
Hacking Chinese, what he writes is relevant for any language. Make sure to check out his
website, too.

Language Mastery

(keywords: language learning, general learning)

As the name implies, this user tweets about learning languages in general, so even if few
links or tweets are about Chinese in particular, Ive found lots of interesting stuff here.
Also pretty good for catching things from the polyglot community.

Chinese input on Twitter (view all on Twitter)

 FluentFlix

(keywords: idioms, vocabulary, learning Chinese)

I hesitated long before putting FluentFlix here rather than in the first category.
However, I decided to make it number one here because I follow FluentFlix mostly
because of the Chinese content. The most interesting tweets deal with idioms and
vocabulary. A must!

Carl Gene Fordham

(keywords: translation, about Chinese, exercises)

Translation is one of my favourite ways of learning languages and therefore, I really
enjoy Carls feed. He tweets about translation, posts exercises and discusses Chinese in
general. Probably more interesting for advanced learners.

Chinese Sentence a Day

(keywords: sentences, pinyin, translation)

Carl Gene Fordham maintains this tweet, providing Twitter with daily Chinese
sentences, including Pinyin and translation. In difference to many other similar feeds,
this isnt necessarily only for beginners, I find interesting stuff here sometimes myself.

Social Mandarin (keywords: Chinese media, vocabulary, about

Chinese)
This feed is mostly filled with media, vocabulary and the occasional link about Chinese
language. Its mostly directed towards beginner or intermediate students, but its
worthwhile for more advanced learners as well.
 VOA Chinese

(keywords: news, headlines, sentences)

This is the Chinese version of Voice of America, which contains news in Chinese. Most
tweets are actually links to articles, but simply reading the summaries or headlines is
quite good practice as well. This just one feed among many similar feeds.

Nciku

(keywords: vocabulary, dictionary, word of the day)

This is simply automatically generated links to dictionary entries, posted once a day. I
like having it my feed because sometimes, interesting vocabulary or word usage pops up.

Daily Chinese Words

(keywords: vocabulary, word usage, sentences)

Brandon (see above) tweets about word usage, posting example sentences that can often
be read only on Twitter (you dont need to follow the links). Mostly for beginners and
intermediate students.

Transparent Chinese

(keywords: sentences, vocabulary, grammar)

Tweets suitable mainly for beginners or lower intermediate students. word of the day
style. Occasionally also tweets about language learning and things related to China in
general.
 Abu Chinese

(keywords: sentences, vocabulary, translation)

Word/sentence of the day style, with occasional links to language related articles. A
weird mixture of very boring and fairly interesting sentences (some automatically
generated, others not?).

Chinese to Learn

(keywords: Chinese media, music, Chinese culture)

Mostly tweets about music, but sometimes also about other cultural activities. The only
tweet I know about that focuses almost exclusively on music (there should be more like
this).

Is anything missing on this list?

Please let me know! Any suggestions will be put on my watch list and added later if I
think that they provide something which is not represented above or do it better than
those I have already introduced. Thank you!

Do you want more practical exercises, audio versions of articles and Chinese
transaltions? Check out my Patreon page!

Sign up for my free crash course in how to learn Mandarin:

Sign up!
 Share this article:

Olle Linge

Monday, July 23rd, 2012

18 comments

18 comments

1. Geoff Wilson says:

2012-07-24 at 08:44

A great list, and Ive now followed many of them. It would be really useful if you
did a similar thing for Sina Weibo accounts that are good for learning Chinese.

Reply

2. Confused Laowai says:

2012-07-24 at 09:09

An excellent list of Twitter feeds to follow. Ive missed some of them. Definitely
gonna follow them now.

Thanks for the mention too!

Reply
3. Chris says:

2012-07-24 at 14:30

Very nice overview, thanks!

Reply

4. Dianne says:

2012-07-25 at 11:21

I enjoy Toms posts on Seeing Red in China about teaching in China. He has
unique insight, I think. (@SeeingRedChina)

Great list. I dont follow more than half of these. Will have to poke around a bit
more. !

Reply

5. Campbell McLean says:

2012-07-26 at 03:47

Thanks for sharing. Try also @AomenTV for mix of Simplified Chinese and
English input

Reply

6. Peckish Laowai says:

2012-07-27 at 09:48

It is a great list I am certainly going to follow those Twitter accounts I am not

already following. So thank you for compiling and sharing.
 I am but a small fish in a big pond. However thank you for including
me.

Reply

7. chezdor says:

2012-07-28 at 06:13

Great list, thanks!

Reply

8. Pingback: Top 10 Tweets of July

9. John Fotheringham says:

2012-08-11 at 22:28

Thank you for the double shout-out, Olle! I knew of some of the folks you listed,
but thanks for brining so many great new language learning feeds to my
attention.

Reply

10. Sara Jaaksola says:

2012-08-14 at 07:57

Thank you for the list, found some new ones to follow!

Reply
11. Chinesetolearn says:

2012-08-15 at 09:15

A very nice list! Thank you for including me.

I like your article Why learning Chinese through music is underrated. Learning
Mandarin through singing songs is an enjoyable and effective way to learn
Chinese! Sing to learn:)

Reply

12. Pingback: Gute Apps und Tools, um Chinesisch zu lernen. | Der Lampiongarten

13. Lea Priscilla says:

2013-05-15 at 18:02

How about @BasicMandarin?

Reply

14. Ed Bockelman says:

2013-05-20 at 13:09

Since you wrote your article, Ive started tweeting Chinese vocabulary:

@VocabChinese a new Chinese word each day.

Reply

15. Chinese School says:

 2013-05-27 at 16:26

Since this article has been published we started to post a lot of China and Chinese
language related information our twitter @LiveTheLanguage

Reply

16. Brandon Wang says:

2013-07-09 at 17:09

I like to follow @ChineseGrammar (run by John Pasdens company) and

@Nciku!

Reply

17. Hugh Grigg says:

2014-03-15 at 11:08

Thanks for the mention, Olle.

but I think China and Chinese are much more in focus than other countries.

I would its about 99.5% China / Chinese. I dont actually *really* learn Japanese
or Korean, just meddle with them and admire the look of the writing

To address that, Ive actually set up a new presence which Ill shamelessly plug
here. Chinese Boost ( https://twitter.com/ChineseBoost ) focuses entirely
on Mandarin Chinese, without all the random stuff Ive tended to put up on East
Asia Student over the years.

Reply

1. Olle Linge says:

 2014-03-15 at 14:03

Hi Hugh! Shameless boosting is cool. Thank you for the recommendation,

I will definitely keep an eye on you.

Reply
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