Absolute Beginners Contents

If you want to start learning Chinese this site has many sections which will help you.  
To avoid confusion I would definitely advise reading the following pages first:

• How to use this website
  This page has lots of helpful information which will save you time when reading the rest of the site.  In particular, it explains the difference between written and spoken Chinese which is vital to understand before you begin learning.
• Pronunciation
  To learn how to pronounce the various Chinese characters and words you will need to become familiar with the conventions this website uses.  This page also has sound files you can listen to.
• Writing
  If you want to learn how to write as well as speak then this page contains a short overview of the basic rules.  Again, a few minutes spent reading this will save much frustration later on!

Now you should be prepared to learn some actual Chinese!

Sections you can print out

• Numbers
  It is a good idea to learn the numbers 1-10 first.  Once you know these you can easily count from 1-99.
• Dates
  If you know the numbers you only need to learn the words for "day" and "month" and you will be able to say or write any date of the year!
• Natural Objects 
  This page contains lots of nice easy characters which will become useful later on.  Try and learn the simpler ones such as "water", "fire", "mountain" etc.
• Directions
  Try and learn "up", "down", "left" and "right".
• Quantities and Sizes
  All of the words on this page are worth learning early on.
• Time
  A couple more complex characters in here but once learned you will be able to tell the time.

Sections to use online

• Beginners Character List
  This page contains a summary of many basic characters.  You can use it to revise for the test below.
• Online Quiz
  This quiz will test you with 10 basic characters.  At this stage don't worry about your score but over the coming weeks you should find it easier.  At the end of each test you will be shown a summary of your answers and the correct answers to the ones you got wrong.
  

What now?

If you have worked through some of the above then congratulations, you are no longer an absolute beginner!  Most of the rest of the site should now make more sense.  So if you go back to the contents page you will see links to Flashcards you can print out, simple tests you can print out, more essays and many more revision sheets.

If you get stuck at any time there are lots of friendly people who can help in the Discussion Forum.  Please feel free to post your questions there.