The year 2021 is coming to an end. Despite the continuing restrictions and lockdowns, we have good reasons to celebrate. We have created new video and audio Chinese courses, we have made new connections with students and teachers, and we have witnessed amazing creativities from the Chinese Writing Contest. And of course, the season for gift giving has arrived.

At MSL Master, we give the gift of creativity and inspiration. Hope you will like my gifts!

SRS (Spaced Repetition Software) is quite popular among Chinese learners. It uses an algorithm that controls how frequently flashcards are shown based on how students grade themselves in previous tests. This is a learning tool. 

However, a tool is a tool. It can be both very helpful or utterly useless. All depend on how you use it. Here I’m going to share some tips on using SRS, and how you can practice recognising Chinese characters and words, taught in the Chinese Reading and Writing series, using SuperMemo cards. 

At the launch of this first ever Chinese Writing Contest 2021, which came with a strict requirement of 320 available Chinese characters, I did not expect the level of the writings could be so high. As I was reading the submissions, I was blown away time and time again. 

Perhaps, even if Dr. Seuss could write in Chinese, he would not have done any better!

If you ask any Chinese people to name a day for them to customarily go hiking in the mountains, they will probably answer that it is the ninth day of the ninth month in the lunar calendar, that is the time to go hiking in the mountains. That day is Chong Yang Jie (重阳节), the Double Nine Festival. This year, that day is Oct 14, 2021.

This first ever Chinese Writing Contest closed a few days ago, on Sep 30, 2021.

30 qualified submissions are currently published online. Before we move on to the next step of finding out who the winners are, let’s take a moment and appreciate a whole new universe created collectively by these contestants using only 320 Chinese characters.

This is an inspirational story from a colleague working in a university in Trinidad & Tobago, Janine L. 

Dedicated and hardworking, she shares her past learning experiences and talks about what it took to get to where she is now.

This year’s Zhong Qiu Jie (中秋节), Mid-Autumn festival, is just around the corner, Sep 21 to be precise, and it is a time for Chinese learners around the world to take a break in their regular study routines and to enjoy some of the festivities. Let’s remind ourselves that learning Chinese is also about gaining insights into Chinese cultural practices and about participating in the cultural activities. And you don’t have to be in China to enjoy Mid-Autumn festival.

Thanks for all the engineers, designers, coordinators, printers, couriers and the supporting staff, after overcoming countless small hiccups, finally, Complete Beginner’s Chinese Reading and Writing Course Kits just arrived. One of them is already reserved for the grand winner of this year’s Chinese Writing Contest.

September 12th, 2021 is Qian Xuantong (钱玄同)’s 134th birthday. In 1923, when he was 36 years old, he proposed to simplify Chinese characters, which was the first step to his ultimate goal of making Chinese into a phonetic writing system. He wanted to abolish the Chinese characters.

It’s time for a beautiful folklore to be told again for anyone who is interested in learning Chinese and learning about Chinese culture, as the seventh day of the seventh month is coming. It is August 14th this year. On this day, two lovers will meet on Queqiao (鹊桥), the Magpie Bridge, to celebrate their eternal love for each other.

A fact that all Chinese language learners will eventually learn by personal experience is the changes of tones and pitches. Shared by Tony many years ago, this hilarious recounting of his personal experience will definitely put a smile on your face, as it did to all of us. That was the reason that he wrote it down.

After the release of Mandarin audio courses of Intro Level A, Intro Level B and Basic Level A, the fourth audio course, Mandarin Express Basic Level B, is now available! Building up from the previous three courses, the topics featured in this course are more connected to our life and our experience of the world, and at the same time, English explanation is reduced to the minimum.

Train your ears with Mandarin audio lessons first, and finish with re-enforcing exercises in the Work Book. Listen better, and speak well. We’re here to help you achieve just that. The third release of Mandarin audio lessons of Mandarin Express Basic Level A is now available!

A great way to improve Chinese listening skills is to use ears to learn Chinese first, eyes second. This is especially important for beginner students who are so often baffled by all the similar tones and many look-alike pinyin words. To achieve that, audio lessons are a wonderful tool students should look into. That’s exactly what I’m currently working on. Following the previous release of Mandarin Express Intro Level A audio lessons, I’m happy to announce that Intro Level B audio lessons have just been made available!

Listening has always been a weak spot for beginner students who are learning Chinese. After they’ve learned some phrases, they experience a total blank when the same phrases are coming out from other people’s mouths. Today, I’m happy to announce that we have added one more solution to our tool kit for beginner students to develop their listening skills.