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Friday Fun Thread for November 14, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Chinese learners, where do you start? It's a tonal language with an impenetrable writing system. I know there are other Category 5 languages out there, but this one is probably the hardest to start, right? Japanese was easy to start; just read Genki and start doing the homework. Anyway, how do you start learning Chinese?

Self-study? It's the same as any other language these days, grab your preferred app and go through all the lessons. Duolingo is shit for Chinese and I haven't really used many of the options myself, but I understand that DuChinese and HelloChinese would be good to get started with.

And the other thing about ubiquitous smartphones is that there really is no reason to learn hand writing anymore, because everything can be done with pinyin and copied if you have to write something.