The Chinese Vocabulary Wiki is here!

As readers of our newsletter already know, we have recently launched the Chinese Vocabulary Wiki. We’ve been hard at work on this new free resource for over a year, and got a ton of help from our intern Tom last year. Although, we’re just getting started on this new resource, it’s now open to the public.

What’s in the Chinese Vocabulary Wiki? We’re glad you asked!

  1. Similar word comparisons. If you’ve ever struggled to grasp the difference between 知道 (zhīdào) and 认识 (rènshi) or 感觉 (gǎnjué) and 觉得 (juéde), then this is for you! We’ve got about 80 of these so far, all organized and leveled, but only the important ones.

  2. Leveled Word Lists. We’re starting with HSK word lists, and we’re using our own English translations for all words. We’re also dividing up word lists into smaller, organized lists. But there is obviously a LOT we can do with word lists beyond the HSK lists. We have tons of ideas, and these will roll out over time.

  3. Big Dreams!

What else could we include in the Chinese Vocabulary Wiki? Well, one thing we won’t be doing is turning it into a dictionary. There are already good dictionaries out there, so that’s not our goal. But could we do more by explaining particularly tricky words? Or the building blocks of words? Or slang? Yes to all of that! The Chinese Vocabulary Wiki will continue to grow, and we’ll let you know what we’ve added.

In the meantime, we hope you use it, we hope you like it, and we hope you tell your friends and Chinese teachers about it. It’s free, it’s growing, and it’s only going to get better!

John Pasden