Learning Mandarin? Follow these 5 Instagram accounts.

Instagram is one of the most popular apps, one of several we’d be lost without having on our phones. So if you already spend half your day scrolling through the stories of people you follow, why not have an excuse for even more time on Instagram? Learning Mandarin, for example? Instagram will help! Here are some of the best Instagrams to follow if you want to practice the language.

 

 

Homemade Chinese

 

Homemade Chinese is a beautiful Instagram for learning Mandarin! There are posts that link to the blogger’s Youtube channel that teach a grammar point, Pinyin, and how to write a phrase in Chinese characters. There are important verbs that come with pronunciation guides and visual aids to put the conjugation in your head. But the most fun thing about Homemade Chinese are all the posts that are simple, real-life scenarios that help you learn.

 

Join Yi as she goes shopping for a swimsuit, then follow her through a forest — all while she teaches you simple Mandarin. There are 108 posts on Homemade Chinese so far, but with more than 19,000 followers already, it seems Yi is doing something right! This is a really fun blog to follow with lots of advice both in the posts themselves and in the commentary. Happy learning!

 

Learn Chinese Daily

 

Learn Chinese Daily teaches you Mandarin one word at a time. With each post, like that for hear, you get the Pinyin, the Chinese character, and the English word. Then in the commentary you have a few examples of how to use it. Look at because; this is a great way to learn for people who like visual, bite-sized chunks of study. These are daily posts that you can fit into any schedule, without doing anything more than looking at your phone.

 

Learn Chinese Daily so far has 85 posts, and there are already 3,760 loyal followers. You’re in good company! Try Learn Chinese Daily if you’re learning Mandarin on the move.

 

Learning Mandarin? Check out our free placement test to see how your level measures up!

 

Written Chinese

 

Written Chinese is an Instagram which feels a bit like an informative dictionary. Take the post for yacht; you get a visual with English, Mandarin, and Pinyin, and then in the commentary an explanation for the word. You’ll learn where and how you’ll see the characters, and how they’re used in conjunction to mean other things. With common Chinese radicals you will see variants of the radical and how they are used in a number of words, as well as an explanation for the characters and why they are used how they are.

 

Between the literal translations and the multiple uses, each post feels like more than just the typical word a day learning you might be used to with learning tools like Instagram. With 905 posts and 9,435 followers, Written Chinese will have you confident in Mandarin in no time.

 

 

Breezy Chinese

 

For those more confident Mandarin learners try Breezy Chinese, an Instagram brought to you by a university teacher. This isn’t a visual Instagram, more chunks of manageable learning. To book flight tickets, for example, gives nine phrases to use with the word ticket, written in both Pinyin and Mandarin.

 

There is a pronunciation guide if you click on the audio, and in the commentary the phrases are repeated again in text form — great for if you’re storing the ‘lessons’ to look at again elsewhere. There are also phrases to practice with, and English explanations in the commentary. With 255 posts and more than 5,500 followers, Breezy Chinese is a great resource for revising what you already know.

 

Panda Club Stories

 

Finally, Panda Club Stories is an Instagram aimed at children that has a very interactive feel. The stories tell a short tale purely in Mandarin, and in the posts you’ll find colourful memory prompts to firmly get certain characters from the stories in your mind. Perhaps printing off the characters to colour in might not be for you, but you can if you want to! Panda Club Stories could be a great taster for the language if you are considering learning Mandarin but haven’t decided yet. 940 followers are doing just that, loving the 1247 posts already available.

 

 

With more than 36,000 posts on the tag #learnmandarin there is something on Instagram to help you learn. When are you starting?