Zhihu Digest: Learning Chinese From the "Voice of the People"
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There are dozens of ways to utilize the extra time spent at home during coronavirus lockdown, but for Chinese learners who feel their language skills are getting rusty, the opportunity to go outside and take advantage of that now-rare resource known as "talking to people" might be sorely missed. As a translator and founder of the website Zhihu Digest, however, Thomas Garbarini knows well that online resources can be a healthy substitute.
A former Beijing expat himself, Garbarini has focused his career on translating Chinese literary works for the English speaking world to enjoy. When he isn't working or practicing his hobby as an artist, he is browsing the top ten most popular posts on the Chinese question-answer forum Zhihu – a website that might best be compared to the English language website, Quora – and considering ways to break down difficult phraseology for an English speaking audience to comprehend. Several times a month, his blog provides language notes on these questions as a way to guide learners through them. Below, he tells the Beijinger what makes Zhihu such an excellent source of your daily recommended Vitamin C – that's C for Chinese.Garbarini started Zhihu Digest as a way help Chinese learners break down colloquial phrases they may not otherwise come across
What is it about the Zhihu platform that makes it a good resource for Chinese learners? What level of Chinese learner do you think would best benefit from browsing Zhihu?
Zhihu is about as close to an aggregated "voice of the people" that one can get online. The nature of the upvoting system (the answers with the most likes get bumped to the top) makes it easy to find quality content. Zhihu users tend to go very in-depth in their answers too, so if you find a topic you’re interested in, you can learn a lot from a few well-written comments. One of the best ways to learn a second language is to consume content that interests you in that target language, and Zhihu makes this very convenient. Also, at a certain point, learning a language becomes just as much about understanding the culture related to that language as the language itself, and this is also where the platform shines.
How does learning through a resource like Zhihu differ from traditional resources like news and fiction?
Reading Chinese news is great for learning as well, but you’ll only be able to read information that is officially published, and most of it is written in a highly journalistic style. I find Zhihu much better because you get to see how real people are reacting to events written more colloquially. By going through answers and then even the comments to those answers, you can gain a better understanding of how Chinese is actually used, as well as common sentiments of Chinese people.
By translating popular questions on Zhihu, readers gain insight into topics playing on Chinese people's minds
What are some other resources that you used in your own journey to learn Chinese?
Outside of the two years of formal Chinese classes I took, I have done a lot on my own to improve my Chinese as well. My reading improved tremendously by reading 2-3 articles on the Chinese version of the New York Times site each day If you click on an article, there is a 对照 (duìzhào, compare) option to display both the Chinese and English. I would read the Chinese first and then check my understanding against the English. For this, I recommend the Zhongwen browser extension, which shows pinyin and definitions for Chinese characters when you mouse over them. The only caveat for this resource is that the Chinese is sometimes not very natural, as it’s translated from English, but it’s still great for conveniently building vocab.
Another helpful hint is to get a Chinese audiobook along with the book itself and read along as the audiobook is read. I picked up a ton of vocab this way too. Then, if you’re a nerd like me, the Youmin Xinkong app is good for learning vocab related to current TV, movies, video games, tech, etc. You can pick up a lot from the comments section on the articles there too.
For listening, my favorite resources are podcasts on the app lizhi.fm. The only difficulty here is finding podcasts that are well-produced and interesting, but once you do find a few, you will have a steady stream of listening content available (I recommend Danei Mitan). It might be overwhelming at first because you may only understand a small portion of what’s being said, but if you listen intently and check your dictionary occasionally, you will quickly be able to understand more and more.
What do you hope Chinese learners gain from your website, Zhihu Digest? And do you think it will also be of interest to people interested in modern China but aren’t learning Chinese?
The target audience I had in mind when making Zhihu Digest was basically somebody like me; a long-time learner of Chinese who tries to keep up with how the language is used and how it evolves, but who might not necessarily have the time to dive deep into Zhihu each day. By breaking down the questions and examining the language used in them, I hope to make learning Chinese easier and more convenient for those types of people.
"Why don't you read the news to study Chinese?" "I want to read Zhihu."
Has spending so much time on Chinese forums helped you gain insight into Chinese culture and perspectives?
Yes. Even the ranking of topics tells you a lot about the Chinese zeitgeist, as sometimes events that are just a blip on the radar on western platforms might be huge on Chinese ones, or vice versa. I also find it useful to frequently question one’s biases and viewpoints, which become especially evident when you read opinions about events happening in your own country, such as a Zhihu user’s views on US presidential candidates, for example. And while there is a small subset of memes that overlap on Western/Chinese platforms ("woman yelling at cat" is a universal hit), Chinese memes are often deeply layered and endlessly fascinating.
READ: Why the Dragon Raising Its Head Means We Should Now Cut Our Hair
Image: Zhihu, Thomas Garbarini, Buzzfeed
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