YellowBridge provides a cultural bridge to English speakers who are interested in learning Chinese language and culture. It is essentially a commercial site with links to many resources categorized into the following sections: current events, literature, language, people, humor, games, mysticism, travel, finance, and marketplace. Although it is commercially based, it provides enough free resources and materials that benefit both the casual and serious learners of Chinese language and culture.
Type of Material:
Reference Material
Recommended Uses:
YellowBridge can be used as a reference site for learning Chinese language and culture. It is useful for beginning students to learn to read and write Chinese characters, for more advanced students to improve their Chinese reading skills.
Technical Requirements:
Video player
Identify Major Learning Goals:
Guide to Chinese language and culture for English speakers.
Target Student Population:
The language section is suitable for students at the beginning and intermediate levels, while the literature section is suitable for students at all levels, including advanced students in Chinese literature and/or translation classes. This site also provides plenty of information for users who wish to know more about Chinese language and culture, but who do not wish to learn the language itself.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
Depending on the materials and learning objects, there may or may not be prerequisites for using them. However, students of high school or higher education should be able to use most of the materials presented.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
Each section of this site contains a rich collection of materials. In particular, the literature and language sections consist of interactive learning objects. The former includes popular adult and children literature, and virtually all of them come with English translations or excerpts. The latter includes learning objects such as Chinese-English Talking Dictionary, Chinese Etymology, Online Chinese Flashcards, Chinese Memory Game, YellowTip Text Annotator, All About Pinyin, and Chinese Radicals. The YellowTip annotator is a very useful feature. It enables users to see the meanings and pronunciations of Chinese characters displayed in a popup window when they move their cursor over those characters. Users can also search for words in the Chinese-English talking dictionary through several input methods.
Concerns:
This site is full of advertisements, although they do not seem to interfere with the learning process. Some of them provide translations of learning materials, e.g., the Analects of Confucius, and information on how to purchase them online. There is also inaccurate information in the Chinese etymology, e.g., the formation of the Chinese character 国 (country).
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
This site provides a rich resource of China-related information and learning materials for casual users as well as serious learners of Chinese language and culture. The language section contains various effective tools with videos that provide helpful instructions and illustrations. The dictionary consists of a large number of characters, and the reading materials are well selected and annotated.
Concerns:
There are no learning materials related to speaking. This is likely due to the fact that the premium features of some learning materials are only available to subscribers. Additionally, one needs to pay a subscription fee in order to view this site free of advertisement.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The site is professionally designed with clear instructions despite the presence of an abundance of commercial materials. Navigation is simple, and graphics and texts are engaging and user-friendly. Users who are not interested in commercial products can still focus on the learning materials without being distracted.
Concerns:
N/A
Creative Commons:
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