Pinutile

http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=ziyuanlxq&p=1101 I think even scholars don't know clearly.

Enlivo, You can use 也 or 而且 or 并且 and some other words as a conjunction between clauses. Thus, He is my brother, and he is my best friend. = 他是我哥哥/弟弟，也是我最好的朋友。 or 他是我哥哥/弟弟，而且是我最好的朋友。 (For some reason, 并且 is not appropriate to be used here.) It seems that you need a textbook on grammar or syntax to facilitate your learning.

I'm a native Chinese and have been learning Japanese for 1.5 years. I don't think it is a good idea that you learn both at the same time, for each of them requires huge amount of time if you want to master it adequately. For example, many Japanese kanjis have more than one pronunciations, and the first year of Japanese learning is always devoted to its complex grammar. Although Chinese is simple in terms of inflections and tenses, but that does not mean it is easy to learn. (On the contrary, I think, the lack of clear rules of inflections or tenses makes it even harder to master) Good luck!

For Chinese sounds, search "拼音(pin1 yin1)" on youku.com

Youtube-like sites: 优酷、土豆、爱奇艺 and many others MOOCs: http://www.icourse163.org/ Downloading TV shows and movies: search "site:pan.baidu.com TITLE" on Google.com Trending movies and TV series in China: https://movie.douban.com/

Though I'm not currently learning French, there are songs that make this language highly fascinating to me. They are the songs by Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Fj0f_gsXM&list=PL3D2DB0F45606E866&index=1 Music has always been one of the strongest motives for me to learn another language, and I was so motivated to start learning Japanese by songs in Hayao Miyazaki's anime films.

An interest in grammar is really a guarantee in learning a language well! For me every aspect in learning a language is interesting Maybe the only frustrating thing is that when you've achieved an intermediate level you find that you still have a long way to go before you can speak/read/write really well. Personally, the most intriguing part is the process of pronunciation practice and the feeling of improving bit by bit.

哈哈 我最喜欢的东部城市是苏州，安静又柔美，还有很多美食和古典园林，推荐楼主去看看。

Sorry! I didn't notice this reply until now. In some way I'm not an absolute beginner, since I began taking a Japanese course two years ago and achieved at least N3 level. But compared to a fluent mastery, I thought "beginner" is a suitable label for me. (And due to limited time for oral drils, I always do much worse in speaking and writing than in reading.) As for dictionaries, recently I gradually became capable of using monolingual Japanese dictionary such as the prestigious 大辞林. (an online version: https://kotobank.jp/) And thank you for your recommendation!

Definitely it's not a stupid question but in deed a very interesting one, especially the latter(6666). …… is used to express that you are so shocked that cannot think of anything to say or have no comments to offer when you are not pleased with what you heard or saw. And sometimes 。。。can be used as a dramatic substitute in casual occasions（。is originally used to end a sentence, the same as "." in English）. The phrase "66666" is quite new(I began hearing it from my roommates since last fall... ) and I don't know exactly how it came into being. Maybe because it represents the sound of 溜(liù ) which can mean "being proficient or fluent". More trending phrases or online codewords covered by western media: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35236725 http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/25/chinas-your-country-we-just-live-in-it-subversive-meme/

You can buy a textbook or attend the online MOOC provided by Peking University on Coursera (or Edx?, I forgot), which is well organized and very helpful.

Besides the frequency list provided by polybus, there are some other information about the most commonly used characters: 1. 现代汉语常用字表(issued by Chinese government in 1988) and 通用规范汉字表(issued in 2013). Each of them contains 3000+ most commonly used 汉字 in modern Chinese (in mainland China). You can get the lists from Google or Baidu.com. 2. A Frequency Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese(available on Amazon.com), based on data from large corpus.

in simplified character(used in mainland China)：信，望，爱 in traditional character(used in Taiwan and Honkong)：信 望 愛

I bet Chinese is not easier than Japanese at all. (But learning it is rewarding because it is so rich I'd like to know some foreign friends and practice conversation in English, also I'm interested in help someone with their Chinese. I'm a college student in China. You can message me

I speak standard Chinese and am now a college student. I'm highly interested in helping someone learning Chinese and practicing my English pronunciation ( and preferably British accent ). I'm intermediate in English, but weaker in conversation. What about your Chinese level?