Chinese language international media sites are a great resource to practice your Chinese reading skills.

But there's also a big problem with using them as a language learning tool.

Although they offer Chinese language content which is independent that you won't find on mainland media sites, it's important to know there are two types of articles on these sites: Original and translated.

From a language learning perspective, my advice is:

Don't read translated articles

Lots of articles are direct translations of content published in English or another language. No matter how good the translation is, it's still not written as a Chinese article would be.

Translated articles are "clunky", don't have the flow of a Chinese news article, and are harder to read because they don't follow how information is organised in Chinese writing.

So, if you practice your Chinese reading skills by reading Chinese language versions of BBC, FT, NYT, VOA, and others, before you start reading you must check if it's translated or original content (by looking who the journalist is).

Invest your time in reading content by a native Chinese writer.

My favourite international Chinese language news site is: Deutsche Welle (DW).