So, I was interested in this particular boardgame called Xiangqi. It’s a Chinese version of Chess. But it’s hard to search sources for this game in English. It’s hard for non-chinese to knows more about Chinese culture because the lack of English sources.
I’m learning Mandarin now and I kind of wish there were more free quality resources for doing so. This actually feels like somewhere the government could help out by making free resources for learning Mandarin available abroad. I’m fine with paying for stuff where I need it for now, but I can see it being a barrier for many.
You could check a used bookstore or libgen for textbooks to learn grammar and have basic examples, use the smartphone version of pleco for a dictionary and free notecards based on the different hsk vocab levels(as far as I know this is only free on android smartphones, not sure about iphones). Also please study grammar, don’t use the duolingo model.
To practice writing characters look up tianzige （田字格）and write each character a lot of times and say them out loud as well. It helps if you start with some radicals, I think there are 40 major ones (at least my textbook listed ~40 major ones), and knowing the meaning of the radicals is less important at the start than getting comfortable writing them and moving on to basic vocab that you can start using. To type characters, I recommend using the pinyin layout, you don’t have to type the tones but it will guess them and give you options. Other typing options and handwriting input and strokes. You can translate chinese to chinese on google translate to get pinyin for larger texts, and deepl will translate with better grammar and syntax if you need that.
The hardest parts if you’re doing this alone will be checking your work if you’re doing exercises, since you won’t have a teacher to ask questions and explain your mistakes, and it will also be hard to practice speaking and listening alone. For basic pronunciation I am not sure what is best for free online options. There are children’s songs videos for bopomofo which covers all initials, and there may be ones for the finals. Google translate or pleco will have pronunciation for characters and words, but whichever I used pronounced each character individually and did not give you the tone sandhi, which is the change that happens when pronouncing certain tones in order (not as hard as it sounds). You should also read the wikipedia page on 儿化 (erhua) because even if it is in your textbook it probably won’t give a good explanation.
You can find podcasts for basic listening by searching 学中文 （xuezhongwen) or 学汉语 (xuehanyu) on any podcast platform, though you shouldn’t immediately start with this, it is at a late-beginner early-intermediate stage that it may become useful. You will probably gain listening abilities faster than reading ones, but you could also look for graded readers. I haven’t looked into them too much at my stage of learning but what I have seen is paywalled so I can’t offer much advice there.
Also sorry if this is too beginner oriented, but you didn’t specify and since you said you were having trouble finding resources I assumed you were a beginner.
Oh that’s a perfectly fine assumption, I am a beginner only just breaching HSK2 stuff. I’m using pleco a lot and bounce between several apps and a few physical books I bought to supplement (one on grammar, one on character construction, and one on slang). I’ve been more focused on the reading angle because I want to be able to read Chinese media, but I’m starting to realize I shouldn’t neglect the rest because they reinforce one another in better understanding. I’ve already installed pinyin keyboards on both my phone and computers too so I can practice a little, and I’ve noticed that even though I remember a character I often forget the pronunciation so I have trouble typing in pinyin without checking pleco first.
Regarding the erhua thing I actually had read a little about it because I noticed some discrepancies when switching between learning apps and I googled it until I found some discussions on the topic. I’ve picked up a few other similar things the same way. I know it’s not the same or as good as having a real teacher but I think it’s working ok for the basics so far. I’m definitely keen on getting some new materials into the mix though so I’m going to check out everything you listed, I really appreciate it.
I’m probably absolutely absymal at speaking right now, and that’s something I’m guessing won’t really improve without another human being. But I also don’t really feel ready for any of the online cultural exchange chat type things people use to practice yet.