Is there a reason why Chinese characters are written vertically?
I am not a scholar, but on this question I am 100% certain that I am correct. First of all, I am Chinese, deeply familiar …
What language was used in China during the Shang and Han dynasties?
When someone asks what language Chinese people speak? The locals will answer: I speak Beijing (Mandarin_Jurzhen) or Cantonese-Cantonese, Hakka (Hakka-He), Hokkien (Fujian)… Give them a …
How do I understand Chinese culture?
Fascinating question. Having lived in China for several years, and being married to a Chinese wife, I think my first impulse is to say, “don’t …
Why did the Chinese never adopt word spacing?
Because there is no reason to. Believe it or not, youcanactuallyreadEnglishsentenceswithoutspacesaswell. Ittakessomepractice, butyoushouldbeabletoreadthesesentenceswithoutmuchfussatall. Spaces are not strictly necessary even for alphabet-based languages – for logographic characters …
Why do people claim that the Chinese grammar is easy?
Because it is? I studied Russian for three years in high school (Pasadena High, CA), and spent all my time learning declensions and conjugations and …
What is the most difficult part of learning Mandarin Chinese as an adult beginner from scratch, and what can be done about it?
Coming from speaking English, it’s tough that there’s almost no vocabulary overlap. When I learned Spanish as a teenager, most of my vocabulary learning was via making …
Do the Chinese still make new characters today?
As far as I know, very few. But they do exist. For example, the character “砼” refers to concrete. It consists of the parts “人” …
How does the Pinyin system in Chinese benefit from using a Latin-based alphabet?
In my opinion, it’s useless. Chinese is fundamentally not a phonetic language. What’s called “Hanyu Pinyin,” to me, is a scam. I see Chinese as …
What are some of the easiest and hardest Chinese characters to write?
The easiest Chinese character would be numbers, one → “一“ two → “二” three → “三“ （No, four is not four straight lines.) the hardest …
What is the most effective way to learn Chinese characters?
Let me pour a giant bucket of cold water on this. [[ As a normal adult, you will never learn enough Chinese characters to be …