Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
chinesespeaking 
If you know Chinese character, you know each character or its component is a picture. The character 天 is 一大。大 is picture of a man，空 could be 穴工。 Those pictures did not come with instructions. No one left us a dictionary that gave us definitive answer to what these pictures are, but there are enough … Read more
IKEA (宜家) all the way. Now this is a hard name for translators to tackle because few people (even in the West) know what the name means. IKEA is actually I-K-E-A, an acronym for Ingvar Kamprad (The founder of IKEA), Elmtaryd (the farm where he grew up), and Agunnaryd (his hometown in Småland) It would be ridiculous to translate all that into a brand … Read more
Quite often you can find a pair of Chinese characters that complement one another, 机器 is one of these. Sometimes you can even switch them around. In this case you can’t. For some reason you can’t use 器机. A 器 is a 机 and 机 is a 器 and in a way they are both … Read more
Before I explain the reason to you, please allow me to show you some fun facts. China the word was originated from Qin dynasty. Cin → Cine → Cina → China Qin dynasty was the first Chinese dynasty which left deep influence to ancient Indians. But in Russian language, China is called Kitay. Why’s that? … Read more
A thousand years ago was the most exciting period of recipes evolution for Chinese food. Most of the Hangzhou cuisine today dates back 1000 years to the Song Dynasty (960-1279). A thousand years ago, the Jurchen invaders conquered northern China and forced the Song court to withdraw to the temporary capital in Hangzhou. There people … Read more
1. Chinese food As we all know, China has a long history and is a great food country. An foreign friend once said that he wanted to try all the food in China for US$5,000. As a result, five years have passed, and he has not yet left Chengdu(It’s only the food of a city). … Read more
For me it must be this character 武（wu 3) majorly means martial art,or Kung Fu ,one of the most famous Chinese cultural symbol for the world. 武 is also related to military or war,like 武器（weapon），武装（arm），武力（force） etc,which is definitely not most people are fond of. However, let’s talk about the writing structure of the character. It … Read more
[In Chinese, tomatoes are called “foreign eggplants/aubergines”] In Taiwan 番茄 fānqié/fanchye “tomato” is often mistakenly written 蕃茄 (with a “grassy plant” radical above the first character). It is not generally known that 番 in this compound means “foreign”: 番茄 literally means “foreign eggplant”. The eggplant (American English)/aubergine (British English) is dark purple with a bit of green … Read more
One very important concept captured by a Chinese character is “ren” or 忍。 This is a very interesting character: it carries the concept of a knife or 刀 held over the heart or 心。Naturally, having a knife held over your heart would be a very uncomfortable situation to say the least. But the character “ren” … Read more
This is a letter written by Mao Zedong 毛澤東 on 1 May 1955 to his colleague Jiang Zhuru 蔣竹如, addressing the topic of pīnyīn 拼音 as a form of written Chinese: The text reads: 竹如兄：二月惠書收讀，甚謝！兄作語文學研究，提出不同意見，我雖未能同意，但辯論總是會有益的。來書已付文字改革委員會研究去了。拼音文字是較便利的一種文字形式。漢字太繁難，目前只作簡化改革，將來總有一天要作根本改革的。此覆，順問教安。毛澤東 一九五五年五月一日。” Translation Dear Zhuru: I have received and read your esteemed letter of last February. Many thanks! Your study of spoken and … Read more