Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
chinesespeaking 
A few years ago, I had a heated (calm on my part) exchange with a super patriot over whether 聰明 is an adjective. My interlocutor, whom I don’t want to embarrass (name concealed), fervently insisted that 聰明 is a noun and that I should not use Western standards. I provided several examples where 聰明 quite … Read more
There was a joke in China that in a primary school, a Chinese mainlander student and a Chinese Taiwanese student are punished for being naughty. The punishment is for them to transcribe the following sentence (in Chinese obviously) for 100 times. The sentence has the meaning of “A melancholic Taiwanese turtle.” The Taiwanese kid cried … Read more
華人is a term that describes all people that has Chinese heritage,including Taiwanese,Hong Kongniese,some Singaporean and Malaysian,Chinese who immigrated to America,to Europe,to all over the world,but we just use American華人to describe them,which is美籍華裔,etc.One of the most important factor that you can use to determine who is a華人is that they know Chinese,Cantonese,or any other Chinese dialect.However,華人is a … Read more
Yes, let me show you the numbers 1–10 in one-hand gesture. Why these gestures are like that? Gestures of 1–5 are easy to understand, right? How about 6–10? Every single digit in Chinese has its own character, these gestures look like their character. That’s it. The gesture of 10 is not often used because it … Read more
This is a culture misunderstanding or translation miss. In fact, the Chinese dragon and wester dragon are 2 completely different creatures if they do exist. Chinese dragon, or loong 龙 is a symbol of strength, power, fortune…it is said to have alligator’s head, dear’s horns, eagle’s claws, snake’s body, bull’s eyes…a combination of all the … Read more
The literal translation of Chinatown in Mandarin is 中国城. Another commonly used name, 唐人街, literally means Tang People Street. However, the term Chinatown itself may not be politically correct, as it suggests a “country within a country”, or a “colony of China”. In the city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where I live, there is a … Read more
米国 (Beikoku) is an older name for the United States in Japanese. But the origins of 米国 — and the reason it ended up being the “official” name of America in Japanese and not Chinese — is a bit complicated. For starters, it has nothing to do with the original meaning of 米, much like how the … Read more
Some foreigner friends of mine think that Chinese characters are “impossible” to master. What? 50000 characters? The truth is, as other answers have stated, there are only 3500 common characters. As an average Chinese speaker, I had mastered all common Chinese characters before I graduated from primary school, in terms of writing and reading. (You … Read more
To avoid confusing 左/右 as a beginner, I associated the falling fourth tone of 右 yòu / yow and the very last falling stroke of 口 with the meaning “right”: definite, correct and straight to the point. The constantly changing stroke direction of 左 zuǒ / tzuoo is more convoluted (similar to navigating a maze: right, left downward slash, right, down, … Read more
This is an interesting question, from the perspective of non-Mandarin speakers prior to the advent of Modern Standard Chinese. This is a page from the boxing manual《虎鶴雙形拳》Tiger-Crane Boxing written by 林世榮 Lam Sai Wing. Lam was a Cantonese from 南海 Nan Hai, a student of the famed 黃飛鴻 Wong Fei Hung. The years of his life … Read more