Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
Conversational scenarios, expression techniques, and pronunciation correction exercises—focused on practical Chinese speaking skills
There is no doubt that the character “王” (Wang) originated from the pictograph of an axe. This is a large axe from the Shang Dynasty, and I even suspect that the middle part, resembling a human nose, is the origin of the character “王.” Here is the character “王” from the late Shang Dynasty inscriptions; … Read more
To be honest? I think you are making this difficult for yourself. You say the vocabulary is complex. In what way? I don’t know what your native language is. My native language is English, so for me, French and Russian vocabulary were easier to pick up because the languages are related. Automobile, automobile, автомобиль; theater, … Read more
It is easy and very flexible. There are many ways to avoid such bad situation. I just take 2 usual solutions. 1st, use other words to instead. Different from English, Chinese character/hanzi have lots of similar words to instead. For example, if we say agree with your idea , we can say : 对，好，善，理当如此，甚妥，当然，妙，可以，有道理，etc. When … Read more
I thought the order of the strokes of Chinese characters were easy- A horizontal stroke before a vertical one; A left-falling one before a right-falling one: Top-down; Left-right; out-in… You know, elementary school stuff. Until one day my elementary-schooler daughter gave me a test which her teacher gave her class. Something like this: My score … Read more
Well, since your name is Diana Costa Paiva, I recommend you choose Bai Yana, or 白雅娜 in Chinese, as your Chinese name. 白 is a commonly seen Chinese surname. There are lots of people sharing this surname, for instance, Bai Lu, or 白鹿 in Chinese, an actress from mainland China, and Bai Bing, or 白冰 … Read more
People who ask this question don’t seem to know that word spacing is quite a recent invention, and very few ancient scripts had spacing. Some still do not, including alphabets like Arabic. Spacing in the Latin Alphabet wasn’t invented until the Carolingian period (9th century AD). This is also when innovations like punctuation became formalized. … Read more
As a native speaker, I wouldn’t misuse this phrase, but explaining it clearly is not straightforward. “我去” (wǒ qù) is a phrase favored by people from Northern China, especially from Beijing. Literally translated, it means “I go,” a form of symmetrical Chinese phrase that is almost exclusively used by Beijingers. It is akin to saying … Read more
When I first came to China I was 17 years old and ready to embark on the journey of college life. In the beginning, it was very difficult. My plane landed in Beijing and I remember sitting in the bullet train heading from Beijing to Jiangsu province where my university is, there was a young … Read more
I think the word “帅哥” (Handsome guy) and “美女” (pretty girl) are similar to American people using “honey” and “sweetie” to address strangers. They’re socially acceptable casual flattery often used between acquaintance and especially in customer service field. It’s similar to be called honey by the waitress in a diner or a cashier at the … Read more
Yesterday I was waiting for the elevator in the office building with my manager and a few other managers. My manager was excitedly telling me about the bag she wanted to get during the big CNY sales and I was talking about the Clark shoes that caught my fancy that were double the price here … Read more