Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
Conversational scenarios, expression techniques, and pronunciation correction exercises—focused on practical Chinese speaking skills
In early 21st century, there was a cartoon TV series named Big head son and small head dad. The TV show translated into Chinese is 大头儿子小头爸爸, very hot at that time. One set of the cartoons showed that, uncle wang, a big head body too, pick the big head son up, and big head son said “Hello … Read more
守宮砂 is basically a virginity mark. It is occult witch doctor nonsense, but I do know the legend about how it was done. “A lizard, sometimes referred to by its other name 守宮 (palace guardian), was raised with a diet containing cinnabar. Eventually, the lizard will turn red. The lizard is then killed and ground to a … Read more
Wai Guo Ren is the formal, written form to describe a person with a nationality other than China. Lao Wai is a oral term to call them. Above photo is the sample of Chinese PR ID. Although the English part says “foreign”, the Chinese part clearly says “外国人/Foreigner”. To understand what exactly 老外/Laowai means, I … Read more
Very good question, but my answer will probably be a disappointment. Sometimes the answer for an interesting question is actually quite mundane. First, let’s take a look at these Inscribed Board found on the top side of doors in the Forbidden City Notice the character 门/門 was written without a tick at the bottom right? … Read more
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