Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
Conversational scenarios, expression techniques, and pronunciation correction exercises—focused on practical Chinese speaking skills
There is a V sound in some Chinese dialects, such as Hakka. If you listen to northern Chinese speak, sometimes they use a V sound. But as to why there is no V sound in Mandarin, first, languages can be pretty arbitrary. English has words beginning with shr, such as shrapnel, shrink, shroud, and others, … Read more
Grammar is useful for Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, and other highly structured languages, but isn’t really that necessary for Chinese. There are no verb conjugations. A noun is just as happy to be a verb. There are no tenses. What do you need a rigorous study of grammar for? or rather, Who do you need it … Read more
The character “壹” is how the number 1 is written in financial numerals. The financial numerals are still being used today in both China and Taiwan, so it’s not really ancient. To prevent fraud, all numbers on financial instruments and documents like cheques, currency notes, contracts etc must be written in “Upper Case” characters. These … Read more
傻逼 contains two Chinese characters, 傻（Sha）: stupid 逼（Bi）: an insulting word ，that contains female genitalia and the meaning of bastard Exact Translation: stupid bastard. This is a slang word, not an official and written word.
You have to know a little known history. Today’s China was established in 1949, and its founders were Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China. When they founded their country in 1949, the war had been going on for decades and the country was in ruins. They wanted to build this country, but found … Read more
Live in a coercive language environment where only standard putonghua or Mandarin is spoken. You will need at least 2 years to get up to speed, just to get by with the day to day. If you want to speak in a professional capacity, that requires learning the written word, and watching plenty of Chinese … Read more
No, it’s not a bad name. However, in my humble opinion, when people look at this name Huilian, or 慧莲 in Chinese, they would associate it with a Dharma name, or 法号 in Chinese, for a Buddhist nun. Since the first Chinese character, 慧, which could mean wisdom and discernment, is often seen in the … Read more
Both languages have their benefits and drawbacks. English is a phonographic language, more or less. Each letter represents a distinct sound, and words are made up of multiple letters based on their pronunciation. Mind you, the standardization of spelling means that the way a word is written and the way a word is pronounced don’t … Read more
This Chinese character 润, whose Pinyin version is rùn, has multiple meanings in Mandarin. As you mentioned, 润 could mean embellish. So, 润色, which literally means embellishing colors, actually refers to polishing a piece of writing. Apart from this meaning, 润 could mean moisten. So, 雨润万物 could mean that rains moisten a myriad of things. … Read more
The word “worship” is very misleading here because it has religious connotations. The Chinese don’t “worship” their ancestors; they have ceremonies where they pay respect to them. They do not elevate their ancestors to god status, but they recognize that each generation builds on what their ancestors have left them. In the same vein, they … Read more