Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
Conversational scenarios, expression techniques, and pronunciation correction exercises—focused on practical Chinese speaking skills
Pure ignorance by those who abuses position of power. A mimickery of another culture. Very childish, juvenile and idiotic. Very offensive. Even if an innocuous version of the phrase exists, it does not whitewash the intent of those who utter it out of ill-intent. So, aside from curiosity, it’s poor taste. It can come in … Read more
I don’t quite understand your question. First, let me explain my viewpoint: English is my native language, Mandarin has been my first language for most of my life. Here is what I know of pinyin. K sounds, such as in the English word kick, are spelled with K: 口扣寬 kou, kou, kuan, and so forth. Q … Read more
I speak Cantonese, Vietnamese, and Mandarin. I also did research in this matter and I will share with you some facts. Cantonese is considered an older dialect in Chinese branch, and Vietnamese have many Chinese loanwords, aka ‘Han Nom’. Those Chinese loanwords are somewhat pronounced exactly the same as Cantonese. Eg: 人 is ‘nhân’ (in … Read more
Chen Yu Luo Yan (沉鱼落雁) is a famous Chinese idiom. 沉鱼落雁 (chén yú luò yàn): Makes the fish sink and wild geese fall The idiom describes the magical beauty of women. In particular, the idiom is related to Xi Shi (西施), and Wang Zhaojun (王昭君), two of The Four Beauties of ancient China (四大美女). Chen … Read more
波蘭 (Traditional Chin. characters) / 波兰 (Simplified Chin. characters) bōlán / bolan is a syllable by syllable rendition of “Poland”. Nobody pays attention to the meaning of the individual characters: they are commonly used to stand for foreign syllables. Thus, 斯里蘭卡 Sīlǐlánkǎ / Syliilankaa stands for Sri Lanka, and 約翰·蘭波 Yuēhàn·Lán bō = John Rambo. (1) The “b” in bō / … Read more
Here are two screenshots of 奶奶 and 姥姥 from the dictionary, Dictionary of Modern Chinese, or 现代汉语词典 in Chinese, published by the Commercial Press, or 商务印书馆 in Chinese. As you can see, 奶奶 could mean the paternal grandmother. It could also refer to elder women whose ages could be those of the grandmothers. In the … Read more
I have a young daughter in Kindergarten. I speak English to her. My wife speaks Chinese to her. She speaks fluent Baby-Chinese, and completely understands my English. However, the only time that she uses English is when she is MAD. When she is angry, that is when she spouts off in English. And lordy, it’s … Read more
“1“ being pronounced as “yao” (幺) is a military number variant. It became popular and used by civilians. It is similar to the military alphabet for English and other languages and served a similar function. when using military codes, people often choose a word to pronounce a letter, so there’s no misunderstanding when the connection … Read more
Either “早上好” or “早安” is a translation of “good morning”. However, we rarely speak or write like that in daily life. If you would like to know something more “Chinese”, see next. “好” has many means as other Chinese words have. One of them is equal to “good” in English. Maybe you can use one’s … Read more
I have been learning Mandarin Chinese for 2 years, and although my speaking, reading and writing skills have developed well, my listening ability is still poor and very basic. How can I improve this? If you have learned Chinese for 2 years, you should be able to understand these sentences. What I want to say … Read more