Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
Conversational scenarios, expression techniques, and pronunciation correction exercises—focused on practical Chinese speaking skills
Why do the Chinese RMBs use characters like 壹圆 instead of 一元？ 一 is a simple character, right? Say I borrow Mr W’s pen and give him an IOU which says I owe him 一元。 I leave the IOU with Mr W, of course. No sooner have I left than Mr W takes that pen … Read more
Oh yes, the Koreans invented everything, including the Tamil language. Koreans even rode dinosaurs. They were the very first Chinese, and lived in China, just to confuse people. I know there are some supernationalistic Koreans who make up all sorts of ridiculous claims, and suspect that most Koreans are embarrassed by all that malarkey. If … Read more
What are the differences in use between laowai (老外) and waiguoren (外国人)? Is one of these more pejorative or colloquial? Originally Answered: What are the differences in use between laowai (老外) and waiguoren (外国人)? Waiguoren 外国人 is the standard term for “foreigner” or “foreign national”. In and of itself, waiguoren carries neither a negative nor … Read more
It’s actually not fire, despite what the Shuowen (说文) says and what most native speakers believe. The character has nothing whatsoever to do with a fireplace, a chimney, or fire. Let’s take a look. The following is essentially a summary of the chapter on 黑 in 《说文篆文讹形释例》 by Prof. Tu Chung-kao (杜忠诰). Prof. Tu is … Read more
I was adopted from China. The Chinese name the orphanage gave me is Yuan Xiaosheng, 院小圣。 I understand that naming in China is special, so what exactly does my name mean? 院 Yuan is a rare surname; it’s estimated that only around 5,000 people share this surname in China. The surname only appeared during the … Read more
Why does Taiwan often use the Simplified Character 台 for ‘tái’ instead of the Traditional Character 臺, despite the official policy of using Traditional Characters? Originally Answered: Why does Taiwan often use the simplified character ‘tai’ 台 instead of the traditional character?!!! I asked my Taiwanese friend this once when I kept seeing both 台灣 … Read more
此地无银三百两 literally means: “There is no 300 taels silvers buried here.” The origin of this phrase is a very silly short story. One day, a person named Zhang San found a bag containing 300 taels of silver. He was overjoyed, but he worried about consequences if he immediately spent it. So he buried the silver … Read more
What is the difference between “狗” and “犬”? Most of the answers have already addressed the question. But specifically to the Chinese language, if you want a simpler analogy, then the one I like to use is this: 狗 = dog 犬 = canine A matter of semantics.
What does the Chinese word “我明白” mean in English? It means “I understand”. However, do not confuse this word with 理解， which also means to understand. The thing about Chinese words is that where in English, they use the same word for similar concepts, Chinese has completely different words for them, since these words carry … Read more
Nah, that award would go to the Tangut Script (西夏文), used by the Western Xia dynasty in the 11th century: Tangut script – Wikipedia Here’s an image page from the Wikipedia page. Note that Chinese writing is on the right side, while the Tangut script is one the left side. I mean, look at the … Read more