Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
Conversational scenarios, expression techniques, and pronunciation correction exercises—focused on practical Chinese speaking skills
Very common, especially in Beijing Hu Tong (胡同, small alley) culture. Old Beijing (老北京) people ask “吃了吗” (have you eaten yet?) as we say “how are you”. It’s a common casual greeting between friends and neighbors. Food is one of the main theme for all Chinese, regardless rich or poor, regardless of their social status. … Read more
of couse. but I would show you the shi shi shi story again. shī shì shí shì shǐ shí shí shǐ shì shì, shǐ shī, shī shǐ shī shì. Tell me what this Pinyin sentence about ? It means : The lion’s shitting in a stone room while get shoot by arrow, his shit out, … Read more
諺語 諺：(形声。从言, 彦声。本义:谚语) 同本义 [aphorism; proverb; saying; adage] 谚, 传言也。字亦作喭。——《说文》 There is 諺語，成語 and there is 箴言，these are all “sayings” but there are those which are 成語 which are “established“ 成 and there are those 成語 that are 箴 with a pair of watchful eyes above (or those written on 竹)。 What kind of sayings … Read more
It means “What the hell is this?” “这是什么鬼” can be regarded as a short form of “这是什么鬼东西”. The “鬼”, literally means ghost or monster, is used to express one’s surprise on something seemingly unreasonable or embarrassing. “这是什么（东西）” means “What’s this (thing)”, so “这是什么鬼” means “What the hell is this”
I am not a scholar, but on this question I am 100% certain that I am correct. First of all, I am Chinese, deeply familiar with Chinese characters. Secondly, I am also a calligraphy enthusiast—I have truly written tens of thousands of characters with a brush. Before the invention of paper, and after the oracle … Read more
When someone asks what language Chinese people speak? The locals will answer: I speak Beijing (Mandarin_Jurzhen) or Cantonese-Cantonese, Hakka (Hakka-He), Hokkien (Fujian)… Give them a newspaper, everyone can understand the content, but when read aloud, no one can understand each other. When talking to each other, no one can understand each other. But when given … Read more
Fascinating question. Having lived in China for several years, and being married to a Chinese wife, I think my first impulse is to say, “don’t expect to ever fully understand Chinese culture.” Not because they are so hard to understand, but because that thing we call China is a huge place, with a long history, … Read more
Because there is no reason to. Believe it or not, youcanactuallyreadEnglishsentenceswithoutspacesaswell. Ittakessomepractice, butyoushouldbeabletoreadthesesentenceswithoutmuchfussatall. Spaces are not strictly necessary even for alphabet-based languages – for logographic characters that has their own meanings (instead of just representing sounds like alphabets), it’s definitely not needed. Native Chinese speakers definitely don’t have issues reading without spaces. If spaces were introduced, … Read more
Because it is? I studied Russian for three years in high school (Pasadena High, CA), and spent all my time learning declensions and conjugations and endings and all sorts of things. In Chinese, a word is a word is a word. To learn Chinese, you need to learn radically different vocabulary and a very different … Read more
Coming from speaking English, it’s tough that there’s almost no vocabulary overlap. When I learned Spanish as a teenager, most of my vocabulary learning was via making connections to English words. “Bibliotecha” sounds like it has to do with books, so it’s easy to remember that it means library. I didn’t need to rote memorize much to … Read more