How do I choose my Chinese name? My name is Navodya

June 23, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

Since your name is Navodya Dissanayaka, I would suggest you take this name as your Chinese name, i.e., 狄雅娜, whose alphabet letters are Di Yana and pronunciation is dí yǎ

Is Lord Buddha called Buddha in Chinese culture or it a different word that is used?

June 23, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

As I understand it, Buddha 佛陀 means 覺者 the enlightened. As far as I know, the Indo-European root is *bheudh, and means to be aware, or to make aware. It

Is Tsang widely used as a romanization for the surname Zang in Mainland China?

June 23, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

No, it is not. Tsang is the Cantonese romanization of the surname 曾, whose Pinyin version is Zeng. When Zang is seen as a surname in mainland China, it refers

Do Chinese have the concept of “ghost story”? What do they call that genre in the Chinese language?

June 18, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

Instead of frightening readers with implacable monsters, Chinese ghost stories tend to use the spirit world (the very concept of “ghost” is rather fluid) to warn of the consequences of

What is the worst simplified Chinese character ever made?

June 16, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

Friends who know me well are aware that I have a bee in my bonnet over a large number of Simplified Chinese Characters that have been made standard, most of

What are the biggest slums in China?

June 16, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

If this is the kind of slum you are talking about, unfortunately, there are none in China. What is associated with slums in China are “urban villages”, or old urban

Is Chinese writing in China inferior to English since English is easier to read and write?

June 16, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

No, English is not necessarily easier to read and write. It only feels that way because you can only read and write English. If you can only read and write

What would a “typo” mean in Chinese, and would a native speaker know what was meant and how the “typo” occurred?

June 11, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

A typo is called 错别字 (cuò bié zì) in Chinese. 错 means “incorrect; wrong” and 别 means “another”. So putting together, a typo in Chinese refers to a character that is written

Is there any language that is harder than Mandarin Chinese, excluding Cantonese?

June 9, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

For adult learners, most languages in the world are harder than Mandarin. The only real challenge when learning Mandarin is tone, and you can get away with getting your tones

How many Chinese characters am I required to know in order to speak in a sophisticated way?

June 6, 2023 0 Comments 0 tags

Characters are for writing, not speaking. I have an acquaintance who is functionally illiterate in Chinese but, according to the Chinese people I’ve asked, he speaks a very fluent, very