Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
People who ask this question don’t seem to know that word spacing is quite a recent invention, and very few ancient scripts had spacing. Some still do not, including alphabets like Arabic. Spacing in the Latin Alphabet wasn’t invented until the Carolingian period (9th century AD). This is also when innovations like punctuation became formalized. … Read more
As a native speaker, I wouldn’t misuse this phrase, but explaining it clearly is not straightforward. “我去” (wǒ qù) is a phrase favored by people from Northern China, especially from Beijing. Literally translated, it means “I go,” a form of symmetrical Chinese phrase that is almost exclusively used by Beijingers. It is akin to saying … Read more
When I first came to China I was 17 years old and ready to embark on the journey of college life. In the beginning, it was very difficult. My plane landed in Beijing and I remember sitting in the bullet train heading from Beijing to Jiangsu province where my university is, there was a young … Read more
I think the word “帅哥” (Handsome guy) and “美女” (pretty girl) are similar to American people using “honey” and “sweetie” to address strangers. They’re socially acceptable casual flattery often used between acquaintance and especially in customer service field. It’s similar to be called honey by the waitress in a diner or a cashier at the … Read more
Yesterday I was waiting for the elevator in the office building with my manager and a few other managers. My manager was excitedly telling me about the bag she wanted to get during the big CNY sales and I was talking about the Clark shoes that caught my fancy that were double the price here … Read more
China adopted the Pinyin system in 1958 as the system for representation of pronunciation tone for Putonghua, which is Mandarin. Prior to this, Mandarin pronunciation symbols were represented by Zhuyin symbols (also known as Bopomofo). The Pinyin system replaces these symbols with Latin alphabets to make the teaching and learning of Mandarin easier as a … Read more
Yes, you are right. I live in Johannesburg and can see more and more people around me learn Chinese language. They have different purposes. Some hope to go to China for more business opportunities, some hope to get jobs in Chinese companies. There are seven Confucius Institutes / Confucius Classrooms in South Africa, teaching Chinese … Read more
Build upon the basic elements that people already taught you. Almost everything can be understood as a combination of elements. 林 – two trees = forest 森 – forest with another tree on top blocking the sunlight = forest, gloomy 休 – person leaning against a tree = to rest 仔 – person and child … Read more
The answer is yes. Chinese, unlike many other language, doesn’t have some names so you can choose. When parents in China named the babies, they will consider the meaning of the name. For example, one of my roommates(a girl) called 胜男. The character ‘胜’ means ‘win’ or ‘exceed’. The character ‘男’ means ‘male’. Her name … Read more
In my experience, no. At least, not compared to learning other languages as a second or other language. Mandarin has no gender, no case, no articles, no inflection, no conjugation or tense, no voice or mood. The grammar is remarkably easy, especially for speakers of English or Romance languages, who will recognize the core subject-verb-object … Read more