Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Very very rarely. One big problem of inventing new characters nowadays is you cannot type it easily. Different from new English words, which a just …
The Chaoshan (潮汕) region has its own language, Teochew (or Chiuchow) – which isn’t mutually intelligible with Mandarin or Cantonese, actually I find it closer …
Again, China in your imagination is China retold from western perspective. Even as someone a Chinese diaspora in eastern hemisphere, who has growing up through …