How hard is Mandarin Chinese?

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In general, Mandarin Chinese is not as difficult or impossible as you might think, but not easy to become fluent in, either. Some reasons that Mandarin Chinese is easier than you think: Pinyin is an intuitive and simple way for English speakers to learn spoken Chinese. It negates the obstacle of written Chinese Verbs are … Read more

If Chinese characters are so difficult, why do people still use them?

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Chinese characters are basically a language of pictures, which contain within them subtle relationships, images, and memories that cannot be captured by alphabetic language. Imagine if all the movies in the world disappeared, and in their place were written summaries and descriptions of those movies. Imagine only being able to “experience” those movies through these written summaries, … Read more

Why do Chinese use “筷” as the character for “chopsticks,” while Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese all use “箸”?

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For most of ancient China, chopsticks were called “箸zhù”(Evidence can be found in a large number of ancient documents), and Chinese neighbors learned this name. Later, due to some customs changes, Chinese people changed their chopsticks to “筷kuài”, while their Asian neighbors still used the old name箸. In some parts of China today, some dialects … Read more

My friend’s name is “Isaiah Lee” and he wants to know if these characters(以賽亞) are appropriate for his Chinese name?

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Well, Isaiah Lee is translated in Chinese as 以赛亚·李. In my humble opinion, if your friend wants to have a name looks and sounds more like a Chinese name, then Li Zeyan, or 李泽彦 in Chinese, could also be an option. 李 is a major surname in Mainland China. The founder of Tang Dynasty, a … Read more

If I memorize traditional Chinese characters, can I understand classical Chinese (漢文/古文)?

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Well, if what you wanted to ask in this question is whether after learning traditional Chinese characters, you could automatically understand Classical Chinese, then the answer is no. Whether you learn simplified Chinese characters or traditional Chinese characters, if you learn want to understand Classical Chinese, you need to first learn and understand vernacular Chinese, … Read more

When did the Chinese words for chemical elements like 氟,鈣, 矽, etc. be created?

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Well, it depends on which chemical elements you refer to. I mean, if you refer to chemical elements that Chinese people already knew before the introduction of the periodic table, for instance, mercury and silver, they were known as 汞 and 银 in Chinese for thousands of years. Of course, apart from these familiar chemical … Read more