Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
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 …
Chinese writing evolved. It started out as pictures. Sometimes they used images to represent ideas; even in today’s writing, you can see that 大 is …
Because of Zhou Youguang and his team. Chinese, of course, has its own script distinct from the Roman alphabet. And like many languages, it uses …
Linguists divide Chinese into about ten varieties that are not mutually intelligible, although some count with fewer and some with many more. They are not “dialects”, they …
Unfortunately, I do not. I’ve had over three years of Mandarin lessons because I assumed it would enable me to better communicate with Chinese people. …