Fans of Chinese and Mandarin
You have to know a little known history. Today’s China was established in 1949, and its founders were Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China. When they founded their country in 1949, the war had been going on for decades and the country was in ruins. They wanted to build this country, but found … Read more
Live in a coercive language environment where only standard putonghua or Mandarin is spoken. You will need at least 2 years to get up to speed, just to get by with the day to day. If you want to speak in a professional capacity, that requires learning the written word, and watching plenty of Chinese … Read more
No, it’s not a bad name. However, in my humble opinion, when people look at this name Huilian, or 慧莲 in Chinese, they would associate it with a Dharma name, or 法号 in Chinese, for a Buddhist nun. Since the first Chinese character, 慧, which could mean wisdom and discernment, is often seen in the … Read more
Both languages have their benefits and drawbacks. English is a phonographic language, more or less. Each letter represents a distinct sound, and words are made up of multiple letters based on their pronunciation. Mind you, the standardization of spelling means that the way a word is written and the way a word is pronounced don’t … Read more
This Chinese character 润, whose Pinyin version is rùn, has multiple meanings in Mandarin. As you mentioned, 润 could mean embellish. So, 润色, which literally means embellishing colors, actually refers to polishing a piece of writing. Apart from this meaning, 润 could mean moisten. So, 雨润万物 could mean that rains moisten a myriad of things. … Read more
The word “worship” is very misleading here because it has religious connotations. The Chinese don’t “worship” their ancestors; they have ceremonies where they pay respect to them. They do not elevate their ancestors to god status, but they recognize that each generation builds on what their ancestors have left them. In the same vein, they … Read more
Technically speaking, most real African people come from Africa came to China to live in the real life here. By real African people I mean they directly come from African countries, not North American, European and Australia citizens of African descendants. By real life I mean they are here to get educations, to do business … Read more
This is a misunderstanding. 圣母 in Chinese internet slang means “A person with the purest virtues and highest sense of honor, a paragon of mankind”, it’s an absolute praise. The slang you want to ask which means a “hypocrite” is 圣母婊. Or a “Virgin Mary Bitch”. The expression is an abbreviation of “操着圣母的心，做着婊子的事” (“Have a … Read more
When Nissan introduced the Bluebird model in Malaysia, the Chinese name picked for advertisement in Chinese language press was 蓝鸟, which literally means Bluebird. However, the name was quietly put aside soon after as Chinese Malaysian started making fun of the name. The pronunciation of 蓝鸟 in Mandarin is Lan Niao, which is fine. However, … Read more
Just like English or it’s presuccessor, the Latin language system, uses prefix to indentify a word. 肉 means meat and in ancient symbolic characters, it was written like this. It is not 2 horizontal strokes like the letter moon but should be like this ⺼. However, later on most people mix the 2 up and … Read more