In Western culture, we’re often told that we shouldn’t make comparisons because it implies that we’re somehow unsatisfied with the things we have. Still, in reality, we’re constantly using comparisons…
Passive sentences are commonly used in Chinese and can cause confusion for foreign learners who are not accustomed to them. To assist in decoding this unique sentence construction, we will…
Editor`s Notes: The modern Chinese dialects are classified into seven major groups, and Mandarin (普通话) is the e standard foundation language. About two-thirds of Chinese people speak Mandarin as their…
Some days it seems as though the majority of foreigners in China speak amazingly fluent Mandarin. Some days it feels like no one cares about it once they are able…
As a Mandarin teacher, I am always delighted to observe and learn from my students. One thing I have noticed in my interactions with my students is how hard most…
You may not be aware of it, but we read more than we realize. When we see text in our mother tongue, we mentally acknowledge it in our heads –…
When it comes to mastering Mandarin Chinese, learning the nuances of vocabulary is a crucial step towards fluency. One such challenge involves two words that often perplex even advanced learners:…
Chinese characters are beautiful, but there are just so damned many of them. And only very few are true pictographs that actually look like the thing they represent. 人 (rén) is…
As we all know, Chinese uses characters as the basis of its written system. This aspect makes it quite different from most other languages. This characteristic has also become a…