As you start to build a wider vocabulary in Chinese, you’re bound to encounter words that share the same general translation in English but have widely different nuances in meaning…
A huge bulk of the words in Chinese are compound words, consisting of two or more characters put together. Even if you’re already aware of the fact that Chinese characters…
A real question many Chinese learners will encounter early is how to express future events. In Chinese, we have a series of time words to address that: “将来”(jiānglái), “未来”(wèilái), “以后”(yǐhòu)…
You may have hit a wall in the study of Function words in Chinese. Maybe you have mastered Function words like “着”, “了”, “过”, but the next step is to…
Background: Andrea learned Chinese as an adult and is now a non-native Chinese teacher with five years’ experience in high school teaching. She is a native English speaker with a…
Learning a second language from an early age is incredibly valuable, so if you have decided to educate your children in Mandarin as a second language, there are some key…
The Chinese language is rich with a variety of directional verbs that add depth and nuance to everyday conversations. Among these, 起来 (qǐlái) and 下去 (xiàqu) are two commonly used…
What is a Chinese idiom/Chéngyǔ? Briefly speaking, Chengyu (成语, Chéngyǔ) are Chinese idioms that are normally made up of four Chinese characters. Chengyu are usually handed down from way back…
If you’re learning Chinese, you might have come across two words that both mean “always”: 总是(zǒngshì) and 一直(yīzhí). While these two words share a similar meaning, they are not interchangeable…