When I first came to China, one of the first phrases I had to learn (much to my embarrassment) was 听不懂 (tīng bu dǒng) . Which, literally translated being ‘listen no understand’ or ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying’. Since then, I’ve learned a few more ways to say that I do (or don’t) understand… Read More
The first thing I asked when I arrived in China over 4 years ago was how to say ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’. I insisted on saying ‘谢谢’ for everything and got upset when people didn’t say it back to me when I held a door or did some other trivial deed. I tried to ask… Read More
It will only take [est_time] to read this post! Videos and audio lessons are brilliant for learning Chinese, especially when you’re on the go. You might already know how to say you already know how to say ‘我喜欢打篮球‘ (wǒ xǐ huan dǎ lán qiú) ‘I like to play basketball’ and really want to get to… Read More
This is the second article in our series of blog posts focusing on specific characters or grammar patterns that can often confuse learners of Chinese. This post focuses on the two bigrams, 认识 (rèn shi) and 知道 (zhī dao). First, let’s take a look at the dictionary definitions of 认识 (rèn shi) and 知道 (zhī… Read More
One of the challenges of learning any language is knowing when to use a new word in the correct context. How do we know how to use them correctly? This is the first post in a series of blog articles aimed at trying to solve some of the issues we have with using Chinese words/characters… Read More
It will only take [est_time] to read this post! “千里之行﹐始于足下” (Qiānlǐ zhī xíng, shǐ yú zú xià) “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step….” – Chinese proverb For most people whose native language is English, learning a language is not only difficult and time-consuming but often not worth the time and… Read More