Translating “can” into Chinese: 可以 (kě yǐ), 会 (huì) and能 (nénɡ)
As you get a little more confident with learning Chinese, some of the initial problems such as tones, characters and strange pronunciations the mouth seems to refuse to make start…
As you get a little more confident with learning Chinese, some of the initial problems such as tones, characters and strange pronunciations the mouth seems to refuse to make start…
For the majority of Chinese learners, the first greeting they encounter is "你好" (Hello). This initial step reveals that Chinese learners become acquainted with Chinese pronouns sooner than they might…
Agriculture developed very early on in ancient China. Since that time and until very recently, the majority of the population was made up by farmers. Agriculture is still central to…
Stop giggling at the back! When you saw the title, did you think we were diving into the world of dating and romance in Chinese class today? Well, instead we’ll…
In the fifth post of this series we looked at some Chinese words for body parts. This time we’re going to continue our thematic learning with another set of twelve…
This article covers the character 让(ràng), a word with two virtually opposite meanings in Mandarin: to permit; to yieldto make someone do/feel something; to have someone do something. Tackling these…
This week, let’s review some of the characters that we’ve already learnt in previous lessons. To keep it interesting, I have decided to introduce you to “上大人 (shàng dà rén).”…
It has been very cold in Beijing recently, and out on the streets, you might hear some Chinese people saying: “冷死了(lěng sǐ le, I’m freezing).” "死 (sǐ)" literally means “to…
As in many other languages, Chinese has multiple words that each have multiple meanings, also known as polysemy. These polysemantic words convey several concepts at once, and can mean one…