Chinese Characters with the “walk” Radical
辶 is a very common Chinese radical related to “walking” (走 – zǒu). There are more than 380 characters listed under this radical in the Kangxi Dictionary and most of them…
A Beginner’s Guide to Chinese Question Words and Sentence Structures
As you embark on your journey to learn the Chinese language, you'll quickly realize that asking questions is a fundamental skill that opens the doors to effective communication. While simple…
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…
Beginner Building Blocks: A Comprehensive Overview of Chinese Pronouns
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…
Chinese Characters about Farming and Nature
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…
Master the Art of ‘Picking Up’ in Chinese: Translations You Need to Know!
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…
Chinese Characters for Animals
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…
Tackling the two opposite meanings of 让(ràng)
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…
Review & Fun (1)
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).”…