Understanding the Investment and Trading Words in Chinese
Not too long ago, you may have seen this photo of a man completely engrossed in the stock market floating around the internet. It’s a spot-on representation of China’s reaction…
The Marvelous World of Chinese Metaphor — When you can’t see the point, and all compasses point north
In my posts, I've touched before on how important it is to approach language as a structure, not as a laundry list. When you learn phrases and sentences, rather than piecemeal words,…
Periodical Quora Q&As Digest about Chinese Learning – April 2015
Do you have inquiries about learning Chinese or about Chinese culture? Here we recommend a website called Quora.com. You can learn ask any question and there will be great answer…
The Chinese Way to Use ‘make’
When I learned English, ‘make’ was a verb, which always confused me. For me, there are too many meanings of ‘make’ and some of them are quite different in Chinese.…
Practical Chinese for Hospital Visits
(AKA The time I broke my elbow in China) No one wants to get sick or have an accident, but it happens – and as a foreigner in China it’s…
Monthly Digest of Chinese Learning – March 2015
There is an abundance of wonderful Chinese learning blogs and articles on the Internet. Sometimes it is just impossible to filter through every single one. Don’t you wish you had…
Why Chinese Idioms Are a Waste of Time
A while back, I asked a Chinese teacher for a letter of recommendation, and received this email in response, written in English: I'll be very glad to write one for…
Essential Phrases for your Online Chinese Class
For most of us, a driving motivation to learn spoken Mandarin is its practical application. During a Chinese class, we typically want to focus on language we can actually use…
Basic Verbs that are Different in Chinese and English
When I learned English, I always made some mistakes which known as ‘Chinglish’ where I would use English in a Chinese way. Now as a Chinese teacher, I know the…