Recently, my friend Jenny wrote an article about things foreigners in China are tired of hearing. Can you guess the number one response? “Your Chinese is so good! 你中文真好！ (nǐ zhōngwén zhēn hǎo!)” As the article states, a foreigner need…
As we all know, Chinese uses characters as the basis of its written system. This aspect makes it quite different from most other languages. This characteristic has also become a barrier for westerners to learn Chinese. Some individuals decide not…
In my first year as a high school Chinese teacher in India, I noticed that sometimes my students giggled when I spoke. At first I thought it was my Chinglish and tones. But then one day they asked me: "What…
One of our users recently pointed out that the translation of certain sentences in our app could be more precise. The example pointed to was: "我想喝酒(wǒ xiǎng hē jiǔ)" which had been translated into "I want to drink wine". …
Stop sniggering at the back! When you saw the title, did you think we were learning about how to pick up a man or woman in Chinese class today? We are strictly talking about the Chinese translations of the English…
Although I always know Chinese and English were poles apart, I didn't realize how much simple differences between the two languages could create problems for learners until I started developing the HelloChinese app. Even the tiniest difference can create a…
The idea for this article came when one of our users told us "我怕太多冷(wǒ pà tài duō lěng)" – a phrase that doesn’t make much sense in Chinese. The tricky thing is, when we directly translate "too much" or "too…
If you’ve ever learned even a little Chinese, you probably know the phrase “对不起(duì bù qǐ)”. In most textbooks, “对不起(duì bù qǐ)” is translated to mean “sorry,” or “I’m sorry.” Other books might say it means “Excuse me”. I often…