Things Chinese People are Tired of Hearing
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…
Chinese Characters: Are they worth learning? How do I get started?
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…
Confusing Chinese “N” word: 那个(nà ge/ nèi ge)
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…
Why does Chinese have more collective nouns than English?
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…
A how to for “picking up” in Chinese
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…
Basic Verbs that are Different in Chinese and English Part II
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…
Too Much “Too Much!” in Chinese
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…
Secrets of Saying Sorry: “对不起”’s Correct Use
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.”…
How to use “and” in Chinese
No matter which textbooks you use to learn Chinese, the word “and-和(hé)” is always one of the first few words that you learned. It’s not a difficult word, so even…