Chinese Idioms Collection about Particular Talent
Since the Chinese language and culture have been around for so long, there is a rich history. This is particularly true when studying chengyu, a four part Chinese idioms that…
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…
Freezing “to death?” – Adjective/Verb+死+了
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…
How to tell 另外(lìng wài) and 另(lìng) apart!
Once your Chinese learning reaches an intermediate level, you may find that you have some difficulty with synonyms. Most Chinese learners wonder if these synonyms are interchangeable, or wonder which…
3 Sets of Similar Chinese Words…or are they?
Chinese is a rich language with a vast vocabulary - every nuance of a given concept or object is expressed by its own word. This can get confusing, as there…
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,…
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.…
The Doorknob Theory of Chinese
A few years back, Nicholas Kristof wrote a New York Times column about the Peace Corps that might have gone unnoticed—as much as a Nicholas Kristof column can go unnoticed—if…
Dig Mandarin’s Book of the Month: Cheng & Tsui’s “Strive for a 5-AP Chinese Practice Tests”
Following up on last’s month article, we continue with this month’s edition of “ DigMandarin’s Book Of The Month”, brought to you by the publisher of “Integrated Chinese”— Cheng &Tsui’s…