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…
Pronunciation is the basic part of mastering mandarin Chinese. If you want to learn this language well, it`s necessary to lay a good foundation about Chinese pronunciation at the beginning. No matter which level are you in, making sure your…
If something was originally a certain way, or "should be" a certain way, two words, "本来" (běn lái) and "原来" (yuán lái), are often used in daily Chinese conversation. Sometimes they are interchangeable, but they are also used in different…
If you learn Chinese, you must know the character “把” and its corresponding uses in your first learning session. Besides the common use of 把 sentence, there is another use which is measure word. In modern Chinese language, a number…
Have you ever wondered how much the radical means in Chinese? For example, the “Ice” radical, which contains only two strokes and looks like two drops of water - 冫, has characteristics of what water is like and what it…
Have you ever wondered where idioms come from? Well, being one of the oldest civilizations on our planet today, it is no surprise that the source of many English sayings is China! The Mandarin word for idiom is 成语 and…
One of my favorite Chinese radicals is the bow radical, 弓 (gōng). It is a very elegant character and important for it to be written in the right way. Despite of looking like a complex combination, it actually consists of…
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 have some connection to transportation or the action of walking.…