Early in their studies, almost all Chinese learners are taught“有时候”（yǒu shíhou）, which means “Sometimes”. However, when you go deeper into learning Chinese, you’ll find that it cannot be used in all cases. Besides “有时候”, there are other words for “Sometimes”…
In our ‘Practical Chinese Level 1 course’, we studied the grammar structure of ‘是...的 (shì...de)’. In this article, we’re going to elaborate a bit more about it. The ‘是...的 (shì...de)’ combination has the function of emphasizing information. It’s similar to…
Unlike English and some other languages, Chinese doesn’t have a specialized pattern of verb changes to indicate tenses. So how do the Chinese tell the different tenses apart? Well, we usually use time words to express different tenses, and these…
‘好(hǎo)’ in its original definition means ‘good’, and when it’s used as a response or reply, it automatically transforms to mean ‘fine’, ‘sure’ or ‘ok’. Yet, with various words and interjections following ‘好hǎo’, it changes to show different emotions or…
Songs are a great way to learn a new language as well as mandarin Chinese, because through music you can learn words and phrases from the lyrics. What is particularly great about songs is that they make the content stick…
An interjection is an exclamation, especially as a part of speech. An example of an interjection in English would be “Ah!” or “Oh!” Many of you may already know it’s a common phenomenon for Chinese sentences to end with interjections,…
Before we start our topic today on Chinese homophones, let’s first look at the following two sentences: (1)一朵漂亮的花儿。(Yī duǒ piàoliàng de huār. ) (2)他今天花了一百元。(Tā zuátiān huā le yībǎi yuán.) We can see that both of these sentences have“花”, whose meanings…
If you're raising your child to be bilingual in Chinese and you don't have the benefit of living in China, then one fantastic way to practice with your Children would be to read picture books! Not only is this fun…