Last year, I put together a little highlight reel of sorts with “10 Great Posts for Beginners” here on the Chinese blog. By following the links in that post, you can: learn about the pinyin system, get an introduction to the tones, learn how to say hello/goodbye, and much more. Seeing as how this blog has been around for quite a while now, I figured it was as good a time as any to make a list more geared towards intermediate learners of Chinese. For those of you who find the beginner stuff to be just a little too easy, try these on for size:

1. Common Chinese Greetings

There’s many more ways to greet someone in Chinese than simply saying 你好. This post and the accompanying video will teach you quite a few different ways to greet someone in Chinese, whether you’re saying hello or goodbye.

2. Tricky Chinese Tones

Once you’ve got the beginner stuff down when it comes to the tones, it’s time to dive a bit deeper. There are lots of rules for changing the tones and it can be a bit confusing at times. I hope to clear the air and help you understand the ins and outs of the tricky Chinese tones with this useful post.

3. Telling Time in Chinese

You won’t get very far in any language without knowing how to tell the time. This post equips you with most of the vocabulary and basic questions/answers you need for telling the time. For more practice, you can go right ahead and check out the advanced time telling post that followed it up.

4. Days, Weeks, Months, and Years in Chinese

Once you’ve got the time down, you should probably learn how to talk about days, weeks, months, and years. This post gives you all the vocab you’ll need for the days of the week and months, and also teaches useful phrases such as “2 weeks ago” and “next year.”

5. Counting in Chinese from 100-1,000

After learning how to count up to 100 from following the guide for beginners, you might as well keep going all the way up to 1,000. This video explains everything and makes it easy for you to get from 100 up to 1,000 in no time.

6. Want vs. Need in Chinese

Just as in English, there’s a big difference between wanting and needing something in the Chinese language. This post is full of useful grammar and vocabulary, so after studying it you should be able to very clearly express both your wants and needs in spoken Chinese.

7. Don’t Go Hungry – How to Order in Chinese

In the beginner series, we introduced 20 Common Chinese Dishes, but those won’t get you very far if you don’t know how to order them in a restaurant. Study this post to learn how to get a table, get the waiter’s attention, make special requests, and everything else you’ll need to ensure you don’t go hungry.

8. Understanding Chinese Names

Foreigners usually have a hard time with Chinese names; I would know, as I’ve been struggling and fumbling with them for over 5 years now! Read this post to learn some of the most common Chinese surnames, how to address people, and even some ideas for choosing your very own Chinese name.

9. How to Talk About Relationships in Chinese

Once you get beyond introducing yourself, you’ll have to introduce the other important people in your life. If you’d like to know how to say words like boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, colleague/boss, and so on, this post is for you.

10. Swear Words in Chinese

Now I’m not encouraging you to go out and start cursing at random people in the street here, but learning the swear words in Chinese is a fun thing to do – after all, you probably hear a lot of them on a daily basis and just don’t know it yet! Learning the bad words is something every language learner wants to do anyways, so I’m throwing you a bone here!