Archive for 'Vocabulary'
Stay in Tone! Posted by sasha on Feb 14, 2011
When it comes to learning Chinese, understanding how to 读 and 写 the thousands upon thousands of 汉字 is obviously the most difficult part of the learning process. However, if you are simply interested in learning how to 说中文, you will probably encounter the most difficulty whilst attempting to learn the four 声调 (shēng diào…
Understanding Measure Words (量词) Posted by Stephen on Jan 1, 2011
When I taught English in China, one of the easiest lectures was on English articles, i.e. the, a and an. However, when discussing the use of “this” 这 and “that” 那， some problems would arise. Some students would say things like: “this the ball is red” or “that a school is where I study”. At…
Axioms and Proverbs (成语） Posted by Stephen on Dec 22, 2010
Here are some very…lets say…unique Chinese proverbs or 成语 (chéng yǔ). See if you can figure them out before you read the English transliteration/translation: 熊瞎子摘苞米，摘一个丢一个 pinyin: xióng xiā zi zhāi bāo mǐ, zhāi yí gè diū yí gè variant: 狗熊掰苞米 (pinyin: gǒu xióng ba bāo mǐ) Literally: Blind bear picks corn, picks one and drops…
Two Very Important Characters Posted by sasha on Sep 27, 2010
大家好, While I was hoping to bring you an exciting new video today, computer problems have made that impossible. Apparently, I have overworked my Mac Book over the last two years, and as such it is currently being repaired. Unfortunately, that leaves me without my beloved Final Cut Pro for the time being, which means…
Some slang (俚语) Posted by Stephen on Sep 16, 2010
As important it is to learn proper grammar, speech patters and writing styles in Chinese, lets face facts, that’s just not how people normally talk. Start a conversation with a cabbie and see how far proper sentence construction and tone pronunciation gets you. Or tell someone you like to “eat tofu” and get yourself laughed…
Some More Review Posted by sasha on Sep 14, 2010
The new semester (学期 – xué qí) has started for schools here in Beijing, and that means this teacher is very busy (很忙 – hěn máng). I’ll be running all over this city, as I’m working at a Korean high school and two Chinese middle schools, in addition to private lessons. This back to school…
A Little Bit of Review Posted by sasha on Sep 4, 2010
Having already posted six videos to the blog, I think it’s best that I take some time to go over the vocabulary and sentence structures that were introduced in said videos. When studying a foreign language, it’s a good idea to go over your classes (复习功课 – fù xí gōng kè) every so often to…