You are here: Home > 2012 > May

Archive | May, 2012

Top 10 Tweets of May

By on May 31, 2012 in Top 10 Tweets of the Month

Is it already the end of May? It’s already the end of May! Time certainly does fly and that means it’s time for another Top 10 Tweets of the Month via @FluentU. Here at FluentU, we’re all about authentic Chinese language learning materials. We not only provide such material via authentic video content, but we [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Chinese Learner Interview Series: Nathan Cain

By on May 28, 2012 in Chinese Learner Interview Series, Chinese Learner Interviews, Chinese Learning Tips

In the seventh installment of our Chinese Learner Interview Series, we interviewed Nathan Cain of KneeHowdy Chinese. Nathan is a Chinese language learner and missionary with a passion for both. His website, KneeHowdy Chinese is focused on using mnemonics, or memory hooks, to help people learn and remember Chinese vocabulary. When we asked him about the motivation behind [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Chinese Learner Interview Series: Ben Sangree

By on May 22, 2012 in Chinese Learner Interview Series, Chinese Learner Interviews, Chinese Learning Tips

In the sixth installment of our Chinese Learner Interview Series, we interviewed Ben Sangree of InitialView. In his own words, Ben has – studied Chinese for almost 4 years now, almost all while living in China. A few months after graduating college in the U.S., I moved to a city called Huludao in Liaoning Province to [...]

Read full story • Comments { 6 }

Chinese Idiom For Invisible Artist

By on May 17, 2012 in Essential Chengyu

Just a picture of New York city? Look again – there’s been a man in the middle staring at you the whole time! It’s the work of renowned Chinese artist Liu Bolin.  He meticulously paints himself so that he can blend into his surroundings unnoticed. This isn’t your everyday art – you could say it [...]

Read full story • Comments { 3 }

Chengyu for World’s Biggest Parking Lot

By on May 14, 2012 in Essential Chengyu

You probably know Hangzhou for its beautiful and historic West Lake. But if a Chinese netizen has his way, it may also be known for the world’s biggest parking lot. To solve Hangzhou’s traffic problem, Jiang Biao conceived of a parking lot that would be 28 stories high and be able to house 11,200 cars. [...]

Read full story • Comments { 1 }

SRS For the Rest of Us

By on May 10, 2012 in Chinese Learning Tips

Top language learners swear by it. It’s scientifically proven to be the best way to memorize anything. So why hasn’t spaced repetition learning gone mainstream – in language learning and elsewhere? How come people are still studying words in the order they wrote them down in their notebooks? In case you’re unfamiliar with SRS (spaced [...]

Read full story • Comments { 14 }

Chengyu for Chinese-French-Russian-Japanese-sounding-American

By on May 7, 2012 in Essential Chengyu

Here’s a quick tip if you want to get 1.7 milion Youku views in 1 day. Just make a 9 minute video where you imitate 12 different people — with accents ranging from Chinese, French, Russian, Japanese, to American. Worked for an American in China named Mike Sui! We have a chengyu for a chameleon [...]

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Hot on Weibo: Study Hard Or Else…

By on May 3, 2012 in Hot on Weibo

Weibo has been buzzing with a new hashtag that was born after an encounter at the zoo. A zookeeper at the Beijing zoo was cleaning up after the ostriches, and overheard a passing woman telling her son “if you don’t study hard, then you’ll have to do this!” “不好好学习就得干这个！” “bù hǎo hǎo xué xí jiù [...]

Read full story • Comments { 2 }