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Fayin Mess Ups: Buying Babies and Laying Eggs

By on January 17, 2013 in Beginner Chinese, Chinese Learning Tips, Embarrassing Moments, Intermediate and Advanced Chinese

You know that feeling when you say something and as soon as it leaves your mouth, you pause thinking, “wait, that didn’t sound right..” ? You get the feeling that it was wrong because the other person’s response is silence, a confused look or laughter. Well, recently I had a few very funny and awkward [...]

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Chinglish: How Literal Translations Make You Fall Carefully and Go Into Deformed Man Toilets

By on January 16, 2013 in Beginner Chinese, Embarrassing Moments

You know you’ve seen them before.  You can spot these walking by a park or on the way home from a restaurant in China. What are they? Those Chinglish signs! They make you stop, do a double take, and squint your eyes to make sure you’ve read the sign right. You furrow your eyebrows a [...]

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Stuck On Third Wheel Syndrome

By on January 12, 2013 in Beginner Chinese, Chinese Vocab 101, Embarrassing Moments

Is it just me or is it too fast to be seeing red, hearts and teddy bears everywhere? (the abundant chocolate is great though!) I feel like we just got into 2013 but with all the decorations and featured items, Valentine’s Day’s around the corner. To all of you that have gotten that invite out of pity, duty or [...]

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2012: What To Write On Your Tombstone

By on December 18, 2012 in Beginner Chinese, Hot on Weibo, Intermediate and Advanced Chinese, Recommended Reading

The end of the world (世界末日: shì jiè mò rì)  in 2012 has been the buzz lately. Did the Mayans predict right? Since we won’t be around in the next few days, should we just spend what’s left in our savings and go out with a bang? Recently, in China people are talking all about [...]

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Fayin Messups: Dumplings & Big Turkeys

By on November 29, 2012 in Beginner Chinese, Chinese Grammar Tips, Chinese Learning Tips, Embarrassing Moments

We’ve learned not to confuse “soup” for “sugar” or “church” for “caramel” in Chinese from last time’s fayin messups post. From a lot of our language learner interviews, we know that pronunciation is important. Here are some more entertaining stories related to food (since we aren’t done eating despite the Thanksgiving feast) of why!   [...]

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Fayin Mess Ups: No Treats, Just Tricks?!

By on November 2, 2012 in Beginner Chinese, Chinese Grammar Tips, Chinese Learning Tips, Embarrassing Moments

Tones and characters and chengyu, oh my! Pinyin and stroke order and final particles? OH MY!!  There are so many things that can make learning Chinese tricky. One of the main challenges for an English speaker tackling this beast is understanding the different tones and having proper pronunciation (标准发音 －biāo zhǔn fā yīn). Yes, they do [...]

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At a Loss for Words: Top 6 “Aargghh” Words

By on September 21, 2012 in Chinese Vocab Word Lists, Embarrassing Moments, Intermediate and Advanced Chinese

Perplexing language mistakes.  Bewildering cultural chasms.  Head scratching conundrums. Learning Chinese, it can often feel as if you are simply jumping from mortifying moment to puzzling predicament. As dedicated language learners, we all know the feeling of simply being at a loss for words. Great news! You may be at a loss of words, but there [...]

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The “Nibble Old Group” and Other Notable 族s

By on June 2, 2012 in Advanced Chinese Slang, Intermediate and Advanced Chinese

Of course everyone would want free rent, free food, and free transportation…just not if it means living with your parents. We all know the person who is all grown up but still living at home.  This also exists in China, and they have a great phrase describing it. The 啃老族  (kěn lǎo zú) – Nibble [...]

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Hot on Weibo: Award-Winning Study Shows Counting Money Relieves Pain

By on April 24, 2012 in Hot on Weibo

Suffering from back pain? Instead of going to see the doctor, how about going to the ATM to find some money to count? Chinese netizens are buzzing over an award-winning scientific finding by researchers at Zhongshan University that counting money can relieve pain. You can read their comments under the hashtag: #数钱可以缓解疼痛#(shǔ qián kě yǐ huǎn jiě [...]

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Chinese Idiom for a Real-Life Batman

By on April 12, 2012 in Essential Chengyu

You don’t see this every day: A real-life batman in a Lamborghini “Batmobile” pulled over on the highway for not having a valid license plate. Though he hasn’t fully followed the law, you can tell that the police in the video rather like Batman. And you know why: because he’s 与众不同 (yǔ zhòng bù tóng). 与众不同 [...]

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