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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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No Nonsense Newbie Tips: Alternatives to “一点”

By on October 11, 2012 in Beginner Chinese, Chinese Learning Tips, Chinese Vocab 101, No Nonsense Newbie Tips

Continuing our No Nonsense Newbie Tips series, today we look at alternatives to 一点 (yī diǎn).  一点 is a great little word meaning “a little bit” or “somewhat“, and is very flexible in usage.  It can be used before or after the object to indicate degrees either positive or negative.  Its simple utility is enticing. [...]

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No Nonsense Newbie Tips: Four 喜欢 Alternatives

By on September 19, 2012 in Beginner Chinese, Chinese Vocab 101, Intermediate and Advanced Chinese

In this installment of No Nonsense Newbie Tips, we want to help our readers escape the 喜欢 (xǐ huan) rut. Found in chapter 1 of all beginner textbooks, 喜欢 is an easy catch all for anything and everything. 中国菜？ 喜欢。 王老师？ 喜欢。 骑自行车？ 喜欢。 在沙滩上散步？ 也喜欢。 Surely, your favorite hobbies, foods, people, and ideas deserve [...]

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No Nonsense Newbie Tips: Question Particles 吗, 吧, 呢

By on August 27, 2012 in Beginner Chinese, No Nonsense Newbie Tips

One of the pure joys and enduring charms of spoken Chinese is the prevalence of “exclamatory particles”.   These are one syllable, neutral tone words which slip off your tongue at the end of a sentence to add emphasis, soften or stiffen the tone, or indicate a question or command.  They range from grammatically necessary to playful additions [...]

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No Nonsense Newbie Tips: What the Heck is up with 了?

By on August 13, 2012 in Beginner Chinese, Chinese Grammar Tips, No Nonsense Newbie Tips

The mother of all Newbie conundrums: 了 This is one of the simplest of all Chinese particles, one which you probably encountered in Chapter 1 of your textbook. However, after the initial “new word glow” wears off and you get deeper into its usage, you’ll start encountering all these confusing phrases like “resultative complement” and [...]

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No Nonsense Newbie Tips: 会 vs. 能

By on August 4, 2012 in Beginner Chinese, Chinese Grammar Tips, No Nonsense Newbie Tips

After tackling 知道 vs 认识 and 觉得 vs 想, lets continue with a distinction a few readers have written inquiring about: 会 vs. 能. Like “to know” and “to think” before it, “can” or “able” is an English word where translating into Chinese can be tricky depending on the situation. The differences between the two [...]

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