Tips and Strategies about the Chinese Language and Culture
In the United States, the charming southern accent is all about vowels that get swapped around or changed. I still remember this great game of Catch Phrase where the southern belle mother gave this clue “It’s long and thin” and Continue reading Chinese Southern Charm
A: “Dude! Have you ever wondered if what I see as ‘red’ is the same color that you see as ‘red’?” B: “No dude! It’s scientific. ‘Red’ is just a label for a certain wavelength on the spectrum.” A: “I Continue reading Tone Colors and What Pleco Did with Them
True Story from Yesterday (names changed to save my face) Me: So, are you and Jenny…you know…an “item” now? Tommy: Oh yeah. You didn’t know that? Me: I just heard from Edgar. How long has that been going on? Tommy: Continue reading Better Mandarin Tones Diagram
First of all, let’s just hear what nǎlǐ 哪里 is supposed to sound like when said by a native speaker (excerpt from Chinese 24/7 audio files): (hopefully Firefox users won’t have trouble with these) qù nǎlǐ 去哪里? = Where are Continue reading Why Is Nǎlǐ 哪里 Written Wrong?
Similar to my astonishment at the previously-discussed Chinese proclivity for stating the obvious, I’ve often been struck by how much of what I say in Chinese gets repeated right back at me. At first I was a little annoyed, and Continue reading Parrot People Help My Tones
Chinese words are made up of so few possible syllables that it’s almost hard NOT to rhyme. For example, Wang Lihong has a song called “Can you feel my world” that has the following rhyme scheme: A A A A Continue reading Why Is It So Easy to Rhyme in Mandarin?
A few weeks ago in my English classes, I was doing lightning safety (it was stormy here, ok?). I ended up using the following joke in each class. One of the tips from the students would inevitably be: “Always wear Continue reading Banana Shoes
DISCLAIMER: In case I have a Chinese reader, I should tell you “funnest” isn’t a real word. This post started out innocently enough as a fun way to test the new audio plugin (thanks to Beijing Sounds for the tip) Continue reading Funnest Things to Say
Let’s face it people: Those 4 (actually 5) tones in Mandarin Chinese don’t really play by their own rules. Sure, if Chinese people are saying one word by itself, and if they’re saying it really slowly, then the tone will Continue reading Tone Changes
If you’re writing a lot of pinyin on the computer, and you’re not good with the numbers, you may want to try using something I call “diǎndiào”点调 (dot tone). It uses periods in lieu of tone numbers, like this: dian…diao…. Continue reading Dots for Tones