Laowai Chinese 老外中文

Four Little Stars

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

Happy National Day! guóqìng kuàilè! 国庆快乐! In an attempt to stay topical and current in my English classes leading up to China's liùshí zhōunián guóqìng 六十周年国庆 (and I'm talking zhōusuì 周岁, by the way), I've let the students discuss various related subjects in our class such as what will happen this year to ...

Posted in Word Hog | 6 Comments »

Girly Flowers and Manly Grass

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

"You can't learn the language without learning the culture!"  Sound familiar?  In formal language education there is a movement for calling culture the "fifth skill" (along with: reading, writing, speaking, listening). But what ever does it mean to us learning Chinese? I'm not going to pretend I know the answer.  All ...

Posted in Word Hog | 8 Comments »

Funnest Things to Say

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

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) and celebrate the joy of speaking a foreign language. But ...

Posted in Pronunciation, Tones, Vocabulary, Word Hog | 18 Comments »