This has been a problem I’ve long wanted to solve:

When someone new arrives in China or wants to start learning Chinese, how can I get all the information and resources to that person in a way that is:

• Concise 
• Organized
• Up-to-date
• Thorough
• Useful

Thanks to NetVibes, I’m finally able to do just that. I have removed my (extremely un-useful) long list of links from my sidebar, and have put everything in that NetVibes page, with its various tabs.

There are still a few things missing, I know. So please email me or leave a comment if you’ve got a favorite resource that’s not listed.

Oh, and if your site or resource is listed, but you hate the image I’ve chosen or have a better suggestion for how it can be listed, please just let me know. I want to respect everyone’s wishes as to how their own brand or product is represented.

Also, I get no revenue from or even information about how many visits the “Learn Chinese” Resource Bank gets. So if you find it useful, I’d also love to know via a comment or email. I have no other way of knowing if anyone has even seen it.

Oh and one last thing, if you think the Resource Bank is worth sharing, I’ve provided some code to do so easily on your own site. (I know it’s still called the “Blog Bank” in the image. I might change that someday. Or better yet, if someone wants to SEND me a better image to use that would be even better!)

• “Blog Bank” Replaces iGoogle Page
• Vote on the Book Title
• Contest: Name the Book I Wrote
• We Are Ready: Beijing Olympics Song
• Sorry for the White out

With the upcoming demise of iGoogle (see image above), I’ve decided to explore better options for what used to be the “Learn Chinese” iGoogle Page. The best new thing I’ve found is NetVibes.

So I’m very happy to announce the release of the “Learn Chinese” Blog Bank (which I’ve translated as  xué zhōngwén bókè kù 学中文博客库).

This is supposed to be your “one stop shopping” place to see all the blogs about learning Chinese, as well as a few daily word feeds, videos, podcasts, and forums. I’m sure I’ve missed some good ones, so please let me know and I’ll add them in.

Share the Good News

Since a lot of us bloggers benefit from being included in this, I hope you’ll promote this on your own website so that more people can use it. If you’d like to do so, just copy this code into a sidebar widget or wherever.

Code:

<a href="http://www.netvibes.com/learnchinese" target="_blank"><img src="http://laowaichinese.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/blogbank-o-300.jpg" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://laowaichinese.net/blog-bank-replaces-igoogle-page.htm" target="_blank"><i>What's this?</i></a> 

Looks like this:

What’s this?

Or a smaller version:

<a href="http://www.netvibes.com/learnchinese" target="_blank"><img src="http://laowaichinese.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/blogbank-o-250.jpg" alt="" /></a><br /><a href="http://laowaichinese.net/blog-bank-replaces-igoogle-page.htm" target="_blank"><i>What's this?</i></a>

Looks like this:

What’s this?

Advantages of NetVibes over iGoogle or Other Aggregators:

1. It’s a web page, so it’s viewable on all devices (there are other readers I like more, but they’re either only for Apple or not for Apple, etc.)
2. I can make tabs (such as “Word of the Day / Lessons” and “Videos / Podcasts”)
3. Any changes I make will “go live” immediately, so the next time you view the “dashboard” (as it’s called) you’ll see the latest version of the Blog Bank. (The iGoogle page was “frozen” in whatever state it was in when you added it to your own iGoogle account.)

Decision-Making Process

I consulted my old iGoogle page as well as sites I know plus  a thorough browsing of China Blog Network’s “Learning Chinese Blogs” category to try to get the most comprehensive listing possible. Again, if I missed you, and you’re still blogging about learning Chinese, please let me know and I’ll add you in.

I removed blogs that hadn’t been updated in 2013 just to try to keep the collection as current as possible. Exceptions were made for a few classic bloggers who might not write that often but I like them and so they got thrown in anyway.

You might have noticed my own blog is in “pole position” at the top. After that, I roughly arranged blogs in order of my own personal preference and also frequency of posting. Blogs that haven’t been updated in a month or so appear farther down than those that have more frequent updates. I do, of course, realize the hypocrisy of putting my own at the top, since I’ll often go months without posting.

Also, I specifically did not include blogs that are only about life / culture in China. I really want this dashboard to be a resource about Chinese language learning.

So if you’ve got any feedback or suggestions for missing resources, please either leave a comment or email me.

• “Learn Chinese” iGoogle Page 2.0
• “Learn Chinese” iGoogle Page Grand Unveiling
• Blog Bank updated to be Resource Bank
• Wanted: Chinese-Learning Blog List
• ShanghaiDaily’s Buzzword

I’ve got two posters on the wall that I use every time we hold class:

1. Tone Combo Chart
2. Pinyin Chart

I’ve also given handouts of the posters.

The Tone Combo Chart is from Paul Condrell. The handout is available here and the poster size image is available by emailing him.

I’ve updated my Pinyin Chart page to include two different handout versions of the chart (a 2-page and a single page) as well as the poster size image that’s on my wall.

• Dots for Tones
• “Blog Bank” Replaces iGoogle Page
• MDBG Online Dictionary – Tutorial
• Blog Bank updated to be Resource Bank
• The Pinyin Wall

As I go through the semester, I’ll be posting the materials that I develop for my classes so that other Chinese teachers in the world (but especially in China) can use them too. Even if you’re not a Chinese teacher, you might find the process interesting.

There are plenty of examples of non-native speakers teaching foreign languages. The entire English department here at the college is full of Chinese teachers giving English instruction. I’ve always held them in such high esteem because it’s hard to teach a language that’s not your own. Now I’m sure I’ll gain an even greater appreciation for what they do every day.

Of course, the big question on my mind these days is: with so many Chinese people all over the place,

Why should I (an American) teach Chinese in China?

I still believe that highly qualified native speakers of Chinese like Yangyang (whom I work with at Yoyo Chinese) do the best job. But she has lots of experience explaining things to English speakers and has figured out what they can understand and what works best. Simply put, there’s a difference between a great speaker of Chinese and a great teacher of Chinese (the same could be said of any skill such as piano playing and piano teaching). Just because the country is full of Chinese speakers, it doesn’t mean they’d be great Chinese teachers. Yangyang and others like her happen to be both.

So what do I bring to the table? It’s certainly not native-level Mandarin. But I offer the following three advantages (in order of importance) that native Chinese teachers may struggle to provide.

1. Sympathy for the Learner

Even the most gifted native Chinese teacher can not honestly say, “I remember when I didn’t understand the tones.” Just like I’ve never been baffled by when to use the past tense in English, native speakers of Chinese have grown up automatically doing lots of things correctly that learners can’t do at first.

As a non-native speaker, I can constantly:

• Give insight into how I mastered various tricky parts of the language (tones, particles, etc.).
• Commiserate about listening comprehension (when I didn’t understand what the taxi driver said and how I dealt with it).
• Tell anecdotes about major and minor gaffs I’ve committed in the language and culture.
• Skip over or spend little time on things that are easy for English-speakers to grasp.

That final point is a new one to me. I’ve found when working with Yangyang that she’ll sometimes want to spend time explaining something in great detail and I’ll say something like, “Actually, this is pretty easy for English speakers to grasp. I think we only need one example and then we can move on.” It doesn’t mean her explanation was bad, just unnecessary because she didn’t know what it’s like to be an English speaker learning Chinese.

2. Confidence Boost

All of the above insights and sympathy I provide can help boost students’ confidence.

But there’s a sort of gestalt effect as well: no matter how discouraged students of Chinese may feel,  standing before them is a real, live, Western-looking lǎowài 老外 speaking Chinese. And he started learning the language when he was 24 years old and can now communicate easily in Mandarin. It’s possible!

Of course, this confidence boost for the students will fade over time (unlike my sympathy for the learners, which is eternal). But it prevents the students’ thinking: “Well she’s Chinese. Of course she can speak the language.” Students may come up with other excuses why their non-native teacher is “special,” but really it just comes down to hard work. Seeing the lǎowài 老外 actually speaking Chinese serves as constant subliminal (and superliminal) proof that you don’t have to be born into the language.

I’ve noticed a related, and bizarre, phenomenon in my English classes. Most Chinese students have some pronunciation problems. Let’s take, for example, not closing their mouths for final /m/ so “some” sounds like “sun.” When I sit down and show them patiently and methodically how the lips must touch to get an /m/ sound, many times they persist in saying /n/ instead. I’ve been quite literally at my wits end in these situations when suddenly a neighboring student explains in exactly the same way what I just said and demonstrates exactly the same thing and voila! Magically, the erstwhile “m”-a-phobe is saying “some” for the first time (perhaps in their life)!

What happened? I can’t say for sure, but I think part of the problem is the thinking that a foreigner speaking English is somehow fundamentally different than another Chinese person speaking English. It’s probably a complex psychological issue. But the point is: the reverse may be true of learners of Chinese who see a Chinese person speaking Mandarin. At least at the initial stages, a non-native teacher can eliminate any doubts as to whether speaking Chinese is possible for the students.

3. Superior Teaching Methodology

As I have already outlined in the second part of the much-discussed post “Gaps in Current Chinese Teaching Materials and Methods“, many traditional methods of teaching Chinese are misguided, at least for Western learners.

Of course, there are many excellent native Chinese teachers who are doing a great job. But I propose they are doing so by not using the traditional methods.

Most native Chinese teachers have grown up in the Chinese education system. It’s no secret that Chinese education emphasizes standardized testing, lecturing, and rote memorization. These are not the best methods to teach a communicative skill like a foreign language.

In addition to the problems with the general education philosophy, the specific traditional approaches to teaching pronunciation, tones, hanzi, vocabulary, and grammar are often inefficient at best and misleading at worst (for example, the idea that the 5th tone is “neutral” and “has no tone” is the traditional wisdom yet is unhelpful and wrong).

It’s probably in this third category of methodology (and also materials) that I’ll be posting most often as I go through the semester. There are already some great materials out there that I’ll be compiling for my students. As I do so, I’ll put them here on this blog for everyone else to use as well.

Limitations of a Non-Native Teacher

Even if I do a great job because of the above listed advantages, there are some things I can’t do that native speakers can:

1. Give a perfect pronunciation model. Even though I’ve been mistaken on the phone for a native speaker of Chinese, after a while (sometimes a very short while) my pronunciation will “give me away” as a non-native speaker. Most often this occurs with tone mistakes (because they’re so hard to keep track of, especially in combination). Native speakers usually will not make pronunciation or tone mistakes (especially if they speak good Mandarin).
2. Say definitely whether grammar or word usage is “wrong.” I often encounter uncertainties as to whether an utterance would be deemed “correct” by a native speaker. When learners make common mistakes, I confidently label them as “incorrect.” But when learners’ produce language that goes beyond the well-trodden path of what I know is definitely correct or incorrect, I have to consult a native speaker. I can call such utterances “uncommon,” but that may be as far as I can go.
3. Produce immediate and unlimited sentence examples. When I teach spoken English, I can give as many examples of correct usage as the students want. And I know all my sentences are correct. Often, students will ask about some English grammar that I’ve never thought about before and I’ll just start filling the board with examples until I see a pattern emerge. Then I can explain the rule. But in Chinese I can’t do that as easily.
4. Translate anything into native Chinese. It’s easy for me to be stumped by the question “How do you say such-and-such in Chinese?” I can probably “get the point across” in Mandarin, but it may not be what a native speaker would say in that situation. Appropriate idioms and expressions for every situation that I may not be familiar with come readily to mind for native speakers .
5. Write anything in Hanzi. My handwriting is woefully beneath my reading level which is way below my speaking level. Native speakers can usually write everything they can read and say. But even native speakers forget how to write infrequent characters, so there’s no way I’ll ever be able to keep up with them.
6. Give vast cultural insights. It’s a good thing I know that calling a girl a “chicken” in Chinese is the same as calling her a prostitute. But what about all that cultural stuff I don’t know? Native speakers can give so many more cultural insights and anecdotes than non-native speakers. (For example, what do the words “snap, crackle, pop” mean to you?)

However, I don’t think those are reasons that I shouldn’t teach Beginning Chinese. My pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar are good enough to teach the basics of Chinese. As for hanzi, I won’t be emphasizing handwriting from day 1 so it won’t be an issue. As for the culture, I’ll share what I know, but I admit I’ll never know as much as a native speaker.

But of course my class does not rule out the students’ contact with native speakers. In fact, I’m going to require it (more on this next time).

• Learning Mandarin in Cantonese Land III: Grammar
• Gaps in Current Chinese Teaching Materials and Methods
• Eavesdropping is Too Hard
• Linguistic Laughingstock-a-phobia
• The Informant

I’m often asked, “Is it harder for you to learn Chinese or for a Chinese person to learn English?” Short answer: I don’t know. It’s tough to say because it involves a lot of opinions and complicated factors. But here’s a fact that cannot be ignored about Chinese:

• There are only 409 possible syllables in Mandarin (see my Pinyin Chart for where I got that number), not including different tones.

Now let’s compare that with English. Chris Barker searched a British English dictionary and found 15,831 different syllables (and he admits that number isn’t 100% accurate). But that’s only unique syllables used in the dictionary. So there are lot’s of other syllables are possible in English (like “foob”) which don’t get counted because there are no words that use them (yet). Just to clarify: “too” and “two” and “to” would still just count as one syllable in that list because it’s about pronunciation not writing.

Not Chinese. 409 syllables. That’s it. That’s all that are allowed. (Which is why it’s so easy to rhyme in Chinese.)

[begin rant]

So who cares? Well, I do. It means that listening comprehension is really hard for me because so many words sound the same in Chinese because they only have 409 “building blocks” to make them. Yes we’ve got words like “too / two / to” and “pair / pare / pear” in English, but the homonym minefield seems to be way more difficult in Chinese. That’s why context (and multi-syllable words count as context) is so important when listening to Chinese. If you have little to no context, accurate listening comprehension becomes virtually impossible.

[end rant]

So here’s the encouraging thing: if you don’t have enough context to understand something, just give up! Don’t be too hard on yourself for not understanding words that fly at you “out of the blue”. Don’t fall for the trap and feel like, “I should have understood that.” No you shouldn’t have. The Chinese people themselves can’t always do it! Let me give you some examples I’ve witnessed.

Story 1: Cash Trap

My English students often ask “How do you say (some Chinese word) in English?” Talk about zero context. They’re sitting there speaking English to each other and BOOM! Chinese syllables flying at my out of the blue. Many times I can figure out the context because we probably have a topic that day in class that gives me a clue. Not so the other day when the topic was “Beggars.”

A student raised his hand and said, “How do you say xianjin in English?” You may notice I’ve omitted the tones from his question. That’s because I wasn’t exactly sure what they were because they came at me so fast. But it didn’t matter. The students around him all chimed in with a unanimous “cash.” He thanked them and the class when on. A few seconds later he raised his hand and said, “Not cash. I mean xianjing.”

The class erupted into confusion. Some students were confirming that indeed “cash” was the word he wanted. Some were saying “trap”. Some were criticizing his Mandarin and not answering his question. And some were asking their neighbors what was going on.

Here are the two words in question:

• xiàn jīn 现金 = cash
• xiàn jǐng 陷阱 = trap

He really did mean “trap,” and wanted to talk about some sort of trick that beggars use to get money. The class, however, when they heard his (rather unclear and fast) Mandarin utterance assumed he must have wanted to say something about the cash beggars get.

Those two words aren’t even minimal pairs, but because the vocab was out of the blue, and the students didn’t have enough context, they guessed wrong.

Story 2: Soon to be Happy

I was listening to two Chinese girls talking about their recent lives. One confided in us that she’d been depressed lately but that she was hoping her mood would improve soon.

The other girl listened and then nodded in support saying only two syllables: “kuàile.”

“Yes,” the first girl continued, “I want to be happy.”

“No, I meant ‘soon’ things will get better,” the second girl said.

Here’s the confusion:

• kuài lè 快乐 = happy
• kuài le 快了 = soon

So that’s the old “Second 4th tone in a row is lower than the first one so it might sound like it’s a 5th tone” trap. It tricked a Chinese girl without enough context. So it can certainly get me.

Story 3: Violent Profits

A student was telling me about her father’s business  She wanted to tell me something that had happened with one of his business partners but didn’t know how to say bào lì in English. I suggested “violent” and she said, “No! Not that bào lì.” I didn’t know what to say then and the conversation came to a halt.

Here’s the problem:

• bào lì 暴力 = violent
• bào lì 暴利 = a windfall of money

I didn’t know the second definition of “bào lì” at the time. But I was actually right: bào lì really does mean violent. It just also means something else.

So here’s the bottom line: it can be very frustrating when you don’t understand Chinese words because they often sound like a bunch of other words. But don’t blame yourself. The Chinese people themselves can’t always do it, so of course we won’t be able to. Don’t fall for the cash… I mean trap of thinking you should always be able to understand everything, even if you’re at a pretty high level with the language.

Just get more context, clarification, or if worst comes to worst, you can use that time-honored tradition of letting them write the hanzi in the air with their finger. Then take a picture of the air-shape with your smart phone and check the dictionary for it. I’m sure, by now, that’s a feature that Plecco offers, right?

• Learning Mandarin in Cantonese Land II: Vowel Shifts
• New Song: Àimèi de Guānxi 暧昧的关系
• Stump the Laowai: wúnài 无奈
• Pinyin Chart
• Linguistic Laughingstock-a-phobia

“The Kindle thing I’m enrolled in allows me to give the Kindle edition of my novel away for up to 5 days every quarter (not the paperback version, sadly). So as soon as I figured out how to do it (yesterday), I decided to fire it up!

So if you, or anyone you know, has a Kindle and wants a free book, please pass the word along. Thanks!”

Ok. Now that I’ve done two book news posts in a row, I promise starting today I’ll begin thinking about intending to consider the possibility of getting some of those draft posts about ACTUAL Chinese language learning ready for blog publication.

• Receive Updates about my Book
• faceless Available for Free Kindle Lending
• Language Learning is Messy I
• Yoyo Chinese – my new job
• Wanted: Chinese-Learning Blog List

Besides various little typo corrections, “real page numbers” (based on the print book), and a new link to this very website, the biggest change is that it is now enrolled in KDP Select which places the book in the Kindle Lending Library. I think you have to be an Amazon Prime member to borrow it, but I’m really not sure how it all works yet.

I enrolled the book in KDP Select at the recommendation of a friend and I’m interested to see exactly what happens next.

Maybe now that we’re on Chūnjié 春节 break I can get to some of those 87 draft posts that have been sitting there wondering if I’ve forgotten about them.

• faceless Kindle Edition Released
• Book in Hand
• Receive Updates about my Book
• Book Printed and for Sale on Amazon Again
• Will Amazon Sell Chinese 24/7?

The approach is brilliant in its simplicity: take authentic Chinese videos from YouTube (movie trailers, news stories, music videos, sit coms, etc.) and provide English, Pinyin, and Hanzi subtitles.

They’re basically answering the question that all non-Chinese speakers have when we see those kinds of videos or watch TV: “What exactly are these people saying anyway?”

And the technology is really easy to use also.

Already Great:

• Free to sign up for full access to all videos and vocab tools (for now).
• Pinyin, Hanzi, and English subtitles for every video, each of which you can turn on/off if you’re smart enough to find that option.
• Videos sorted into 4 levels (Beginner – Advanced).
• Videos tagged with 16 different categories such as “Arts and Entertainment” or “Culture” or “News” or “Movie Trailers”.
• You can subscribe to be notified by email when there’s a new clip in the categories you’re interested in.
• All kinds of vocab lists and study tools that I haven’t really tried because I’m too busy just watching videos.
• The video player itself is awesome:

• If  you hover your mouse over any Chinese it gives you the definition for that word (in this case the idiom: 平白无故 píng bái wú gù).
• The video automatically pauses whenever you hover your mouse over stuff.
• The HUGE gray arrows on the right and left let you advance or rewind the video according to sentences (in other words: go to the next or previous subtitle sentence)

Could be Improved:

Now, I would like to point out that FluentU is in “Beta” so that means we’re supposed to cut them some slack on some of these things. Also, I admit it’s much easier for me to criticize something that someone else made than make it myself. But still, here are a few little suggestions:

• China users Must have “cloak” or proxy because the videos come from YouTube. This is really not FluentU’s fault, but it may present a little problem for learners in China who haven’t sprung for a VPN.
• Player doesn’t fit on my netbook screen (as you see above, if I want to get all the way down to the little white play / pause button at the bottom, I have to chop off the tops of the heads of the people in the video). This could be solved in several easy ways, and I’m sure I’m not the only one with a netbook.
• Very difficult (impossible?) to cut / paste anything. When I wanted to paste “平白无故 píng bái wú gù” from the clip mentioned above, I couldn’t figure out how to do it so I had to just type it myself.
• No Chinese names or info about clips on the site. The website tells me the clip is from “A Chinese Ghost Story” directed by Wilson Yip. But because the written script (and vocabulary, for that matter) is too crazy at the end of the trailer, I had to do my own research to discover its Chinese name (Qiàn nǚ yōu nún 倩女幽魂). Oh wait! Just downloaded the transcript and I see the Chinese name is in there. Can we have it on the site too please?
• Dubious levels. The clip mentioned above is listed as “Difficulty: Elementary”. However, I definitely couldn’t follow what was being said the first time (or second time) I watched it. Look at the first few lines from the video’s transcript (again, typed by myself because copy and paste is locked for the PDF transcript):

1. 你应该知道在兰若寺会碰到什么

nǐ yīnggāi zhīdào zài Lánruò sì huì pèngdào shénme

2.一只千年树妖

yī zhī qiān nián shùyāo

3. 两条好毒的蛇妖

liǎng tiáo hǎo dú de shéyāo

4.还有一大堆数不清的妖精

 háiyǒu yì dà duī shǔbuqīng de yāojīng

Now this may be just me, but there were several factors working against my listening comprehension during those 4 lines.

1. BOOM! Right in with a place name I’ve never heard of (Lanruo temple).
2. Although I knew 妖 yāo (ghosty demon thing), I didn’t realize that tree-ghost, snake-ghost, and the generic 妖精 yāojīng existed, and therefore didn’t understand those on first listen.
3. The narrator is talking at a mile-a-minute (I STILL can’t hear that 会 huì in the first line).
4. Various and sundry other little vocab pitfalls: (“A big pile of countless demons”).

And also look at how many 4-character idioms are used in this 2-minute clip:

1. 一路平安 yí lù píng ān = safe journey
2. 英年早逝 yīng nián zǎo shì = die at an early age
3. 摇尾乞怜 yáo wěi qǐ lián = begging for mercy and pity
4. 死性不改 sǐ xìng bù gǎi = stubborn
5. 平白无故 = for no reason

Seems like a disproportionately high number to me for a “Beginner level” video.  In my opinion, the vocabulary and speed of this clip make it at least Intermediate.

But regardless  of the little kinks they’ve still got to work out, FluentU is still a very cool way to improve listening and vocabulary. I’ll just talk briefly about that.

How to Use FluentU for Listening Practice

Here’s one option:

1. Watch the clip without looking at any subtitles at all and try to understand as much as possible.
2. Read the transcript to get an idea for which words tripped you up.
3. Watch the clip again without looking at the subtitles to see if you can understand more this time (I bet you will).
4. Go slowly through it sentence by sentence reading and watching together, repeat if necessary to get every word.
5. Watch the clip again without subtitles and see if you can understand 100%.

I know that’s a pretty slow way to do it, but my experience has been that understanding every word is the most important part of improving listening. Of course guessing is also a skill, and the above steps are not necessary for practicing guessing. But that’s a different skill than listening comprehension.

How to Use FluentU to Improve Vocabulary

The big question with vocabulary from the dictionary is always: “Do people really use this word… REALLY?!”

The great thing about FluentU vocabulary is that you never need to wonder about that. These are all clips that are taken from the “real world” of Chinese usage. Of course you won’t know how frequently these words are used (for example, the above mentioned “一路平安 yí lù píng ān = safe journey” is, by far, the most useful of those 5 idioms in daily life), but you’ll know they are at least in use especially within the genera of the clip (“News” or “Kung fu movie” or whatever).

I think this is one of the greatest strengths of FluentU: it’s an absolutely reliable source for new vocabulary. As far as I’m concerned, if a word is in a FluentU clip, it’s worth learning.

Thanks to the team at FluentU for providing this awesome resource. Sorry. Got to go watch another clip now.

[special thanks to Alison at teavivre.com for catching my chéngyǔ 成语 typo]

• Reductions: Missing Sounds
• Not banned. hǎo xiāoxi 好消息
• Stuff You Might Be Hearing: On the Bus
• Wanted: Convert Tone Numbers in Microsoft Word
• I’ll be Chewbacca, Hǎo bù hǎo?

I know, I know: I’m a little late. But it was walking around town during the holidays with a friend that inspired to write this post. During the ”Golden Week” festivities I saw no end of sales and special promotions. This seems to be true of most holidays (in the world): a way to celebrate is to go out and flower, flower, FLOWER… oh oops. I mean “SPEND!”

So, following in the footsteps of a previous top 10 hanzi post, I’ve listed the most common and important characters you need to know if you’re a big shopper (which I’m not at all, so I could be totally wrong). Of course, it would be better if we had a proper Chinese Sign Frequency List, but until then this is better than nothing. I shall file this under “Travel” because it could be useful to anyone who’s in China for any period of time. And I know it’s more than 10 characters. It’s just 10 “things” to know.

Here’s a printer-friendly cheat sheet if you want to carry it around.

(requires Adobe Reader, which is available here).

All images courtesy of Google Images searches for the hanzi because I forgot to take my camera that one day I went to the shopping area.

1. 元 yuán = Yuan (Chinese money)

I know it seems like a no-brainer, but you’ve got to be able to recognize all the different stylized versions of it too. They don’t always use the internationals currency symbol ¥. So when you see a sign like the above one, it’ll help do know that three of the six characters are just telling you the price. (The other three at the end, by the way, are 看电影 kàn diànyǐng = watch movie.)

2. 折 zhé = Discount (but it’s weird)

Ok a “zhé” discount is very important to know about because it’s counter-intuitive. As you can see from the picture a “7 zhé” discount is REALLY 30% off. So what it means is: you multiply the original price by 0.7 and THEN you get the new price. I know, very strange. But that’s how it is. So essentially a “zhé” discount is answering: “How many tenths of the original price do I have to pay?” Therefore, a sign that says “8.5 折” would be a 15% discount, or original price * .85 = new price. Weird, I know, but that’s how it works here. By the way, you might see 折扣 zhékòu instead of just 折 zhé. It’s basically the same.

3. 买一送一 mǎi yī sòng yī = Buy one, get one free

Literally “buy 1 give 1,” you’ll see this around a lot during festival time and special promotions. There is also the ol’ “买二送一” which would, of course, be “Buy 2 get 1 free.” By the way, a little grammar aside: How should I say 买二送一? That would be “mǎi èr sōng yī” right? Even though you’re really buying “liǎng gè”  两个 or “liǎng jiàn” 两件, right?

4. 全场 quán chǎng = Whole store

You can see it in the picture above. It’s just good to know that the special is for the whole store. Sometimes there will be a special (and outrageously huge) discount advertised (like maybe even 1 折!) but it’ll only be for one really ugly item and everything else is really expensive.

5. 起 qǐ = And up / Starting at

Here’s a McDonald’s advertisement for dinner time specials. They start at 15 yuan and get more expensive from there. You’ll also see that little 起 after the 折 character which can get a little confusing. If it’s 3 折起 it doesn’t mean “70% discount AND UP!” it means “starting at 70% discount and getting worse from there.” Since the higher the zhé discount gets, the lower the price gets, they start with the best dicount and work “up” from there (which means the price is also working it’s way up, if that makes sense.) If that hurts your head to think about, just forget it and remember: the store will not be giving you the discount you are hoping for. That little rule of thumb should get you through. For you hanzi enthusiasts out there, here’s what the rest of the McDonald’s sign says: 晚餐也超值 / 晚上5至8点晚餐同享超值午餐优惠价.

6. 半价 bàn jià = Half price

Using what we learned above, you can now read that sign: “Whole Store Half Price!” Seems almost too good to be true, right?

7. 第 dì = _st / _nd / _th

8. 件 jiàn = Item / Article

This sign says “第2件半价” dì èr jiàn bàn jià = Second item half price. It’s a 4th-tone bonanza, sounds like you’re shouting and angry, but it’s probably good news. You’ll see that 第 character used a lot. And usually a number is in the middle with 第 as the front bookend and 件 after.

9. 满 mǎn = Filly / Fulfill

10. 减 jiǎn = Subtract

Ok, these are kind of tricky and not really necessary (but I wanted 10 things). This sign: “满99立减35″ mǎn jiǔshí-jiǔ lì jiǎn sǎnshí-wǔ = “Spend (on your total bill) 99 yuan and immediately we’ll subtract 35 yuan.”

Now, I have to admit I’ve never really taken advantage of, nor paid attention to, sales like this. So if I’m not quite right about that “total bill” part, let me know. Confusingly, that 减 jiǎn character for subtract is NOT the same as the 剪 jiǎn character for “cut” NOR the same 简 jiǎn character for “simple.” Just thought I should mention that.

I am admittedly the worst shopper I’ve ever met. So if there are any characters you think are important but I left off my list, please free to leave a comment and let me know.

Happy shopping everyone!

• Chinese Hanzi Adventure Method
• Will Amazon Sell Chinese 24/7?
• Wanted: Chinese Sign Frequency List
• Hanzification of Olympic Names
• Book Update: Proofing done. Book at Printer.

Or is that just me? Oh. Ok.

Well, since I’ve spent more time during the Olympics thinking about prescriptive vs. descriptive linguistics than I have China vs. USA on the medals table, I thought I’d share a little anecdote that perfectly illustrates the need for better (descriptive) materials for learners of Chinese.

(For those of you watching Chinese coverage of the games you might find my Olympics Listening Guide from four years ago helpful and also out of date.)

I’ve watched some of the London 2012 games with two friends: one from England and the other from Taiwan. It was in the semi-finals of one of the swimming races that I discovered my friend from Taiwan didn’t know the Mandarin word I was using for “semi-final.”

What I was saying:

• bàn juésài 半决赛 = semi-final

The word she says:

• fùsài 复赛 = semi-final

Now, a quick click on the hanzi above will show you that BOTH entries appear in the MDBG online dictionary, but here’s my niúròu with the entries: there’s no warning that “bàn juésài” 半决赛 would not be understood in Taiwan.

Now, I don’t blame MDBG specifically. The Oxford Little English-Chinese Dictionary only has “bàn juésài” 半决赛 under “Semi-final” and there’s also no warning that it might not be understood everywhere. What I want is for it to say something like this:

• Semi-final: “bàn juésài” 半决赛 (mainland), fùsài 复赛 (Taiwan)

I know I’m starting to repeat what I’ve already said in the Future for Chinese/English Dictionaries post, but we’ve got a real problem here.

Imagine I suddenly decide I want to get a job in Taipei. I already speak Mandarin to a reasonable level, but I need some materials to tell me ALL the  differences I should expect to run into when I get there. Does this exist? Is there a dictionary of Mandarin Chinese specifically geared toward the variation spoken in Taiwan? I haven’t been able to find it.

Let’s compare for a moment the materials that exist just on Wikipedia for a learner of English who would like to know the difference between American and British English. Most people know about some of the pronunciation differences and the spelling differences (like “color” and “colour”) but there are also differences in grammar and vocabulary that are important.

Overview (including grammar):

• Comparison of American and British English

Vocabulary differences :

• List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom
• List of British words not widely used in the United States
• Lists of words having different meanings in American and British English

Pronunciation differences:

• American and British English pronunciation differences

Even the way I pronounce “semi-final” in English is different from the way my British friends do (I say “semi” so that it rhymes with “my” and the British say it so it rhymes with “me”). But don’t worry. That’s listed here (do a CTL + F search for “semi” to find it quickly).

That is a lot of scholarship and painstaking list making that has been done over many years. Perhaps it’s not completely exhaustive, but it’s probably pretty close.

There are also dictionaries that show regional differences in spelling or vocabulary. For example, look at the (American English) Dictionary.com entry for “aeroplane”. It shows “Chiefly British” and a link to the American word “airplane.” The inverse is true of the Oxford dictionary’s entry for “airplane.”

That’s exactly what we need for Chinese. And we need it all in one resource. A little bit of scholarship has been done regarding Taiwanese Mandarin as we can see in this Wikipedia article as well various other small articles. But these only give a few examples. What we need are exhaustive lists. It would be exhausting for one person to make them, but if we work together online we can do it. That’s what the Olympics is all about!

And just to be clear, I don’t only want the variations listed for Taiwanese Mandarin, but also Canton Mandarin (coming soon on this blog), Beijing Mandarin, Singaporean Mandarin, etc. You name it. And I’d like to see that information go into the dictionaries.

It would also be great if you could get phrase books and dictionaries customized for the  particular region you’ll be interacting with. This is where e-books / apps could really be awesome.

For example, imagine Chinese 24/7 gets made into an e-book (I’ve asked the publisher and it’s just too complicated with tables and graphics to convert it to an e-book right now). But imagine someone could order my book and had the option to order the Taiwan Mandarin version. How awesome would it be if every time “xīngqī” 星期 appears in my book it were automatically replaced with xīngqí (notice the tone of “qi” is 2nd / rising in Taiwanese Mandarin)!?

Or if someone checks the “Northern Mandarin” option all the 儿化 gets added in so “yìdiǎn” 一点 gets automatically replaced with “yìdiǎnr” 一点儿. You must admit that would be cool. (Feel free to steal this idea, make a lot of money, and just give me a little thanks on the website somewhere.)

And it would be great to have an online dictionary linked in with some print-on-demand publisher that could do the same thing. Oh you’re going to Shanghai for a year? No problem just click the “Shanghai Mandarin” option and get your very own English/Chinese dictionary complete with all the Mandarin words they use in Shanghai printed and mailed to you before you leave.

Chinese is such a tough language and there’s nothing more discouraging than spending a lot of time getting the tones and vocabulary for words just right only to find out “That’s not how we say it here.” With the right resources, and a whole online community working together, we could solve that problem. But I’m still not entirely sure where that one, central database is going to be. There’s still much to be done.

• What’s up with Persuade?
• Lenny: Best Paper Dictionary (intermediate)
• Chubby: Best Paper Dictionary (first year)
• Taiwanese “Panda” = “adnaP”
• Northern vs. Southern Vocab