Mandarin Weekly #41

大家好! (Hi, everyone!) Welcome to the latest Mandarin Weekly, with yet more links and information for those of us learning Chinese.

Please tell your Chinese teachers, fellow students, and others about this free resource.

To receive Mandarin Weekly in your e-mail inbox every Monday, just use the subscription box on the left side at MandarinWeekly.com.

Identifying and using the water radical

One of the most common radicals in Chinese characters is the “three drops,” or water, radical, appearing on the left side. In this article, Oksana Ermolaeva introduces this radical and shows a number of characters that contain it.

Twitter: @DigMandarin

http://www.digmandarin.com/chinese-characters-learning-the-three-drops-of-water-radical.html

Coffee in China

China is, of course, traditionally assocated with the drinking of tea. But coffee is also becoming popular in China, and you should be prepared with appropriate vocabulary beyond the simple 咖啡 (kā fēi). In this article by Sam Bleakly, we learn how to say all of those complex and fancy types of coffee, such as espresso macchiato, in Chinese.

Twitter: @DigMandarin

http://www.digmandarin.com/mandarin-chinese-coffee-vocabulary-for-the-up-and-coming-chinese-coffee-market.html

Ordering in Chinese restaurants

Why is it sometimes hard to use Chinese to order in Chinese restaurants? Chris from FluentInMandarin.com provides some advice and suggestions on this front.

Twitter: @FluentInMandarin

http://www.fluentinmandarin.com/content/difficult-to-order-in-chinese-in-restaurants-and-make-it-easier/

Understanding simple characters

Chris from FluentInMandarin.com introduces two more characters, 个 (gè) and 国 (guó), which are common in Chinese, comparing how they’re written in simplified and traditional characters, and how they’re written.

Twitter: @FluentInMandarin

http://www.fluentinmandarin.com/content/chinese-character-bites-16/

Hungry ghosts!

Many Westerners think of October as the month in which they celebrate Halloween. China has its own version, known as “Ghost Month,” or the “Hungry Ghost Festival.” In this article, Winnie Lui writes about this festival, including Chinese vocabulary needed to celebrate and understand it.

http://www.fluentu.com/chinese/blog/2015/10/21/chinese-halloween/

Story time: The rich man and the fisherman

A story in simple Chinese — audio, characters, and pinyin — to help you improve your comprehension. If you aren’t sure of the meaning, English translation is provided, as well.

Twitter: @ChineseAtEase

http://chinese-at-ease.com/chinese-story-in-pinyin-rich-man-and-fisherman/

Welcome!

If you’ve ever been to China, you know that stores often blast recordings welcoming you to their store. How do you say “welcome” in Chinese, and how do you use it to welcome someone to your home? In this short article, Will introduces the phrase and breaks it down.

http://learneverydaychinese.com/2015/10/learn-chinese-day-183-welcome/

Common antonyms

It’s often helpful to learn words via opposites (antonyms), and in this post, we get a set of many such verb pairings.

http://www.decodemandarinchinese.com/blog/2015/10/22/very-common-antonyms

The mouth radical

All About Chinese has another chart with Chinese characters whose radical is the mouth.

http://allaboutchinese.tumblr.com/post/131733403173/allaboutchinese-all-about-chineses-%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96%E7%B3%BB%E5%88%97

Traditional or simplified characters?

One of the first things you discover when learning Chinese is that there are two character sets. Which should you learn is up to you, but you’ll almost certainly need to learn to read both, because you’ll encounter both at some point. In this video and blog post, Mark describes the differences between traditional and simplified characters, and how the transformation was made. No matter which type of characters you’re learning, this will help you to identify and understand the others.

https://toshuo.com/2015/is-it-better-to-learn-traditional-or-simplified-characters-first/

 

Verb reduplication

In Chinese, we often use verbs twice. When do we do this, and why?

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/50058-why-chinese-people-often-repeat-the-same-verb-twice/

Indicating lateness

You might have learned that 才 (cái) indicates lateness. How do you use that?

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/50052-adverb-%E6%89%8D/

Using 过 (guò) vs. 了 (le)

Both are used to indicate what we think of as the past tense in English, but they are used differently in Chinese, and understanding that difference is key to fluency. A discussion of when to use each construct.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3pr2v8/difference_between_%E8%BF%87_and_%E4%BA%86/

Getting the most from a class

If you’re taking a course in Chinese, then how can you maximize your learning? Some hints for how you can do more than just participate in class.

http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16321/how-do-i-make-the-most-of-my-chinese-language-course

Going vs. walking

Does the word 走 (zǒu) mean “walk” or “go,” and what does that mean for its use?

http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16314/why-in-some-contexts-does-%E8%B5%B0-mean-walk-but-in-others-go

The third tone

Why is the third tone so hard to remember and say? Some suggestions for how to improve on your pronunciation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3psp0j/mandarin_third_tone_pronunciation_help/

Q&A from a Chinese teacher

Cici, a Chinese teacher, asked the Chinese Language forum on Reddit what questions they had about learning Chinese. The questions, and her answers, were quite illuminating.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3q0gak/i_am_a_chinesemandarin_teacher_and_i_am/

Vacation time

There are several ways to say “vacation” in Chinese. What are the differences bewteen those?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3q07sg/whats_the_difference_between_%E5%BA%A6%E5%81%87_%E5%81%87%E6%9C%9F_and_%E6%94%BE%E5%81%87/

Different ways to remember

Chinese has several verbs for “to remember.” When should you use each one?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3pyxxc/different_words_for_to_remember/

Mandarin Weekly #40, a curated digest of online resources for students of Mandarin Chinese

大家好! (Hi, everyone!) Welcome to the latest Mandarin Weekly, with yet more links and information for those of us learning Chinese.

Please tell your Chinese teachers, fellow students, and others about this free resource. You can use the “share” buttons to do so.

To receive Mandarin Weekly in your e-mail inbox every Monday, just use the subscription box on the left side at MandarinWeekly.com.

Blogs

Non-boring Chinese

Are you always saying that things are 好 (hao, good) or 不好 (bu hao, not good)? Spice up your language a bit with these more interesting descriptions and words:

http://www.fluentu.com/chinese/blog/2015/10/12/useful-chinese-words

Family tree in Chinese

How can you describe various family members in Chinese? It’s not quite as straightforward as in English, because you need to pay attention to age and whether the person is related on your mother’s or father’s side. EChineseLearning.com (Twitter: @ECLSchool) provides a handy chart to learn and remember:

http://www.echineselearning.com/blog/how-to-talk-about-your-family-in-chinese

Always and never

How do we indicate that something is always the case — or never the case? In this posting for Speak Up Chinese (Twitter: @SpeakUpChinese), Sarah Soulié (Twitter: @suxiaoya) write about when and how to use 从来 (cóng lái) and 向来 (xiàng lái):

http://speakupchinese.tumblr.com/post/131162726986/using-%E5%90%91%E6%9D%A5-and-%E4%BB%8E%E6%9D%A5-to-express-always-never

Should you learn Zhuyin?

Like most other students of Chinese, I use Pinyin to learn the pronunciation of characters. There are other systems for writing out the pronunciation, one of which is known as Zhuyin. In this post, John Pasden (Twitter: @sinosplice) describes Zhuyin, and indicates why it might be advantageous to learn it:

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2015/10/15/the-case-for-zhuyin

Don’t be sorry!

One of the first phrases I learned, even before studying Chinese formally, is 对不起 (duì bù qǐ). But as Vera Zhang writes on DigMandarin (Twitter: @DigMandarin), you can’t use it whenever you would say “sorry” in English:

http://www.digmandarin.com/secrets-of-saying-sorry-correct-use.html

Female characters

All About Chinese (Twitter: @AllAboutChinese) lists characters with the 女 (nü) radical:

http://allaboutchinese.tumblr.com/post/131205877186/allaboutchinese-all-about-chineses-%E9%83%A8%E9%A6%96%E7%B3%BB%E5%88%97

Pronunciation beyond the basics

How can you improve your Chinese pronunciation? And how important is it?  This post, by Olle Linge (Twitter: @HackingChinese) provides insights into why we should work on our pronunciation, and some ways in which to do so:

http://www.hackingchinese.com/improving-pronunciation-beyond-the-basics/

Writing characters

Chris from Fluent in Mandarin (Twitter: @FluentInMandarin) is back with even more videos about Chinese characters, and how to write them, as well as a video describing how foreigners can make their Chinese both fluent and native sounding:

Tips for learning Chinese

Chinese often seems like a huge and overwhelming things to learn. Where do you start? What should you concentrate on? Do you need a teacher? Hollie from Written Chinese (Twitter: @WrittenChinese) offers tips from her personal experience:

http://www.writtenchinese.com/whats-the-best-way-to-learn-chinese-some-dos-donts-from-a-student-of-mandarin/

What do Chinese people fear?

An interesting, and somewhat amusing, analysis done by Chinese search company Baidu, this post by Sasha at Transparent (Twitter: @ChineseLanguage) includes some vocabulary describing their fears:

http://blogs.transparent.com/chinese/top-fears-of-chinese-people/

Sheldon’s bad Chinese

Vera Zhang, writing at Tea Break Chinese, uses Sheldon Cooper (from the Big Bang Theory) and his bad Chinese to demonstrate some bad pronunciation habits that students can and should avoid:

http://teabreakchinese.blogspot.com/2015/10/what-can-we-learn-from-sheldon-cooper.html

Q&A

The “r” sound in Mandarin

How should we pronounce the “r” sound, at least as used in Pinyin?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3ozy15/the_r_in_pinyin_conflicting_statements_about/

Using 给

The word 给 (gěi) can be used as the verb “give,” but it can also be used to indicate the person for whom an action is being done. How do you use 给 in these two cases?

http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%E7%BB%99-for-to-give.3084271/

As a result…

When can and should we use 因而 (yīn ér)? It means “as a result,” but it seems to be similar to other words and expressions. Some answers and suggestions:

http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%E5%9B%A0%E6%AD%A4-%E5%9B%A0%E8%80%8C.3084089/

Resources for advanced learners

If you are already at an advanced level of Chinese, what can/should you do to advance your Chinese fluency? People offer a number of suggestions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3oxxdi/intermediate_to_advanced_chinese_learners/

Searching and finding

How do you say that you cannot find something? The answer requires, in part, understanding the difference between 找 (zhǎo) and 找到 (zhǎo dào):

http://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/16259/why-is-%E6%88%91%E6%89%BE%E4%B8%8D%E5%88%B0-correct-and-%E6%88%91%E4%B8%8D%E8%83%BD%E6%89%BE-wrong-which-grammatical-point-am-i-missing

Different ways to read

When you read, you can either 读 (dú) 看 (kàn). What is the difference between them?

http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/%E7%9C%8B-%E8%AF%BB.3083099/

Sunday

How do you say “Sunday” in Chinese? Both 星期天 (xīng qī tiān) and 星期日 (xīng qī rì) appear to be correct, but which is more common?

Mandarin Weekly #39, a curated digest of online resources for students of Mandarin Chinese

大 家好! (Hi, everyone!) Welcome to the latest Mandarin Weekly, with yet more links and information for those of us learning Chinese.
To receive Mandarin Weekly in your e-mail inbox every Monday, just use the subscription box on the left side at MandarinWeekly.com.

Blogs

Common mistakes

What are the most common mistakes that students of Chinese? And what are some good ways to avoid making those mistakes? In this post by Sara Lynn Hua on DigMandarin.com (Twitter: @DigMandarin), we learn about some of the basic mistakes that English speakers make, and how we should think in order to avoid and correct them:

Listening challenge

Olle Linge, at Hacking Chinese (Twitter: @HackingChinese), is back with another challenge, this time having to do with listening. How much Chinese can you listen to, and how much can you improve your listening comprehension? The challenge runs through October 31st, and you can learn more about it here:

Radical lists

The word lists based on radicals continue to come from All About Chinese (Twitter: @AllAboutChinese). This time, they list words containing the following radicals:

The Great Wall

Listen to a slow description of the Great Wall from China In Mind (Twitter: @ChinaInMind), with both Chinese characters and English translation to check yourself:

Chinese foodies

Are you a foodie? Great!  But how would you say that in Chinese? Nemon Yu, writing for Touch Chinese (Twitter: @TouchChinese), offers a number of Chinese phrases that express this basic idea:

Visiting Tiananmen Square

If you’re in Beijing, you’ll want to visit one of the most famous squares in the world. Transparent (Twitter: @ChineseLanguage) provides a guide to Tiananmen Square, along with the vocabulary you’ll need when there:

Writing characters

Chris from Fluent in Mandarin (Twitter: @FluentInMandarin) is back with some more videos about Chinese characters, and how to write them. This is followed by a description of how to analyze and write any character:

How was your break?

Returning from a week spent on vacation, such as China just experienced earlier this month? SpeakUpChinese (Twitter: @SpeakUpChinese) offers vocabulary and phrases you can use for this purpose:

Improving your Chinese via TV

Want to improve your Chinese, while being entertained at the same time? Anna Hui Zhong McMillen, writing on the FluentU blog (Twitter: @FluentU), lists a number of TV shows available online that might be worth watching:

Rare Chinese characters

I’m not sure if I’ll ever encounter any of these characters, but Rita Zhang, writing in DigMandarin (Twitter: @DigMandarin), found a number of them, including one with 56 (!) strokes:
Q&A

Doing and making

Two characters, 做 (zuò) and 幹 (gàn), can both be used to describe “doing” or “making” things. What’s the difference between them, and when should each be used?

Using 所哟的 (suǒ yǒu de)

The term 所哟的 is used to mean “all of” something, but how do you actually use it in writing and speech? A short discussion, including a contrast with 都 (dou):

Eating?  Or eating something?

When, in Chinese, can you use just a verb, and when must you add an object? This discussion sheds some light on the subject, using the verb 吃 (chī ) and the common form of 吃饭 (chī fàn):

Embarrassed to …

How do you say that you’re too embarrassed to do something? A translation question led to a short discussion on the use of how to express embarrassment from an action:

Where are you?

What does the phrase 我这儿 mean? Is it relative to where the person lives, or where they are currently?

Characters with multiple pronunciations

I was rather surprised when my teacher first introduced me to the fact that some characters have more than one sound. It’s clearly not hard enough to learn the characters; now I have to remember the circumstances in which they’re pronounced different ways!
The question of how many such characters exist led to this discussion:

Wake me up!

How do you describe waking up? Chinese has several phrases for this idea:

Mandarin Weekly #38, a curated digest of online resources for students of Mandarin Chinese

大家好! (Hi, everyone!) Welcome to the latest Mandarin Weekly, with yet more links and information for those of us learning Chinese.
Please tell your Chinese teachers, fellow students, and others about this free resource. You can use the “share” buttons to do so.
To receive Mandarin Weekly in your e-mail inbox every Monday, just use the subscription box on the left side at MandarinWeekly.com.

Blogs

Making comparisons
You can use either 比 (bǐ) or 没有 (méi yǒu) to make comparisons between two things. When do you use each of these, and in which circumstances? Hollie, writing at Written Chinese (Twitter: @WrittenChinese), provides some examples:
Tones without tone marks
Learning Chinese means learning the tones. These are generally represented inline with diacritical marks or numbers. In this post, Jamie Rufe, writing at DigMandarin (Twitter: @DigMandarin), describes an alternative method that he believes makes the tones easier to learn and understand:
Right and wrong when learning Chinese
In this article, Olle Linge (Twitter: @HackingChinese) describes something that has happened to me several times already: Different native speakers use different terms, and speak differently. There are multiple “correct” ways to say things, and they depend on a lot of factors. An interesting article, and one to keep in mind when making new mistakes:
Fractions
How do you express fractions in Chinese? NihaoHello (Twitter: @nihaohello) describes the pattern, which is surprisingly straightforward:
Character bites
Chris from Fluent In Mandarin (Twitter: @FluentInMandarin) has started a new series of videos, starting with how to look up characters in a dictionary (a question that many people ask about Chinese), as well as five common characters and their usage:
Emphasis without tones
How do you emphasize things in Chinese, if tones change meaning? A good introduction to this subject from ChinesePod (Twitter: @ChinesePod):
25 useful phrases
Yuting, from ChineseClass101.com (Twitter: @ChineseClass101), introduces 25 basic phrases (often with good humor) that are good to know when you’re learning Chinese:
Hard characters
Some characters are harder than others. But what characters are hardest? Olle Linge (Twitter: @HackingChinese), writing on the Skritter (Twitter: @SkritterHQ) blog, describes some of them:
Euphemisms
All languages and cultures have words that we try to avoid, and for which we have alternative, softer words. Chinese is no exception, and in this article from FluentU (Twitter: @FluentU), we get a large number of such terms:
An Arabian folktale in Chinese
A short, intermediate-level story about two friends in the desert, from Chinese at Ease (Twitter: @ChineseAtEase):

Q&A

是 vs. 是的
You can say either 是 (shì) or 是的 (shì de) to answer a question in the affirmative. What’s the difference between them?
My place
The phrase 在我这儿 (zài wǒ zhè er) commonly means “my house.” Or does it mean, “Where I am now?” A discussion reveals that the answer depends on context:
With
How can we say “with” in Chinese? This discussion describes a few words with this meaning:
Too old?
When it comes to learning Chinese are you over the hill if you start after the age of 30? The consensus seems to be “no,” and many people chimed in on this discussion: