Mandarin Weekly #8: March 9th, 2015

Issue #8 of Mandarin Weekly is out.  You can read it here.

You can get Mandarin Weekly delivered to via e-mail each week via the form on the left. You can also subscribe to our Twitter feed.

This week’s topics:

  • Mandarin listening challenge
  • HSK thoughts
  • Blue, black, green, or 青
  • Simple story
  • Mirror words
  • Chinese TV shows
  • Faster, stronger, better
  • Doctor, doctor
  • Similar looking
  • Saying “probably”
  • Suggestions? Complaints?

 

Mandarin Weekly #7: March 2nd, 2015

Issue #7 of Mandarin Weekly is out.  You can read it here.

You can get Mandarin Weekly delivered to via e-mail each week via the form on the left. You can also subscribe to our Twitter feed.

This week’s topics:

  • Kickstarter for OS X Pinyin input
  • Tone theory
  • Big to small
  • Making telephone calls in Chinese
  • Differences between 优点 (yōudiǎn) and 好处 (hǎochù).
  • “Correction brother”
  • How old are you?
  • When do you use 两, and when do you use 二?
  • Getting organized
  • Tom, Dick, and Harry
  • What does 非常 (in such phrases as 非常好) come from?

Suggestions and submissions are warmly welcome, via e-mail at reuven@lerner.co.il or on Twitter at @MandarinWeekly.

Mandarin Weekly #6: February 23rd, 2015

Issue #6 of Mandarin Weekly is out.  You can read it here.

You can get Mandarin Weekly delivered to via e-mail each week via the form on the left. You can also subscribe to our Twitter feed.

This week’s topics:

  • Year of the …
  • Beginner’s guide to the Spring Festival
  • More Spring Festival vocabulary and traditions
  • Resources for improving your Mandarin pronunciation
  • All about the 目 (mù) character and radical:
  • Blessings in disguise
  • Five Chinese sentence structures
  • Animals in Chinese
  • A new song: JJ Lin’s “If only” (可惜没如果)
  • Are Chinese characters really based on pictures?
  • Difference between 别人 and 人家

Suggestions and submissions are warmly welcome, via e-mail at reuven@lerner.co.il or on Twitter at @MandarinWeekly.

Mandarin Weekly #5: February 16th, 2015

Issue #5 of Mandarin Weekly is out.  You can read it here.  Subscribe to our e-mail list via the form on the left, and/or to our Twitter feed.

Among the topics covered this week, gathered from blogs and Q&A forums from around the Web:

  • Spring Festival phrases
  • Hacking Chinese monthly challenge: Pronunciation
  • Working Hard — listening practice
  • Six ways to say “thank you”
  • “Separable verbs” — a misleading and unnecessary concept
  • Funny words in Chinese
  • Phrases for Valentine’s Day
  • Company names in China
  • How do you ask, “What day of the week is that?”
  • How do new characters get added to the language?
  • Knowing your left from your right
  • Starbucks sizes in China
  • What does 马马虎虎 mean?

 

Mandarin Weekly #4

The latest issue of Mandarin Weekly (#4) is out!    You can read it here, or have it delivered via e-mail via the form on this page.

This week’s issue includes  blog posts and answers on the following topics:

  • How to learn Chinese grammar: Sentence patterns, particles and conjunctions
  • So you want to take the HSK? Here are 9 Tips!
  • Another Chinese song to learn from: 王力宏 Wang Leehom《就是現在》”Now Is the Time”
  • Differences between 干,办,做,搞,弄
  • What are some good Mandarin-language TV series for beginners?
  • How to say ‘never’ in Mandarin Chinese?
  • The Mandarin version of “that” in joining clauses or sentences

Suggestions? Feedback? Ideas? Send e-mail to reuven@lerner.co.il, or on Twitter at @MandarinWeekly.

Welcome to Mandarin Weekly!

Mandarin Weekly (每周中文) is a free, weekly newsletter for people learning Mandarin Chinese.  It is curated by Reuven M. Lerner, a student of Mandarin (as well as a Web developer, trainer, and lecturer) who was tired of tracking down lots of blogs, videos, podcasts, and other useful resources for improving his Chinese.

Every week, Mandarin Weekly will provide you with a summary of the latest online resources to improve your Chinese.

Submissions are very warmly encouraged and accepted! You can e-mail Reuven at reuven@lerner.co.il, or on Twitter at @MandarinWeekly.

The first issue of Mandarin Weekly will be published in early 2015.