China is very attached to its ancient roots, and, as a result, certain cultural practices can be, at the very least, disorienting for foreigners and language learners. Chinese humor is excellent in illustrating this very point!
China is a huge country of 1.4 billion people so it’s inevitable that over centuries various different languages and dialects have evolved. It also shouldn’t be forgotten that people of Chinese origin live in all corners of the Earth. Which language you choose to translate into for the Chinese market will depend on who the translation is for. If you are targeting Chinese people living in Australia or Britain it wouldn’t be feasible to translate your documents into a Chinese language as invariably Chinese people living in these two countries will be able to speak English, depending on how long they have been living in the country.
Every Chinese learner knows that tones are fundamental to speaking like a native. You want to get it right from the very beginning of your Chinese journey, but you might struggle or find it difficult to get it JUST right… Luckily though, steps to improve your tones can be taken at any point in your learning career, so fear not!
In November, ChinesePod celebrated two very different holidays: Singles Day on November 11 in China and Thanksgiving on November 24, a family day in the United States. Even though these holidays have opposite meanings, on both holidays, huge sales and discounts are up for grabs.
During November we will explored the duality of culture and saw where things differ or overlap. We came up with a specially curated list of ‘opposite’ words in Chinese that when combined create new meaning.
You can browse all our FlashCards below.
The team here at ChinesePod just want to give a big shout-out to the people at Mandarin Weekly.
ChinesePod content is often featured in this amazing newsletter, curated for Chinese learners.
There are *lots* of online resources for people learning Chinese, including lots of blogs, videos, and tips. It’s hard to keep track of these all, and even harder to know where to turn to improve your Chinese.).
