chinese learners: what’s your strongest skill in chinese? speaking, writing, listening, reading? and weakest?

I’ve always been strong in reading and weak in speaking but I have a friend who’s the complete opposite, so I was wondering about others. 

I found a taiwanese band that has kind of the same vibe as of monsters and men!! or at least, it’s a similar sound to me? 告五人 or accusefive

I first heard of them through the song 爱人错过 ai ren cuo guo, and now I just have all their songs on shuffle hehehe

I love my Chinese tutor so muchhhh

I have lessons with her once a week for two hours, but she always comes late and stays longer than two hours hahaha also we just talk for random stuff (in Chinese of course) for half the time. I feel like we talk like friends sometimes which is really nice hehe

It doesn’t hurt that she gives me food sometimes (: since Chinese New Year is coming up she gave me a pair of oranges from Taiwan (she’s Taiwanese), and they were actually really sweet and juicy??? Also these Taiwanese milk cake things, 牛奶酥饼, which are really nice too

(this post is me procrastinating my homework, if you couldn’t tell, but I do really love my tutor)(not that anyone will see this post since I’m not tagging anything and why would anyone read this??)

我头疼了

我很想躺在床上看书，但是我还得做功课

):

help help help help

what happened to comic sans and kaushan script on google docs???????

I used to like them because most fonts like arial would become heiti font in chinese while they both used to be kaiti, but now it’s weird

kaushan script is now songti like times new roman

but comic sans

.............

look at it!! 

anyways

I’m going to hope that it fixes itself eventually, but until then, I have to make all my google docs that use chinese another font bc I used comic sans and not kaushan script and now everything is gibberish

(does anyone know why? or know how to fix it? if so please tell meeeeee)

量词

measure words/classifiers are really important in chinese, but a lot of beginners people find it hard to remember them and decide when to use different ones.

there are tons of lists out there, but I hope that I can make a collection of common ones here, which I'll probably reblog and add to over time with other more.

个 - probably the first one anyone learns. for people or nouns that don’t have their own measure word. if you don’t know a word’s measure word, go with 个, which might not be exactly correct, but it’s better than foregoing any measure words at all.

条 - for long, narrow, or thin things like fish 鱼, rivers 河, ships 船 (there are a couple other measure words for this too), bedsheets 床单, street 街. also used for some others, like lives 命, news 新闻, plan/scheme 妙计.

只 - for some (usually smaller) animals, dogs and related species 狗, cats and related species 猫, birds and their various species 鸟. also for referring to one of a pair, like hands 手, or eyes 眼睛. also boat 船, which as previously mentioned, has multiple measure words (I’m not sure why either)

张 - for flat or sheetlike objects like paper 纸, beds 床, tables 桌子, mouth 嘴.

位 - for people, usually for those with a title/some sort of honorific, but not always, as it can be used casually as well

名 - the last one (I think) for people. usually the three, 个，位，and 名 are for the most part interchangeable, but honestly, you’ll only really understand when to use each when you encounter it more. for example, at a restaurant, the waitress would ask 几位？I don’t think they’ll ever use 名 or 个, since 位 also means spaces/positions, which makes sense when asking how many seats you need at a table.

I hope this was helpful! Like I said, I’ll add to this in the future.

important notes for anyone learning chinese:

take time on learning the basics! I know you can probably apply this to learning anything but as someone who hears a lot of people speak chinese with no tones and lots of weird pronunciation, I feel the need to say this. 

1. pinyin - there’s also zhuyin, which I never learned, but it serves the same purpose. phonetics differ between languages, so learning the proper pronunciations is very important! I hear people pronounce chu and qu or xu and shu the same even though they’re definitely different sounds. once you learn this, it’s kind of ingrained in you and it’s easier to learn other stuff, so it’s much easier than learning the wrong things and trying to change it later. plus, native speakers are way more likely to understand you (also see tones just below). while native speakers may be able to guess from context your meaning, you might as well look smart!

2. tones - it pains me soo much to hear people talk without tones. a lot of people I know have gone so long without tones and have gotten away with it (since my school doesn’t really push it that much) that when I keep asking them to actually pay attention to tones, they really just can’t learn it. tones change the meaning of a word so so much. chòu means smelly while chǒu means ugly. mā means mother while mà means scold. xié zi is shoes and xiě zì is to write words. it takes a lot of practice and I too mix up my pronunciation a lot (I’m farrr from native by the way), but it’s not something you can brush off.  (cantonese has like... 9 tones.... I’m never going to learn it hahaha but I hear my mom speaking it with my grandma and it sounds hard, so I’m sticking to mandarin’s 4 tones, thank you very much)

3. learn individual characters, not only phrases. even after learning chinese for so long, I do occasionally have this problem too, which is why it’s on this list. it’s easy to look at two characters and learn their meaning. however, if you see one of those characters on its own, do you still know how to say it? does it take a different meaning? what sometimes happens to me is that I’m so used to seeing two characters together that I don’t remember which is pronounced which way. a simple example is 继续, jì xù, continue. 连续, consecutively/successively has xù in it, but what may happen is that you can’t tell if it’s jì or xù, since you’re so used to seeing them together

4. writing characters - I think a lot of people no longer feel the need to learn to write since everything is online and we can just type, but writing will definitely help with character recognition, so I do think it’s still very important! if you’re not in taiwan, learning to write simplified is enough, but I personally have been trying to learn to read traditional characters (though not write them)

repost with any other things that beginners should really really pay attention to in order not to sound/seem like a dumb 外国人!

it’s past qixi but I’m just reposting this just so it’s on this account too

七夕节快乐！

Happy Qixi Festival!

Qixi Festival is the seventh day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, often known as Chinese Valentine’s Day. It originates from the love story of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl (牛郎与织女 niu lang yu zhi nü), also the two stars Altair and Vega.

The Cowherd was a mortal and the Weaver Girl one of seven immortal sisters, a goddess responsible for weaving beautifully coloured clouds. Once, when the seven immortals were exploring the mortal realm, the Cowherd saw them bathing. He fell in love with the Weaver Girl and convinced her to marry him. They loved each other dearly and had two children in the mortal realm.  

When the Goddess Mother found out, she was furious. It was forbidden for those from the immortal realm to be with mortals. She forced the Weaver Girl to return to heaven and her duty of weaving clouds. The Cowherd attempted to find her, going to heaven with their two children, but this only enraged the Goddess Mother further. She pulled out her golden hair pin and slashed a long river between the immortal and mortal realms. This is the Milky Way.

Separated by the river, the lovers can only see each other once every year. Moved by their romance, every magpie flies up to form a bridge and bring the two together on every seventh day of the seventh month, Qixi.

~

Image credit: 狼骑兵考拉的微博

Hi! I ended up deciding to make a new account for chinese learning and tips and stuff like that, so here I am

I actually tried to do this on instagram but I gave up because formatting stuff was too hard and also I feel like it’s easier to get interaction here?? I don’t know, the above was a test post and it did mildly better here than on instagram so....

I’ll see how often I post but who knowsssss

早上好 vs 早安 晚上好 vs 晚安

The translations of 早安 and 早上好 are the same: “good morning”. However, like with many other Chinese terms, differences between and usage of 早安 and 早上好 vary depending on region and preference. 

早上好 (zǎo shàng hǎo):

This is more common in mainland China than other Chinese speaking countries (but even there it depends where you are). Some say that it’s more casual, others will say it’s more formal.

早安 (zǎo ān):

I’ve heard people say that this is more formal and respectful, used by younger generations to greet their elders. However, it is the more commonly used phrase in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore so it doesn’t quite carry the same connotation. 

晚安 (wǎn ān) and 晚上好 (wǎn shàng hǎo):

The difference between 晚安 and 晚上好 is much simpler. 晚安 is “good night”, what you would say as a goodbye before you sleep or part with the other person.  晚上好 is “good evening” and used as a greeting. 

Since 早安 and 早上好 are so interchangeable, you can go ahead and choose whichever you want. Something I quite like about using 早安 and 晚安 is that you don’t only wish someone a “good” morning or night. 安 means “peace”, “safety”, “calm”, which feels much more meaningful than just “good”, in my opinion. I use both, but generally prefer 早安. For “good morning”, there’s also simply 早, which is more casual. Like I said, take your pick!

If there’s something I got wrong or something you want to confirm, please comment and let me know!  (I posted this on insta last week and I’m trying to see which I like better. if tumblr, I might make a new acc too)