#mandarin chinese

[ayin-me-yesh]

In light of Duolingo laying off its translators, here are my favourite language apps (primarily for Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and te reo Māori).

Multiple Languages

Anki is a flashcard programme and app that's not exclusively for languages. While making your own decks is ideal, you can also download shared decks for most languages.

If you're learning Japanese, specifically, Seth Clydesdale has websites for practicing alongside Genki's 2nd or 3rd editions, and he also provides his own shared Anki decks for Genki.

And if you're learning te reo Māori, specifically, here's a guide on how to make your own deck.

TOFU Learn is an app for learning vocabulary that's very similar to Anki. However, it has particularly excellent shared decks for East Asian languages. I've used it extensively for practicing 汉字. Additionally, if you're learning te reo Māori, there's a shared deck of vocabulary from Māori Made Easy!

Mandarin Chinese

Hello Chinese is a fantastic app for people at the HSK 1-4 levels. While there's a paid version, the only thing paying unlocks is access to podcast lessons, which imo are not really necessary. Without paying you still have access to all the gamified lessons which are laid out much like Duolingo's lessons. However, unlike Duolingo, Hello Chinese actually teaches grammar directly, properly teaches 汉字, and includes native audio practice.

Japanese

Renshuu is a website and app for learning and practicing Japanese. The vast majority of its content is available for free. There's also a Discord community where you can practice alongside others.

Kanji Dojo is a free and open source app for learning and practicing the stroke order of kanji. You can learn progressively by JLPT level or by Japanese grades. There's also the option to learn and practice kana stroke order as well.

[linghxr]

10 movies I watched in Chinese class

This post is the unofficial sequel to 10 iconic Mandopop songs from Chinese class. No one asked for it, but I watched to chronicle what I could remember before more fades from my memory! I saw these movies in Chinese class in high school and college, and I had to do some sleuthing to find some names.

The synopses are from IMDb, revised by me. I put links to watch for free on YouTube when I was able to find one, but they might not work in your country.

1. 《和你在一起》 Together (2002) A violin prodigy and his father travel to Beijing, where the father seeks the means to his son's success while the son struggles to accept the path laid before him.

Watch on YouTube

2. 《谁的青春不迷茫》 Yesterday Once More (2016) Lin Tianjiao, the top student in her class, is struggling to cope under intense academic pressure. After she is nearly caught cheating on a test, she befriends Gao Xiang, a free-spirited slacker.

Watch on YouTube

3. 《活着》 To Live (1994) Based on the novel by Yu Hua, four generations of the once-wealthy Xu family experience the difficult changes of the Chinese Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution.

Watch on YouTube

4. 《喜宴》 The Wedding Banquet (1993) To satisfy his parents, Gao Wai-Tung, a gay man in a fulfilling relationship with his partner Simon, marries his female tenant Wei-Wei. Things get out of hand when his parents come to visit.

5. 《饮食男女》 Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) A widowed chef lives with his three grown daughters, who each experience ups and downs in their lives and romantic relationships as they leave the family home.

Watch on YouTube

6. 《哑孩儿》 Dumb Child* (2016) After graduating from college, Fang Yan takes a job as a teacher in a rural area of China. There she meets a young girl named Yaya who doesn't attend school due to her hearing impairment.

Watch on YouTube

*Dumb as in mute. It's not a great English name...

7. 《重返20岁》 20 Once Again/Miss Granny (2015) A 70-year old woman living unhappily with her son's family is magically transformed into her 20-year-old self. She befriends her grandson and decides to fulfill the dreams of her youth.

Watch on YouTube

8. 《北京爱情故事》 Beijing Love Story (2014) Different generations look at love, romance, and commitment, all from a uniquely Beijing perspective. All 5 couples and stories are intertwined a la Love Actually.

9. 《蓝风筝》 The Blue Kite (1993) The lives of a Beijing family throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as they experience the impact of the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution.

Watch on YouTube

10. 《青春派》 Young Style (2013) Struggling with romantic woes after his plan to confess to his crush goes awry, Ju Ran fails the college entrance exam (gaokao) and is forced to repeat his last year of high school.

Watch on YouTube

[manybackflips]

Me leaving the function after releasing the 57 parrots who I taught to sing the entire Old Testament in Mandarin Chinese

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

The 然's

突然，虽然，忽然. and the other 然's can often get mixed up, so here's a quick explanation of some of the most common ones!

突然 (Túrán): This means suddenly or unexpectedly

居然 (Jūrán): This kind of means suddenly, but more in the sense of "surprisingly" or to suggest disbelief at something that happened.

忽然 (Hūrán): This also means suddenly or unexpectedly, but it has a more stronger connotation.

既然 (Jìrán): This is a conjunction meaning "since" or "now that"

既然the weather is great, let's go out!

既然 you aren't busy, let's go watch a movie.

不然 (Bùrán): This means "otherwise" or "or else";

You should study, 不然 you won't do well on the exam.

虽然 (Suīrán): This means although or even though.

虽然 I'm not good at singing, I still like to go to the karaoke.

当然 (Dāngrán): 当然 means certainly or definitely and can be used as a reply:

Can you help me with A? 当然!

自然 (Zìrán): This can mean nature or naturally.

China's 自然 is very beautiful.

She speaks Chinese 得很自然.

仍然 (Réngrán): This can mean "still" or "yet".

I仍然 haven't read that book.

依然 (Yīrán): Similar to 仍然, this also means still" or "yet" but it's usually used in more formal and literary works, whereas 仍然 is more often used in spoken language.

果然 (Guǒrán): 果然 can be used to mean "indeed" or "as expected"

This movie is 果然 interesting.

竟然 (Jìngrán): This is an adverb used to suggest surprise or something unexpected.

He竟然forgot her birthday.

显然 (Xiǎnrán): This means "clearly" or "obviously".

This soup 显然 hot.

偶然 (Ǒurán): This means "accidentally" or "by chance".

We 偶然 met at the same cafe.

How many other 然's do you know about? Drop a comment!

[zhuzhudushu]

Learning Chinese from Spam Texts

I got a very amusing spam text in Chinese this morning, so naturally I have to turn it into a vocabulary lesson.

生活洋溢甜蜜温馨，周末愉快，今天有什么安排呢？ 看你没有回信息，你是在忙还是没有收到我的信息呢？

新词 Vocab:

洋溢 / yáng yì / brimming with

甜蜜 / tián mì / sweet

温馨 / wēn xīn / soft, fragrant and warm

愉快 / yú kuài / happy, pleasant, cheery

安排 / ān pái / plan or arrangements; to plan or arrange

信息 / xìn xī / text message; information

收到 / shòu dào / to receive

翻译 Translation:

Life is brimming with sweetness and warmth, happy weekend, what plans do you have today? I see you haven't replied to my message, are you busy or have you not received my message?

[indigostudies]

i haven't seen anyone talk about it before, but there's a site called 21st Century Chinese Poetry that has a massive collection of contemporary chinese poetry, including english translations thereof, for anyone who, like me, is interested in poetry but may feel a bit intimidated by the more literary nature of classical poetry. currently, they have poetry from between 2000-2021, and i, personally, have rather enjoyed poking around the site.

[neristudy]

Oh, I forgot to share! I managed to get myself a thing that makes little holes in paper (I literally forgot the word, haha, and in my native tongue it's literally "a hole maker" xD) and well, why is it so important?

It's because I've ended up cutting the big papers into a smaller one. I really, really hate writing on a big paper! I love my papers small! And I love it in my small (A5, I think? Always was bad with paper sizes...) notebook!

And also, with my Ring-Notebook, I can organise papers all neatly and pretty, and change their order anytime I would want to. In the end, its not really matters, it's just a training paper, but oh well.

I am finding joy in little things! (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡

And well, the most important thing is that I am doing things! Life is all about movement and doing, haha.

[words-for-cat-bracket]

WORDS FOR CAT BRACKET.

THE FINAL SHOWDOWN.

brought to you by: chloe, my sweet evil old baby girl

miu (ancient egyptian) vs 小猫 (mandarin chinese)

FOR THE LAST TIME, I ASK YOU:

info and propawganda under the cut!

miu - no IPA provided

It’s one of the first words for cat ever to exist and also is onomatopoeic and is so cute <3

小猫 (xiǎo māo) /ɕjau̯˩ mɑu̯˥/

it rhymes and means little meow. what is a kitten if not a little meow

Perfect way to describe a cat. It rhymes and it sounds really cute. Also cmon look at a cat. That IS a xiao mao mao

you cannot tell me they are not the perfect word for a kitty cat. they came up to us and introduced themselves, so we decided to call them by the name they call themselves, and in mandarin, we call them ""little māo"" because they are our little meow meows!! they are our babies!! also chinese is Ancient. our writing system goes back like 4000 years!! and we are still using it! i admit we probably weren't calling them 貓 for all these 4000 years but respect your elders! /lh

[meikuree]

stuff li aixue says

this is a quick compilation and translation of mandarin chinese segments in exordia, for reference purposes or just the discerning curious reader out there. quotes aren't limited to aixue, of course, but I wanted a catchy title.

I do have the memory of a single-celled organism and am not really skilled at combing through chapters for that one quote, so if I've missed something you're welcome to send it to me to be added.

spoilers ahead.

note: all mandarin chinese bits in Exordia are rendered solely in Hanyu Pinyin and not Hanzi, so I've done some guesswork for hanzi (in places where they're not immediately obvious) based on context.

Chaya's Protocol:

A woman in a red T-shirt trots right past her, headed toward the angel. She’s shooting video on her phone, chattering excitedly: “Jiào tā mén xiān yòng huā cài cauliflower hé xī lán huā tǒng pì yǎn bā, zhè cái suàn shì universality of fractal behavior de lì zǐ!”

=> 叫他们先用花菜 cauliflower 和西兰花捅屁眼吧, 这才算是 universality of fractal behavior 的例子!

ENG: right, tell them to shove some cauliflower and broccoli stalks up their ass then, that's a real example of the universality of fractal behavior!

note: ah, Aixue's memorable entrance. 捅 (lit. poke) 屁眼 (lit. butt) 吧 roughly means 'why don’t you stick it up your ass'. she's insulting the person she's talking about, presumably for saying something incorrect about universal fractality.

-

chapter 33:

Master Sergeant Zhang: Máo gān, zhè shì máo jiān. Wǒ mén xū yào jǐn jí kōng zhōng zhī yuán!

=> 矛杆、这是矛剑。我们需要紧急空中支援！

ENG: High Spear, this is Sharp Sword. We need urgent air support!

-

chapter 39:

Aixue: Wǒmen bìxū yào Pò fǔ chén zhōu… / Bù xíng! Wǒmen bìxū yào pò fǔ chén zhōu!

=> 我们必须要破釜沉舟... / 不行！我们必须要破釜沉舟

ENG: we need to fight to the very end... / no! we need to fight to the very end!

note: Aixue says 破釜沉舟, which is a four-word chengyu (idiom) that roughly means 'to pursue your last resort'; it literally means to sink one's entire fleet in an offensive, and figuratively refers to cutting off your own means of retreat i.e., to fight to the very death and leave yourself no choice.

-

and some trivia on other Chinese phrases:

lala (拉拉): Chinese slang for 'lesbian'. comes from lazi (拉子), from the novel Notes of a Crocodile by famous Taiwanese lesbian author Qiu Miaojin.

T / P: the Chinese counterpart to the butch/femme spectrum. T = tomboy, P = po ('wife') or also pretty girl, apparently.

tongzhi (同志): Huang Lim says this to Chaya. this is slang for homosexual in Chinese, but also means comrade (with historical communist associations), hence Huang Lim phrasing it as comrade first.

Li Aixue: aixue's name itself makes sense once you learn about her whole shtick with prajna, a fact that impresses me because Seth had already set her name into stone as early as the precursor short story for Exordia. just things that make you wonder if they'd planned everything out from the very beginning. anyway, Aixue sounds like 爱学, i.e., 'love for learning'. get it? there are many possible surnames with the hanyu pinyin Li, but my pet theory is that Li = 厉 (lit. 'powerful'), so that putting it all together into 厉爱学 means Aixue is an ultra nerd.

[benkyoutobentou]

Had a “begin as you mean to go on” moment yesterday! I expected the cafe to be pretty empty with all the local schools on winter break, but I got the last free table. Also, peep my adorable new glass bottle!

🎧: My Plan by DURDN

[biglittleluobo]

中文 weights & measures

大家好！

Fellow Chinese learners are almost certainly familiar with "measure words", which indicate units of items. Their prevalence can introduce some frustration for students, but other languages are also chock full of them! While the 个 character is a catch-all that can be used universally, many other more specific options exist, like cup and box:

杯 (bēi) - cup; 一杯水 (one cup of water)

盒 (hé) - box; 两盒巧克力 (two boxes of chocolate)

But that's for another post.

Today I'd like to talk about weights and where to find them! For example, did you know that the most common Chinese measure for weights (斤, half-kilogram or 500g) is very close to the most common imperial unit of weight "pound" (lb, 453.6g)? Gotta love humans :)

Here's some weight words spanning 6 orders of magnitude:

克 (kè) - 1 gram

Grams are unsurprisingly most commonly used for small and/or light things! When we purchased loose leaf tea in Hangzhou, we mostly ordered using units of 克, though we did order a few in scales of 两.

两 (liǎng) - 50 grams

In my experience, units of 两 were most common for noodles! The 米粉 that we commonly ate for breakfast (pic below) in Sichuan come in sets of 两, referring to the weight of noodles in your bowl order.

斤 (jīn) - 500 grams (half kilogram)

Half-kilogram units (斤), sometimes translated as "catty" in English, are extremely common for purchasing things like produce. For example, you might see a sign like 苹果 5元/斤. Weights of people are also commonly given in 斤, though may sometimes be reported in 公斤 as well.

公斤 (gōngjīn) - 1000 grams (1 kilogram)

Full kilograms can be used anywhere that they would be in your native sense of scale. I didn't see too much of it while in the southern regions of China, but I hear for example that the northern parts of the country, where trips to the grocery store are minimized, prefer to purchase produce in units of 公斤.

吨 (dūn) - 1 metric ton (1000 kilograms)

Gonna be honest, I didn't see the word 吨 at all, but it's included here for completeness. Plus it's super easy to remember! So might as well add it to your repertoire of weights :)

Weights in real life:

You can feel free to mix-and-match units as needed. Like I mentioned above, we purchased a few different types of loose-leaf tea at different scales. At the smallest scale, we ordered some teas in units of 两 aka 五十克, and some at the 250g scale as 五两 aka 一半斤, and the owners gifted us a few 克 of tea for our purchases.

Finally, as promised, here's what 二两米粉 looks like!

🤤🤤🤤

(I miss it .... ;_;)

I hope this post helps calibrate you at scales of weights in Chinese! Fortunately, there are many fewer words for this than measure words ;)

See you next time! 下次见！

[mcr-themed-brain]

in honor of people learning chinese to use rednote i'm remembering a chinese class i was in where we had to make sentences with the format "你喜欢__还是__?" ("do you like __ or __?") and one of my classmates wrote "你喜欢yaoi还是yuri?"

[linghxr]

Collection of open educational resources for Mandarin Chinese (& Russian)

I saved a bunch of open educational resources a while ago and then promptly forgot about them. Haven't really looked over them in detail, but hey, why not share them in case they are useful to you?

Chinese Reading Modules by Yan Li https://ceas.ku.edu/chinese-reading-modules

These reading passages are intended for students at the intermediate to advanced level in their study of Chinese. They were developed with funding from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

Ting Yi Ting by Sheree Willis & Yan Li https://opentext.ku.edu/tingyiting/

An online guide that enables learners to hear and identify phonemic categories in Mandarin (including lexical tones) in a variety of phonetic contexts, and to associate those phonemes with Pinyin orthography. Includes extensive audio examples and computer-graded comprehension checks.

Russian Aspect in Conversation by Stephen M. Dickey, Kamila Saifeeva, and Anna Karpusheva https://opentext.ku.edu/russianaspect/

This resource is aimed at demystifying some important uses of imperfective verbs for learners of Russian at the intermediate level and above. It focuses on patterns of imperfective usage in infinitives, imperatives and the past tense that involve single completed actions and that are difficult for foreign learners to grasp.

Elementary Chinese I by Wenying Zhou https://openbooks.lib.msu.edu/chs101/

This open textbook is designed for those who are learning Chinese as a second/foreign language in their first semester. It has eight chapters, covering topics including a brief introduction about the Chinese language, greetings, and self-introduction, hobbies, nationalities, family members and occupations, inviting friends to dinner, talking about food and beverage, making phone calls, and talking about classes and exams.

Elementary Chinese II by Wenying Zhou https://openbooks.lib.msu.edu/chs102/

This open textbook is designed for those who are learning Chinese as a second/foreign language in their second semester. It has six chapters, covering topics including describing school life, shopping in stores and online, transportation means, reporting weather and climates, ordering foods, and asking and giving directions.

Elementary Mandarin by Carl Polley https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/elementary-mandarin

This course is designed for learners with no background in Chinese. It introduces basic structures of the Mandarin Chinese language with emphasis on listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. Students will gain these four skills in standard Mandarin Chinese, attaining approximately the Novice-High level on the ACTFL-ETS (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) proficiency scale. Topics of conversation include basic greetings, names, family, work, study, and hobbies.

开源中文 EverFlow Mandarin by Runqing Qi, Yingjie Li, and Yu Zhang https://www.colorado.edu/project/everflowmandarin/

EverFlow Mandarin is a textbook aimed at enhancing the language proficiency of Chinese learners at the intermediate level as determined by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). It is designed for students who have completed two years of Chinese language courses in comprehensive universities in North America. After studying the content of the ten lessons in this textbook, students' Chinese proficiency can reach the levels of either Intermediate-High or Advanced-Low as determined by the ACTFL.

Various Chinese resources by Wen-Hua Teng https://coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/materials/language/chinese/

Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course In Mandarin (汉语基础教材) by Julian K. Wheatley https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/res-21g-003-learning-chinese-a-foundation-course-in-mandarin-spring-2011/pages/online-textbook/

This online textbook represents materials that were used in the first four semesters (two years) of the Mandarin program at MIT. They eventually formed the basis of a print textbook of the same name, published by Yale University Press (elementary level available 2011, intermediate level due late 2011 or early 2012). Information about the Yale edition, plus online materials that could supplement the OCW material with some allowances. The Yale website also includes extensive audio-clips (numbering over 40 by July 2011, up through Unit 4), which cover much of the same ground as the OCW version.

IChineseER from Pomona College https://lchineseer.sites.pomona.edu/

Diverse Russian: A Multicultural Exploration by Anna Tumarkin and Shannon Donnally Quinn https://wisc.pb.unizin.org/diverserussian/

This textbook invites students to explore the diverse Russian-speaking communities across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and North America. It highlights the rich cultures and histories of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Indigenous populations of Russia, the Baltic states, Georgia (Sakartvelo), and Russian-speaking communities in the United States. Supported by the Less Commonly Taught and Indigenous Languages Partnership and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this OER textbook provides a unique, immersive experience that seamlessly integrates cultural understanding with practical language skills.

[vividdreamer]

(context: rednote) it would be so funny if this was how americans learned mandarin chinese

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

The 青 characters

Here's another post explaining the difference between characters with similar radicals, so here's a quick guide to 青!

请 (qǐng) 1. To ask, request 2. To treat (someone to a meal etc.)

清 (qīng) 1. To clean,clear

青 (qīng) 1. Green/blue color 2. An abbreviation for young people 年青人

情 (qíng) 1. A feeling, emotion

晴 (qíng) 1. Fine, clear e.g. Clear weather

静 (jìng) 1. Quiet, peacegul

睛 (jīng) 1. Eye, eyeball

猜 (cāi) 1. To guess, suspect, speculate

精 (jīng) 1. Energy, spirit, essence

靖 (jìng) 1. This also means quiet, peaceful but it's a more older form. 2. A surname

腈 (jīng) 1. Nitrile, acrylic

[zhuzhudushu]

今天的成语 An Idiom I Learned Today

recently learned about a new idiom and thought i would share! not sure if it counts as a 成语 per se, since it is 8 characters instead of 4. nonetheless here it is.

三天打鱼，两天晒网 sān tiān dǎ yú, liǎng tiān shài wǎng

literally: fish for 3 days, sun-dry the net for 2 days figuratively: to lack perseverance; to not earnestly work toward something

example: 你要是三天打鱼两天晒网，那你永远不会进步。 If you "fish for 3 days but sun-dry the next for 2," then you won't ever improve.

it's the idea that if you work towards something for 3 days but then rest for 2, you're basically wasting your time and not putting in as much effort as you could—since you could be putting that effort in all 5 days.

it's definitely a very chinese concept 😅 i'm pro resting myself LOL