Writing a story in Chinese is a great way to practice your communication skills. Storytelling dates back to cave drawings. People have always wanted to share their stories with others. There were oral histories that were passed down through generations, often through song. Eventually written language developed, of which Chinese is one of the oldest….
How do Chinese parents choose a name for their child? Traditionally, Chinese names consist of two, three of even four characters. Three is most common. The first character (or first two) is your family name or surname. The next character could be decided by your generation in the family. There would be a family pattern…
The 12 animals of the Zodiac are represented by Chinese zodiac characters. These characters represent the Chinese zodiac animals. Below, we’ll explain each animal and its character. We’ll also show you a popular and often slightly unusual idiom for each zodiac animal. Chinese Zodiac Characters The Chinese Zodiac are referred to as 生肖 (shēng xiào)….
Learn to count using Chinese numbers 1-100. Counting in Chinese is a delightfully simple task. Learning to count to 100 actually only requires you to learn 11 numbers! That’s because you only need to know the number 1-10 and the word for “hundred.” Actually after you learn those 11 words, you can count to 999…
Reading Chinese at a beginner level can take patience and effort, but with the right practice readings you can quickly improve your reading skills. You probably know how to read more Chinese than you realize. There is something powerful about reading sentences and stories in Chinese that helps you jumpstart your language learning. Try reading…
Culturally, Chinese people are not known to express love as often using words as in Western cultures. Even so, there are a number of ways to communicate how you feel in Chinese and they can be totally appropriate to use – especially if you are speaking to a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse. Instead of just teaching…
Before we get into the Chinese word for Chinese, let’s take a look at what we mean in English. When you say you speak Chinese to someone they may ask if you mean Mandarin or Cantonese. In this post we’re going to be looking at ways to say Chinese in Chinese and all of these…
Although there are currently around 2,000 Chinese last names in use, the top 100 surnames are used by 87% of the population. In fact, the top three Chinese surnames, Li, Wang and Zhang, are also the most common surnames of any in the world. By learning a few of these surnames you will be able…
This collection of HSK reading practice based on your reading level will send you on your way to developing your Chinese reading skills. Each HSK level adds a number of Chinese characters and we’ve done our best to match these reading to what you should know for each level. These reading excerpts are all taken…
Goal setting is like a super power that will make you reach new heights when it comes to your Chinese language learning. We want you to be a Chinese super hero, so we’ve broken down how to set successful language learning goals in this post. Where are you at? Before you set your goals, it’s…
