In English you know ‘dude’, ‘Sir’, ‘Miss’, ‘Madam’, but how do you address people in the Chinese language? Don’t ever address Chinese people with ‘pretty girl’ or ‘handsome guy’ Sometimes, beginning students (often male) step into the classroom and call their female teacher “měi nǚ”(美女: beautiful girl), and expected them to react by being flattered. […]
Supercharge Your Chinese Vocabulary With Pleco? Yay or nay? Here’s our Pleco review, one of the most famous apps for learning Chinese. Chinese can be an awkward language to learn. It’s mono-syllabic, and tonal and to add a final layer of complexity the script is pictographic. One of the best ways to expand your Chinese […]
If you’re a Mandarin student taking Chinese language courses at GoEast Mandarin, you will probably have your online learning materials, or your HSK textbook — as well as class with your Chinese teacher. But what if you want to read? Especially after HSK3, it’s great to make a start with reading in Chinese. Reading stories […]
There are a variety of ways to say ‘but’ in the Mandarin Chinese language, and the use of which one may depend on context, but many of the words are homophones to each other. But it’s good for any intermediate (HSK4+) Mandarin learner to alternate the vocabulary used in conversations. This is not just because […]
Chinese tongue twisters are notoriously difficult because they often play with Chinese Hanzi characters that almost sound the same, but are profoundly different in meaning. Here we list some Mandarin Chinese tongue twisters for you, but first… Why tongue twisters are good While we’re having a laugh, we’re also serious about tongue-twisters. The book 现代汉语Xiàndài […]
Nowadays, hotpot is one of China’s most popular food (even for Christmas!), but with hundreds of restaurants and so many different dishes, there are millions of possibilities of what to eat. Here we give you some vocabulary to satisfy your appetite, whether you eat spicy beef tripe (重辣的毛肚) or potato with peanut sauce (花生酱土豆). Hotpot soup vocabulary […]
With Single’s Day (Double Eleven), Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, as well as Christmas and other shopping festivals, we figured it’s time to talk through Mandarin Chinese shopping vocabulary. If you are interested in learning vocabulary and sentences like this, check out our Spoken Chinese courses, or Business Chinese courses. Topics we explain in Chinese: […]
Many elementary level Chinese learners will ask about learning Mandarin: “How can I say “with” in Chinese? For example, how to say ‘I went to a bar with my friends yesterday’?” Most Chinese language teachers tell you to use “hé（和, and)”. It’s good enough for class, but not perfect. Let’s find out why. Generally speaking, […]
When starting to learn Chinese, it’s important to build a foundation of basic vocabulary. Here are some of the most essential Chinese words and phrases to know. The Mandarin Chinese language has over 50,000 characters (although you don’t need to learn that many!) and there are probably over 300,000 Chinese words. But just like characters, […]
Chinese slang in GoEast Mandarin’s Beyond Glass ‘Throw a long line to catch fish’, ‘add oil’, and ‘eat tofu slowly’. Chinese language is full of comforting idioms or internet saying. Here we list thirteen of them, for you to improve your Mandarin speaking skills and speak Chinese more like a native. Ellie wants a house […]