You’ll often hear people say that tools like Google Translate don’t really translate all that well. I think it’s awesome for what it does but there are of course, subtleties that it doesn’t get. One of those is around death. In English, it’s perfectly common to have a discussion like this: #1: How’s your father nowadays #2: He’s dead. (or He died) Now you can try to use a direct translation like this:

2019-03-22

In any new language, learning to count is important. So today, I’ll start with the words for the numbers from 0 to 100. The primary digits are as follows: 零 (Líng) is zero 一 (Yī) is one 二 (Èr) is two 三 (Sān) is three 四 (Sì) is four 五 (Wǔ) is five 六 (Liù) is six 七 (Qī) is seven 八 (Bā) is eight 九 (Jiǔ) is nine 十 (Shí) is ten

2019-03-15

Yet another useful group of words that are best learned as a set are the words to describe colors. Now the general term for color is: 颜色 (Yánsè) I can use it in a sentence like this: 那是什么颜色? (Nà shì shénme yánsè?) is basically “what is that color?” or better “what color is that?” To answer it, here are some common colors: 红色 (Hóng sè) is red 蓝色 (Lán sè) is blue

2019-03-08

Another useful group of words that I learned are used to describe the position of something. Here are the most common: 上 (Shàng) is up or on 下 (Xià) is below or under 前 (Qián) is in front 后 (Hòu) is behind 旁 (Páng) is beside 里 (Lǐ) is in (like inside) 外 (Wài) is out (like outside) 右 (Yòu) is right 左 (Zuǒ) is left Often these words are used with either 边 (Biān) or 面 (Miàn) to indicate the position.

2019-03-01

I mentioned in an earlier post that I find it easier to remember groups of words, rather than trying to remember individual words. An interesting (and very useful) group of words, are the direction words. The first of these are the compass directions. In English, we say “north, south, east, and west”. Directly translated, they would be: 北，南，东，西 (Běi, nán, dōng, xī) Now I don’t know how we ever came to choose that order to say them, and it’s interesting that we go top, bottom, right, left.

2019-02-22

I mentioned in an earlier post that I like to learn sets of words or phrases, rather than trying to learn words individually. In that post, I discussed “Electric Words”. Another interesting word grouping, is what I call the “like” group. 起来 (qǐlái) can be used for a number of things, often like “up”, or “stand up”, or “add up” and so on. It’s pronounced a bit like “chee lie”.

2019-02-09

One word that seems obvious at first when you start learning Mandarin, yet is actually pretty tricky, is the word 了 (Le). Most people start out thinking that it changes a sentence to the past tense. Here’s an example: 我吃。(Wǒ chī.) could be translated as “I eat”. In this case, adding 了 (Le) to the end of the sentence changes the tense: 我吃了。(Wǒ chīle.) could be translated as “I ate”.

2019-02-08

Just a quick post to say Happy New Year to all my Chinese buddies and family members, and welcome to the year of the pig. 新年快乐 (Xīnnián kuàilè) is pretty much “Happy New Year” directly translated. It’s pronounced pretty much like “shin neean kwai ler”, so remember to say that to your Chinese friends. But you’ll often also hear: 恭喜发财 (Gōngxǐ fācái) which is pretty much “wishing you happiness and prosperity”.

2019-02-05

In an earlier post, I described the use of Pīnyīn (拼音). It allows us to enter Chinese characters quickly, using a keyboard that’s designed for Western languages like English. When you first look at the characters though, you might not realize that there isn’t a random pattern to them, the characters are constructed from particular groups of sounds. The words are constructed from 声母(Shēngmǔ) or “initials” and 韵母(Yùnmǔ) or “finals”.

2019-02-01

I mentioned last week that the word for computer 电脑 (diànnǎo) was wonderful because it was literally “electric brain”. I tend to learn words in groups rather than individually, and the words related to electricity 电 (diàn) are fun. I love the allusions that they bring forward, and I thought you might enjoy knowing a few of them. 电力 (Diànlì) or “electric power” means just what it says but is often used for just electricity.

2019-01-25