Tag: Mandarin

Learning Mandarin is difficult. After 90 hours worth of classes and nearly 2000 flashcards, I’m still struggling to even understand everyday real-life conversations. According to the Defense Language Institute (DLI), Mandarin ranks as a Level 4 foreign language, which means t...

I have written before that one of the reasons why it is difficult to distinguish Cantonese and Mandarin as separate varieties of Chinese, let alone different languages, is that both are so deeply entrenched and entangled with one another in modern Hong Kong (HK) society and elsewhere ...

Learning Mandarin in African classrooms will soon be a common phenomenon as many countries are including the language in their school curriculums as they Global Institute of Chinese Language has pledged to train teachers to face the challenge of teaching this language. On top of the existing inte...

Anyone learning Mandarin as a non-native will probably, at some stage of their learning journey, curse at how much of a pain it is. Whether you’re struggling with the tones, the pinyins, or the characters, you’re almost assured that it requires some hair-pulling moments. I though...

It usually falls on Lunar 3rd, 4th or 5th of February and signifies the beginning of Spring. The first character, ???, is a common word in Chinese. The literal meaning is “stand” and is opposite to “lying down”. Here in the terms ??????, the extended meaning of ??? is adop...

Mandarin is the fruit that can be imported all-year-round from Europe, Africa, and Latin America. In Europe, Spain and Italy are the main producers. Spanish Mandarins ripe in fall, from September to May. Italy starts its harvest from October which lasts through December. Egypt and South Africa ar...

I have found some amazing resources for learning Mandarin in the past couple years, and recently even more. Here are some of my favorites. Mandarin Companion Readers Chapter books designed for those learning Mandarin. I recommend buying these books in print form. They are about $12 each on Amazo...

One of my personal ‘bucket list’ goals of learning was learning basic Mandarin, and during 2020 I finally found the time to make it happen. Here’s a few resources I really liked to help you get started on learning! Disclaimer — I am very much a BEGINNER in Mandar...