Tag: mandarin chinese

Many things have changed since that distant 1988, and the number of foreign students coming to terms with the Chinese language and living in China has grown dramatically over the last 20 years. It is no longer unusual to come across a “wairen” (foreigner) in Mainland China. Yet, many students keep having problems when it comes to speaking Chinese, and this is mainly due to an aspect often considered “dramatic” from a Westerner’s perspective: Chinese tones.

Dui Bu Qi, Saying “Sorry” in Mandarin Chinese

There are many ways to say “sorry” in Mandarin Chinese, but one of the most common and versatile phrases is ►duì bu qǐ. It means "sorry" in the sense that you have wronged someone and want to apologise. The phrase consists of three Chinese characters: 对不起 (對不起 in traditional Chinese):

Chinese Language

Mandarin As one of the six official languages used by UN (United Nations), Chinese now has earned itself greater status in the World. The official language of China is the Mandarin (Standard Chinese), which is the very name of 'Hanyu' or 'Putonghua', belonging to Sino-Tibetan.
Putonghua, standard form of modern Chinese, is a parlance in mainland China. It is the common language of all modern Han nationality people. In Taiwan Province and Hong Kong, it is called 'Guoyu' while in Singapore and Malaysia, it is often called 'Huayu'.

Verb Tenses in Chinese

Western languages such as English have several ways to express tense. The most common are verb conjunctions which change the form of the verb depending on the time frame. For example, the English verb "eat" can be changed to "ate" for past actions and "eating" for current actions.

Daily Mandarin Lesson: “What” in Chinese

Learning how to say "what" in Chinese is a very helpful vocabulary word that will enable you to ask and understand questions.

History of Mandarin Chinese

Mandarin Chinese is the official language of Mainland China and Taiwan, and it's one of the official languages of Singapore and the United Nations. It is the most widely-spoken language in the world.

Laoban – Daily Mandarin Lesson

Titles are important in Chinese culture, and they are used more frequently than in most Western countries. One good example of this is that titles can be used to address people, which you might be familiar with from your Mandarin class where you can call the teacher 老師 (lǎoshī). While that can be done in English too, it's usually reserved for younger kids and not as common as in Mandarin Chinese.

Why Learn Mandarin?

Mandarin is “too hard” to learn, right? Despite this widely-held belief, millions of people are studying Mandarin Chinese as a second language.

“Because” in Chinese

Learning how to say "because" in Chinese will expand your vocabulary by enabling you to answer questions. The Chinese phrase for "because" is 因為, in traditional form, or 因为 in simplified form. Its Mandarin Chinese pinyin is "yīnwèi." 因為 / 因为 can also mean owing to, or on account of.

The Potential Complement DE

There are three DE particles used in Mandarin Chinese: the possessive de (的), the adverbial , and the potential complement de (得). If you want more general information about how to use these three, check this overview: The three DE particles in Mandarin. In this article, we're going to look at the potential complement, written 得.