If you’ve ever been to a Chinese restaurant, you might think it’s super easy to order. Everything on the menu is in English, there are usually even pictures in the menu list. You just arrive, order, eat, drink and go. If this is the case, then you probably haven’t been to a real Chinese restaurant. […]
MOREChinese Characters: They’re Not as Hard as You Think
Working for a Chinese language school for foreigners, I hear it over and over again: “I’m not going to learn the characters. I’ll just learn spoken Chinese. That’s enough for me.” To put it squarely, trying to learn Chinese without learning the characters is generally not a good idea. The good news is, you have […]
MOREHow to Say “Family” in Chinese: An Ultimate Guide to Family in Chinese Culture
Family in Chinese is 家 (jiā). This can be translated as “family” or “home”. But it’s also much more than that. “Family” is a big concept in Chinese. Let’s take a look at what it means in this ultimate guide to family in Chinese. If you’re interested in learning Chinese, learning about family will give […]
MORELearning Mandarin Chinese as Explained by a Peace Corps Volunteer
A few years ago, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in China. I joined the Peace Corps with the desire to travel, help the world, and blog about it. Along the way, I learned a ton about Chinese culture, and I traveled a lot. Most of the adventures I’ve had in China wouldn’t have been […]
MOREI Messed Up Learning Spanish… and Now I Speak Chinese
“I’ll never learn Chinese. Spanish was hard enough for me and that’s an easy language. Learning Chinese would be impossible.” I felt defeated by my attempts to learn Spanish. I had just come home to Michigan after three years of living in Latin America. I was preparing to move to China when my brother asked […]
MOREYoyo Chinese Review: Learn Conversational Chinese
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When I first started learning Chinese, there was a lot about the language that was brand new to me, even as an experienced language learner. I scoured the web for resources that would help me tackle some of the more challenging aspects of Chinese, like tones. In my search, I stumbled across Yoyo Chinese and […]
MOREHow I Learned to Speak Mandarin Chinese while Living in Kansas
If there is one language where it is important to speak to natives regularly, it’s Mandarin Chinese (or any Chinese dialect really). The reason for this is simple: you must practise Chinese tones if you want to be able to speak the language! A year ago I was in a pretty difficult situation: I had […]
MOREWhy Chinese is Easy: The Smart Way to Learn Chinese Tones
Tones. A huge issue people have when learning Chinese is the fact that it’s a tonal language. Let’s start with the bad news. If you don’t get tones down well, it will be really hard for native Mandarin speakers to understand you. Now for the good news. Getting tones right isn’t nearly as hard as […]
MOREEncouraging quotes, Chinese proverbs with original translations, and inspirational thoughts for language learners
I asked those following my Facebook, twitter and G+ pages what their favourite encouragement quotes or short inspirational ideas were, to inspire language learners and got some real gems! I also did my own research online and tried to include some sayings on this blog that people have really enjoyed. And finally, I searched long and […]
MOREInterview in Mandarin with TV presenter and Chinese teacher Yangyang
Time for another video in Chinese! This is actually part of the summer project of improving many languages, and as such it is the first in a series of many interviews with natives of the languages in my list of 10. Yang Yang works as the Mandarin speaking presenter for the TV show “Hello Hollywood”.
MOREDid I Really Learn to Speak Chinese in 3 Months?
The big question regarding my Mandarin project that a lot of people have been asking is How well can you really speak it Benny? I’ve been saying it’s about a B1 (lower intermediate), but I’m sure self evaluation (even though I have indeed sat so many CEFRL examinations ) can lead to some scepticism, so […]
MOREKung Fu: My experience learning about it in a Chinese farming village
[Click “CC” to activate subtitles in either English or in Chinese simplified/traditional. Those in China without a VPN can watch it on Youku] After getting a train over 2,000km through China, chatting with random people and seeing pandas, meeting a Buddhist monk, and even climbing a mountainside staircase to a Buddhist temple to try and […]
MORE2,000km train journey video: Benny gets his Chinese name, makes new friends and meets pandas!
Here it is! My video of the epic 2,000km (that’s about 1,250 miles in “old money” as we say) train ride I took to get to Chengdu, starting from Shanghai. This video shares the people (and pandas) I met along the way! 🙂 Click CC to enable subtitles (in English, and traditional or simplified Chinese) […]
MOREWhy Chinese isn’t as hard as you think: Encouragement for Learners
“Mastering” Chinese can indeed take a long time to do, but getting to a very useful intermediate level is well within the reach of most people, and from that point progressing further won’t be that bad. It is indeed hard work, but if you put it side by side with European languages, then saying it’s “damn hard”, or “orders of magnitude harder than European languages” is nothing but an exaggeration
MOREReview of Chinesepod & chat with co-host Jenny
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Note: this video is not an update of my Chinese level, because I recorded it the day after the previous one (John is also a co-host on Chinesepod). [I actually do a little worse with my Chinese than the previous video because I was a sick this day and exhausted because of it.] I interviewed the […]
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