One of my students, sitting idly on a wall with some friends of his, is munching away on a bag of what appears to be wasabi-coated nuts or beans. Upon stuffing one of the greenish balls into his mouth, he remarks: “Hmm, brilliant taste. One of the few things those Japs actually got right.”
He [...]
Archive for July 11th, 2008
Spicy prejudices
Posted in China: Sunny Side Up, tagged daily life, prejudices, school on July 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Characters 31-50: Olympics
Posted in Hanzi, tagged Olympics on July 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In this lesson, we will cover some of the most relevant vocabulary items for the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, enabling you to read commercials and cheer along with your Chinese friends.
The first expression is
北京奥运会
北京 bei3jing1
This phrase is the name of China’s capital Beijing, of course.
Let’s take a look at the characters for the [...]
Characters 21-30
Posted in Hanzi, tagged particles, transliteration on July 11, 2008 | 2 Comments »
This time, we will delve into the obscure world of onomatopoeia and particles. Not all of them will be particularly useful for a pre-intermediate learner, but I promise that this afternoon I will post a set of more common characters. The first ones are indispensable, though!
了
le
This particle is not just ” a thing of the [...]
The Student of Chinese and the Order of the Strokes
Posted in Writing, tagged characters, rules, Writing on July 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
That’s where the exhausting business starts – actual writing. And, you could have guessed: There are even rules for the very order according to which you have to draw the strokes of a character, as if you didn’t have to worry about a thousand things already.
I can almost hear your collective sigh: Hey, the characters [...]
