Source PREAMBLE Hello lovely hivers, It's been a superb week and most importantly the last edition of the week 24. At times I wonder how people are inspired to put forth life challenging topic like this.

In hot weather, Chinese people enjoy eating refreshing cool bowls of 綠豆湯 lǜdòu tāng / liuhdow tang [literally] “green bean soup”, which is actually mung beans served in sweetened water (刨冰 bàobīng / bawbing

Check out my first Chinese language learning video, exclusively for steemit/d.tube! This is an example of how I pick up new vocabulary and learn more about Chinese culture etc. This video is aimed at people

Confusing Toneless Pinyin 水餃 "ravioli" = shuijiao = 睡覺 "sleep"? Same spelling, but very different for Chinese ears: false homonyms! GR Tonal Spelling is a great solution for this false

I'm studying chinese. Yes, I love it very.. very much. I have a dream to study in China. All my time is dedicated to it. Sometimes it is lazy. But it's better not to start right? Chinese for me, it's easy,

Most #chinesewords are made from pure #chinese elements. This makes them much easier to guess and remember than English words, which are often created from Greek and Latin roots (or borrowed from other

NOT a veggie! I once wandered into a HK noodle restaurant and ordered 淡菜麵 the only "vegan" dish I could find on the menu: 淡菜麵 dàncàimiàn / danntsaymiann “[literally] bland vegetable noodles”.

Actually, there is no such thing as a “Mandarin” newspaper. Mandarin refers to a spoken language. All speakers of Chinese, no matter what dialect they speak, write in a standardized written form called

After reading Parts 1 and 2, see if you can guess the last 4 #amusing #menu entries (answers appear below) Part 1: Part 2: 畫餅充飢 huà BǏNG chōng jī / huah BIING chong ji {Home Fries PANCAKE} 雞鳴起舞 JĪ míng

After reading Part 1 (“This menu made me break out laughing”), see if you can guess these 5 entries. Part 1: Part 3: 面有菜色 miàn yǒu CÀI sè / miann yeou TSAY she {VEGGIE Pancake} 有為青年 yǒu wéi qīngnián /

To ask people to let you go by, nobody says 借光 jièguāng / jiehguang anymore. 借過 jièguò / jiehguoh is now the correct expression, at least in Taiwan. However, because I appreciate the respectful attitude

This #spectrograph is part of an #acoustics and #neuroscience based way to master Chinese #tones. The pitch display correlates very well with GR Tonal Spelling, a Chinese government #romanization promulgated

This breakfast shop menu made me break out laughing. Entries are 成語 chéngyǔ / cherngyeu or 四字格 sìzìgé / syhtzyhger, idioms and four-character expressions, both of which are very popular in Chinese culture.

Disgusting? Yes, but foreign learners of Chinese need to know how to talk about these "creepy crawlies". All four suck blood 吸血 xīxuè / shishiueh and can cause infectious diseases 會帶來傳染病 huì

In #Chinese, several non-insects use the 虫 radical: lizards, frogs, toads, salamanders, lizards, bats, and hedgehogs [0] 蜥蜴 xīyì / shiyi “lizards” In #Mandarin, a less common name for #lizards is 四腳蛇 sìjiǎoshé

Not all Chinese characters with the 虫 signific are six-legged insects: some can be legless ("critter" is a rough translation for 蟲 chóng / chorng and 虫, its abbreviated form) [1] 蛇 shé / sher

Be ready to use these many different terms when people ask about your family or introduce theirs. The Right Words in the Right Context Be careful not to use formal words when talking to friends, for example:

More and More Trees: 木 林 森 [A] 林 lín / lin means “grove” (a small group of trees) in Classical Chinese. Notice how this character is constructed: two trees = a grove. Three trees 森 sēn / sen means “forest”

虫 on the left is the signific/radical (category), the other part is a phonetic element (pronunciation hint). A traditional Chinese dictionary is arranged according to 214 radicals (部首 bùshǒu / buhshoou

"Attempting to overcome an overwhelming challenge," a 2000+-year-old story from Zhuangzi: 螳臂擋車 táng bì dǎng chē / tarng bih daang che “A praying mantis blocking a cart with its arms” One day,