Archive for the ‘Speak Chinese’ Category

A ‘Piece’ of Apple? Are You Sure?

It is ‘a piece of apple’, not ‘an apple’.
Of course, I’m talking about speaking the Chinese language.
Unlike English, you often add a classifier, or measure word, when you are describing quantity. It is, therefore,more proper to say ‘a piece of apple’, i.e. yi ge pingguo 一个苹果; rather than ‘an apple’ 一苹果– without the [...]

Brother? Big or Small?

Traditionally, Chinese respect hierarchy.
This is an important point to note, if you want to build a good guanxi (relationship) in China, or speak Chinese well.
This is reflected in the way that siblings in a family are addressed.
When you are talking about your brother, do not be surprised the Chinese to whom [...]

Wrong Tone is Wrong Word

One of the first things that you need to know before learning Chinese is its tones.
If you’re a speaker of non-tonal language like English, it may be difficult for you to comprehend. In Chinese, a slight change of Internation would change the meaning of a syllable altogether. In other words, even if you [...]

Women is not pronounced as ‘women’ in Chinese

A secret to speed up your learning of Chinese is to find out the sounds that are uniquely Chinese.
The phonetic system of the Chinese language is very different from that of English.  For example, the pinyin (Chinese phonetic symbols) ‘women’ is not pronounced as the way we pronounce ‘women’ in English.  You can hear the [...]