Hanbridge Mandarin Chinese Online Learning

This page contains information about the 12 Chinese quotes in many aspects, such as proverbs from Confucius, Lao Tzu, and other wise people, quotes that are entertaining, influential and inspirational, or simply ridiculous and silly. If that's what you're looking for then this is the place for you. bù ɡuǎn hēi māo hái shì bái māo ，nénɡ zhuā dào láo shǔ de jiù shì hǎo māo 。 不 管 黑 猫 还 是 白 猫 ， 能 抓 到 老 鼠 的 就 是 好 猫 。 Black cat or white cat: If it can catch mice, it's a good cat. sān rén xínɡ ， bì yǒu wǒ shī 。 -- kǒnɡ zǐ 三 人 行 ， 必 有 我 师 。 -- 孔 子 If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher.-- CONFUCIUS shòu rén yǐ yú bù rú shòu rén yǐ yú 授 人 以 鱼 不 如 授 人 以 渔 Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. cōnɡ mínɡ de rén ， dà shì huà xiǎo ， xiǎo shì huà liáo 聪 明 的 人 ， 大 事 化 小 ， 小 事 化 了 A clever person turns great troubles into little ones and little ones into none at all. ...

Have you ever wondered what to talk about when hanging out with Chinese friends? Sports? Movies? Personal interests? Some funny jokes? In this article, I will introduce four topics and some helpful phrases when spending time with friends. 1. Shopping with friends When shopping with your friends, these phrases are very important to know: - How much (does it cost)? – 多少钱? – duō shao qián? - Can it be cheaper? – 便宜点吧! － pián yi diǎn ba : When shopping in China , bargaining is a must. - This shirt/ dress/ pair of shoes suits you well! – 这件衣服/ 这条裙子/ 这双鞋子很适合你 – zhè jiàn yī fú / zhè tiáo qún zi / zhè shuāng xié zi hěn shì hé nǐ. When your friend is asking for your fashion advice, then you can use this phrase. Also, if it’s not the case, just replace ‘hěn’ with the negation word ‘bù’. 2. Dining in a restaurant - What do you recommend? – 你推荐什么菜? – nǐ tuī jiàn shén me cài : If you can’t read the menu, you can always use this one. Maybe you’ll be served with something you lov...

Chinese proverbs are common and often have stories behind them. The proverb ‘Fate brings people even they are thousands of miles away’ (有缘千里来相会: yǒu yuán qiān lǐ lái xiāng huì) is about a couple who live thousands of miles away met each other despite all difficulties. As we all know, in ancient times, people’s mobility was limited, and young couples met each other only after the approval of their parents. So this proverb points out that human relationships are decreed by Fate. Today, I chose some interesting Chinese proverbs and sayings, and let’s have a look at the stories behind them! Luóbo báicài, gè yǒu suǒ ài 1. 萝卜白菜，各有所爱 (‘some people like carrot, but others like cabbage’. This proverb indicates that everyone has his own hobbies.) 　　　　　　　　　　　　　 ài wū jí wū 2. 爱屋及乌 (‘when you love a house, you will love the crow under the roof’, means ‘Love me, love my dog’ in English. ) 　　　　　　　　 3. rén xīn qí, Tài shān yí 人心齐，泰山移 (Tài shān is one of the five great mountains...

We often hear people say, "Honey, I love you with all my heart!" and even Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul." Love is the most precious thing in the world. In Chinese, love is very easy to pronounce, it is "ài" which sounds like the English word 'I' or 'eye '. Could you imagine how closely love and heart are related? When you pay close attention to the traditional Chinese character 爱 for Love you will find a heart right in the middle of it! How about simplified character 爱? There is exactly a friend "友" at the bottom part of it! Interesting, isn't it? Here's the detailed guide show you how to write love in Chinese . Learn Some Ways to Say I Love You Without Saying I Love You with Chinese Teacher. Besides "ài", many other characters associated with love exits. Here are some most commonly used words and characters. ài qínɡ 爱 情 love, affection ài rén 爱 人 lov...

Many people say that it’s difficult to remember Chinese characters, well, that’s not true, it depends how you remember it. It is much easier and faster to learn and memorize antonym together than irrelevant words, thus we collected the Chinese opposite words for you. Common Used Chinese Opposite Word List in Daily Life: 大(dà) - 小(xiǎo) = Big - Small 热(rè) – 冷(lěng) = Hot – Cold 高(gāo) – 矮(ǎi) = Tall – Short 年轻(nián qīng) – 老(lǎo) = Young - Old 便宜(pián yi) – 贵(guì) = Cheap - Expensive 早(zǎo) – 迟(chí) = Early - Late 干净(gàn jìng) – 脏(zāng) = Clean - Dirty 深(shēn) – 浅(qiǎn) = Deep - Shallow 向下(xiàng xià) – 向上(xiàng shàng) = Down - Up 易(yì) – 难(nán) = Easy - Difficult 远(yuǎn) – 近(jìn) = Far - Close 快(kuài) – 慢(màn) = Fast - Slow 肥(féi) – 瘦(shòu) = Fat - Thin 满(mǎn) – 空(kōng) = Full - Empty 好(hǎo) – 坏(huài) = Good - Bad 开心(kāi xīn) – 难过(nán guò) = Happy - Sad 重(zhòng) – 轻(qīng) = Heavy - Light 这(zhè) – 那(nà) = Here – There 高(gāo) – 低(dī) = High - Low 热(rè) – 冷(lěng) =...

Some of you may have a Chinese girlfriend or boyfriend. How do you usually express your love for your beloved ones by calling him/her sweet names? Actually it's quite conservative in Chinese culture . Some couples may even not show their affections in public. However, with the development of the society, Chinese people born after the 1980's are rebellious generations. They are tired of the old traditions. Below are the commonly used Chinese nicknames for your loved ones . For Male For Female 亲爱的 Qīn’ài de –Dear; Darling 宝贝 Bǎobèi – Babe; Babes; Darling; Treasure 亲亲 Qīn qīn – kiss 老相好 Lǎo xiàng hǎo – Old Lover 笨蛋bèn dàn- Fool; stupid 猪头zhū tóu pig head 傻瓜 Shǎguā – Fool; Stupid 甜心 Tiánxīn –Sweetie; Sweetheart 小妖精xiǎo yāo jinɡ - Little goblin 小公举xiǎo ɡōnɡ jǔ - Little princess 猪猪Zhu zhu - small pig 老公lǎo ɡōnɡ(husband) 老婆lǎo po - wife 相公 xiànɡ ɡonɡ-Husband 老婆（大人）lǎo po(dà rén) - wife 先生xiān shenɡ (Mr.) 太太tài tɑi - Mrs. 官人ɡ...

Chinese, like any language over the world, has its own idiomatic expressions—成语(chénɡ yǔ), there are about 5,000 chengyu in the Chinese language according to the official definition. Most Chinese idioms consist of four Chinese characters , so it is also called "four-character idioms". It has a long history and still used in both writing language and spoken language. Now I would like to introduce top 5 popular Chinese idioms. 1. pò fǔ chén zhōu 破 釜 沉 舟 "破釜沉舟pò fǔ chén zhōu"，which means "break the woks, sink the boats". Here is a history story of the general Xiang Yu 项羽 . It is said that when Xiang Yu cross a river into his enemy's territory, he ordered the army to destroy all cauldrons and boats and at last, he won the battle. Example: miànduì kùnnɑn, wǒ mén yào yǒu pò fǔ chén zhōu de yǒnɡqì 面对困难，我们要有破釜沉舟的勇气。 2. qǐ rén yōu tiān 杞 人 忧 天 In case the sky should fall "杞人忧天qǐ rén yōu tiān", which refers to unnecessary or groundles...

To choose a Chinese name , you should choose both the first name and the last name. Most people tend to have a well-known Chinese family name,  and this post will introduce the most popular Chinese family names for you. “百家姓 bǎijiāxìnɡ” (Hundred family names) is a very famous article about Chinese surnames. According to the literature, it was written in song dynasty. There are 411 surnames in beginning and then increased to 568 in the later stage. It includes 444 single surnames and 124 compound surnames. The order of 《百家姓bǎijiāxìnɡ》is not based on the population actual arrangement, but for easy to read, study and remember.《百家姓bǎijiāxìnɡ》with《三字经sānzìjīnɡ》,《千字文(qiānzìwén)》 are called “三百千(sānbǎiqiān)” in China. It is children's enlightenment books in ancient China. The origin of Chinese surnames: It was called “Hundred family names”, but it doesn’t mean there are only 100 names in 《百家姓bǎijiāxìnɡ》. According to the different provenance and characteristic, it can divide into 16 ...

Do you have trouble understanding your Chinese friends' speech? Does your Chinese reading ability outpace your ability to understand spoken Chinese? Improve Chinese listening seems like really urgent. Don't worry! Here are some effective methods to improve your Mandarin listening . 1. Expand your Chinese Vocabulary The lack of vocabulary will directly affect your listening, and accumulating abundant vocabulary is the foundation of listening as well as learning Chinese. You will understand most of meaning of conversations among you and your friends if you can comprehend more than half words in them. 2. Practice the Correct Chinese Pronunciation Having correct pronunciation is an excellent method to practice Mandarin listening. It is easy to understand a meaning when what you listen to is the same as what you say. For most Chinese learners, the most difficult part in Chinese pronunciation is the four tones. You can get some tips about how to practice four tones here: How ...

Learning Chinese can be quite a daunting task, especially due to the fast-paced life nowadays. We could make full use of fragment time. Downloading some handy Chinese learning apps on your phone would be extremely useful. Today we want to share our selection of the best apps we've found on the internet for learning Chinese using your Android devices! Let's get started! 1. Pleco Chinese Dictionary Pleco is a powerful Chinese-English translation software. Released by the American company Pleco Software , this app contains 130,000 characters and 20,000 examples marked with pinyin. Pleco supports an optical character reader (OCR) and uses a dozen of the world's best Chinese dictionaries in the software. It supports handwriting, even cursive, and is tolerant of input stroke-order mistakes, helpful for more advanced users. Pleco also has a special flashcards system. It pulls up a card from any dictionary entry with a single button tap, can import premade word lists, and us...

First of all, it’s worth celebrating that you’ve reached the intermediate level of Mandarin! Intermediate Chinese has different challenges compared to Beginner Chinese . One way to make sure the transition from beginner to intermediate goes smoothly is to follow previous learners’ wisdom and get some practical tips. 1. Suitable Textbooks Since every intermediate learner has a different understanding of the Chinese language and the ability of learners varies, I can’t make an accurate book suggestion for each individual learner; generally speaking, from my teaching experience, it is better to use more than one book. The best combination for you might be using a textbook for intermediate learners and another book for learning Chinese characters, since learning new characters is inevitable at the intermediate level. For the text book, I recommend the People’s Education Press’ My Chinese Classroom . This book series is designed for foreign readers who have already completed the beginner...

John is 25 years old American has no Mandarin basics, and he is planning to travel to China to learn Mandarin. He needs some suggestions for universities or programs to go through. I know John is not the only person who has such problem. Therefore, in this article I’ll tell you how to choose the best place to learn Mandarin in China . If you couldn't come to China, then check out the best place to learn Chinese online . Question 1: Study Chinese in Universities or Language Training Institution? Some Chinese universities indeed launch Chinese courses, including some famous language universities. Actually, some of our students also study Chinese in universities. It is little surprise, isn’t it? Andrew who studied Business Chinese in Shenzhen universities told me that Chinese language he had learnt in universities actually is limited and theoretical. Moreover, there are many students in a class that his teacher couldn’t focus on everyone. Language training institution is aim to...

John is 25 years old American has no Mandarin basics, and he is planning to travel to China to learn Mandarin. He needs some suggestions for universities or programs to go through. I know John is not the only person who has such problem. Therefore, in this article I’ll tell you how to choose the best place to learn Mandarin in China . If you couldn't come to China, then check out the best place to learn Chinese online . Question 1: Study Chinese in Universities or Language Training Institution? Some Chinese universities indeed launch Chinese courses, including some famous language universities. Actually, some of our students also study Chinese in universities. It is little surprise, isn’t it? Andrew who studied Business Chinese in Shenzhen universities told me that Chinese language he had learnt in universities actually is limited and theoretical. Moreover, there are many students in a class that his teacher couldn’t focus on everyone. Language training institution is aim to...

For more than five years, I have been studying Chinese both in China and abroad, and during this time, I have made many mistakes and have seen other students make them as well. In this article, I have tried to share my experience of studying Chinese and to summarize five of the most common mistakes that students tend to make. 1. I don't need to study characters and I only want to learn how to speak Mandarin Being anxious to be able to communicate quickly is the reason why many Mandarin students put studying characters aside. Focusing on learning vocabulary exclusively through a phonetic system (pinyin) is by far the most common error. There are even "revolutionary" courses that suggest you follow this option. However, if your goal is to learn Mandarin and not to learn four survival sentences, this decision can come at a great cost. As opposed to Western languages, in Chinese, words are relatively short, with normally 1 or 2 syllables, and the number of possible soun...

When it comes to learn Chinese, the most common reaction people get would be Chinese is incredibly difficult to learn. And it's really a tough work for many people. However, that could be wrong. Chinese writing system may look difficult, but here are the good news: Chinese has no cases, no tences, no gender and simplistic grammer structure. So, with commitment and daily practice it is certainly possible to successfully master Chinese language. In this article, we will introduce 4 steps to help you teach yourself Chinese. Step 1. Learn Pinyin: Chinese Phonetics Different from English, the Chinese is a hieroglyph. Many people are confused that how we can pronounce with hieroglyphs. In fact, the Chinese is composed of Pinyin (phonetic system) and character. Pinyin is the basic foundation of learning the Chinese language. Pinyin consists of 3 parts: initials, finals and tones. Same as English, initials and finals in Chinese are also composed of 26 latin alphabet (a-z), but the pro...

At present, the number of people learning Chinese nearly thirty million in the world. Chinese has attracted people of different skin color from all over the world into learning Chinese boom. These learners have a plenty of overseas students, business people, housewife and also some foreign kids who live in China. Can speak Chinese is more and more important in the present era. Every day there are lots of people just come to China for studying Chinese. Here are 3 tips for beginners to speak Chinese well . 1. You have to know the composition of Chinese Chinese is composed of two parts: Phoneticize (pīnyīn) and Character(hàn zì). Each part has a different function. We use pinyin to pronounce and listen. The character used in written and read. To this point maybe someone will ask “why?” Here is the answer: It is generally known that Chinese characters have five thousand years history. It is one of the three oldest character systems in the world. Its invention represents the wisdom of t...

Reading is one of the four basic skills (also including listening, speaking, and writing) that learners need to master if they want to thoroughly learn Chinese. The ability to read Chinese characters can improve perception, and that helps improve speaking and writing. Here are some ways to help you improve your reading skills. First, find some Chinese books on topics you are interested in and read daily. Select books with pinyin to help you understand the meaning. Secondly, try to learn more new words and phrases regularly. Think of words as bricks and that you want to build a tall building. Write the new words and phrases in a notebook and review them when you are free. Third, read newspapers if you have time. You may also browse some Chinese learning websites with news rewritten in pinyin. The fourth way is to do exercises to improve reading speed. When the passages are so long that you cannot read them carefully within a limited time, then try skimming and scanning. Y...

Classical Chinese is one of a written language in ancient China, mainly including the spoken language and written language which were formed on the basis of the pre-qin period. In the 1918 years ago, all the articles are written in classical Chinese. Now generally we will call "Classical Chinese" to " 文言文（wén yán wén） ". Today I would like to recommend a book of learning ancient Chinese for some students who are interested in Chinese classical language. The importance of the Classical Chinese This language is very broad and profound, it is belongs to our ancestor language, and now it become an very important courses for each of Chinese middle school students. It is a very good way for us to understand the way how our ancestor to speak and to think about things. Such as 孙子兵法 Sun Zi Bing Fa is a very popular book in foreign market, it is read by many foreigners. In fact, this is a book that related to the strategy of war, but there are many very classic strate...

Chinese, like any language over the world, has its own idiomatic expressions—成语(chénɡ yǔ), there are about 5,000 chengyu in the Chinese language according to the official definition. Most Chinese idioms consist of four Chinese characters , so it is also called "four-character idioms". It has a long history and still used in both writing language and spoken language. Now I would like to introduce top 5 popular Chinese idioms. 1. pò fǔ chén zhōu 破 釜 沉 舟 "破釜沉舟pò fǔ chén zhōu"，which means "break the woks, sink the boats". Here is a history story of the general Xiang Yu 项羽 . It is said that when Xiang Yu cross a river into his enemy's territory, he ordered the army to destroy all cauldrons and boats and at last, he won the battle. Example: miànduì kùnnɑn, wǒ mén yào yǒu pò fǔ chén zhōu de yǒnɡqì 面对困难，我们要有破釜沉舟的勇气。 2. qǐ rén yōu tiān 杞 人 忧 天 In case the sky should fall "杞人忧天qǐ rén yōu tiān", which refers to unnecessary or groundles...