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How to Order Food in Chinese

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For many foreigners who live in China, ordering food is really a difficult job, because most of them don't know Chinese words in the menu. I had a foreigner friend who eaten in a restaurant himself. He ordered 4 soups due to don't know Chinese characters. Maybe some of you also have had terrible experience when eat in restaurant. So how can we do in order to find the exact food that we want? Don't worry, this article will tell you. To call waiter In order to order food, you need to call the waiter first of all. In China, you can call them fú wù yuán . When the fú wù yuán come, tell them what you want and they'll take note. To order food Menu with Picture If the menu has pictures you are in luck as this offers an easy way to order. What you need is just point to that you want and say yí fèn zhè ɡe (one portion de this). You could also do the same if you see someone else eating something you would like, you can also say yí fèn nà ɡè (one portion de that) by p...

Hanbridge Chinese HSK Program: How to Use "新鲜(xīn xiān)" VS "新颖(xīn yǐng)"

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Top 5 Chinese learning Apps for Android

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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...

Four Tips for Intermediate Chinese Learners

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...

The Best Place to Learn Chinese in China

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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...

The Best Place to Learn Chinese in China

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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...

The 5 Most Common Errors People Make When Studying Chinese

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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...