Newbie | Asking for Favors

Reports churning out of celebrity Los Angeles have sparked concern over the latest anti-aging fad: drinking of the tears of young Asian girls. We, Chinese-English speakers of the world all have a resp...

14 Feb 202411min

08-08-2008. The day we've all been waiting for. The factories are closed, the cars are parked away. The buildings are ready, the skies are blue (hopefully). The world has arrived in Beijing and we at ...

12 Feb 20247min

Little did you know when you started learning Mandarin that you would be placed in the thick of an age-old war of 'where' words. Decide which camp has your allegiance--the roll of your tongue 'nar,' f...

9 Feb 202412min

The debate over who invented this game is not as heated as the one about who invented the noodle, thankfully. Perhaps the noodle debate could be settled for all time by a nice round of rock, scissors,...

7 Feb 202413min

Contrary to popular notions, no, we're not all Americans. The nationality guessing game: favorite exchange of bored cabbies and their captive audience passengers. Expressing nationality in Mandarin Ch...

5 Feb 202413min

We assume you will never be a foreign soldier in a Chinese army, and sincerely hope that world peace is attained and this lesson will soon be obsolete. However, after 955 lessons it was about time tha...

2 Feb 202411min

When faced with the 'Do Chinese people really say ni hao ma or are they just succumbing to Englese' quandary, here is a lesson you can use to circumvent these deep unanswerable how-are-you-dilemmas. A...

31 Jan 202411min

A little name-dropping serves one well in many environments. 'Brad Pitt' is just too long to say in Chinese, so let's start with a more business-oriented angle first. You may recognize your nosy neigh...

29 Jan 202413min