sensiblechinese

sensiblechineseAug 07No Comments

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Learning the Essential Chinese Phrases for your Trip to China

If, like me, you love to travel, then this article is for you. My best experiences traveling have been interacting with people in their language, wherever I am. Whenever I travel to a new location I also try to learn enough to be able to strike up a conversation...

Chinese Pronunciation: Practicing Tones in Isolation

sensiblechineseJul 10 beginner, pronunciation No Comments

Chinese Pronunciation: Practicing Tones in Isolation

Most Chinese words are two characters, not single characters. The exceptions are: i) pronouns like 我，你 ii) grammatical particles like 了，过，吗 and iii) words with classical Chinese origins like 马 and 笔. Because words not characters...

Chinese Characters with That’s Mandarin: Chinese Zodiac

sensiblechineseJul 03No Comments

Chinese Characters with That’s Mandarin: Chinese Zodiac

I’m happy to be able to bring you another short beginner’s lesson courtesy of That’s Mandarin. That’s Mandarin have kindly provided these beautiful pictures to introduce some really important Chinese characters. Each graphic has...

Chinese Pronunciation: The 3rd tone is NOT Rising Falling

sensiblechineseJun 16 pronunciation No Comments

Chinese Pronunciation: The 3rd tone is NOT Rising Falling

Whenever you see the 3rd tone described in a textbook it will always be shown as a falling-rising tone. Unfortunately it is hardly ever pronounced this way. A much better conception of the third tone is a “low tone” but even that isn’t sufficient....

Chinese Pronunciation: The slippery Chinese –r sound

sensiblechineseJun 15No Comments

Chinese Pronunciation: The slippery Chinese –r sound

R is a bit of slippery Chinese pronunciation. At the beginning of words it’s very similar to the English “r” but with a slight buzz but certainly not as strong as a rolled Spanish “r”. Instead it’s somewhere between the English “r” and...

Chinese Characters with That’s Mandarin: 白，酒，盘，饭，狗

sensiblechineseJun 15No Comments

Chinese Characters with That’s Mandarin: 白，酒，盘，饭，狗

Chinese Pronunciation – Zh/J, Ch/Q, Sh/X and why we learn these incorrectly

sensiblechineseJun 06No Comments

Chinese Pronunciation – Zh/J, Ch/Q, Sh/X and why we learn these incorrectly

If you get the distinction between u and ü (explained previously in this article) then the distinction between Zh, Ch, Sh and J, Q, X becomes easy. Without understanding the distinction Chinese pronunciation can often seem insurmountable. This state...

Chinese Pronunciation: The difference between U and Ü

sensiblechineseJun 05No Comments

Chinese Pronunciation: The difference between U and Ü

Note: See the bottom of this article to learn how to get free human feedback on how good your u and ü are. Very useful! Boy oh boy this one is a doozy. That said, if you nail the difference between the u and ü sounds in Chinese then a whole bunch of...

Chinese Pronunciation : Pinyin is Not English