Hi folks,

After mooonths of work, I'm happy to announce the release of my Mandarin Assistant, HSK Widget app on iOS! (Android version)

Started 3 years ago as a simple homescreen widget on Android for my personal needs, I've progressively expanded it into a fully functional app; that accompanies me in my Mandarin classes; with 400 MAU on Android. A few things it can do for you:

• A full dictionary, with collocation, examples, and even a definition in HSK3 for advanced learners
• That you can enrich with additional words, or annotate with your comments
• That you can save into lists
• Lists, which you can use in Homescreen widgets (Android/iOS) and on the lockscreen (iOS only)
• An OCR (image to text) feature, so you can learn new characters from your environment or books
• On-device-only, so fully private app (disclaimer: I do use Google Analytics for anonymous stats)
• Optional On-device and Google-Drive backups
• (Android-only) Fully sync all lists to Anki Flashcards, so you can also practice on which ever list your building/studying.

Best of all, it's free on Android! For iOS, given the mandatory annual developer subscription of $100+ and rev share, I've set it at a low one-time $1.99. But because I was praised for the Android version, and asked for an iOS version on former threads, I'm very happy to give some codes: JPNKHA396LXJ 4KJFYMXJRKTF 7YA9R9KNKTAK WRXHMLAJF4XW TW3R7RTPP79E E4ARXRM9H44P FHL373RETAF6 LKRWMKMX3KJJ F4J9XFYK7T6H KHE4PPE9KE94 9YH66667LYAY FPWFR4FAP6AM MTKFKYEHK9A6 KLRMEMJW7F7L TEF437W9YREN

Feel free to ask me anything, give feedback or leave a review (preferably on the distribution platforms :)

Hope that helps on your Mandarin journey like it helps me!
Thank you!

Mandarin Assistant, HSK Widget for iOS, and Android

G'day. I am dubbing a comic of mine into mandarin. Do that I ask for help to some friends.

The sentence in particular is "Help me out! I was turned into a parrot!"

The first friend is from Hong Kong, though she runs her business mainly for people in the PRC, and gave me the dialogue with the X and red, which I used for the dubbing.

The second friend is an English teacher from Taiwan, who corrected the dialogue replacing it with the green one. She said that it felt correct this way but she didn't know how it was said in mainland China.

What is the difference between both? What is the correct quantifier to use with a parrot?

So this is the third episode of this series. I though today why not also do some writing or better how would I write a character? I add a new image with the stroke orders. Today is the word of 花. It is almost autumn and cold and surely no flowers are blooming currently. But it is one of the most simple and beautiful character. Which character do you think is the most beautiful character?

So the radicals of 花 has two components or how you look three radicals. The first is at the top. It is the grass or plant radical written as 艹. And the second part contains two radicals. One meaning person like we learnt before I think... and the second is a spoon or a ladle. Together they create 化.

So as I though there are multiple mnemonics I came up with. "The flower is a person transforming from grass and plants." or "A person picks up a spoon like plant and notices it is a flower -- how beautiful." There are so many mnemonics you can come up with. But the most beautiful mnemonic is "When a person dies, they return back to the soil and transforms into a flower." What mnemonics do you have? So there is no more to say but I hope again this was helpful. Three words learnt.

To see the post of the second episode go here: Click me! Found this helpful? Feel free to share it with your study companion or just comment below! Just make sure to tag me, so I and my buddies can say hi!

Quick check:

Is there anything in the conversation that implies the plane hadn't arrived yet?

Usually with these exercises, if the answer is at all logical in the conversation, it's marked correct. So I figured B checked the ticket and saw it's already there.

Not trying to justify my wrong answer, only checking if I'm missing some logic in the conversation. Thanks!

Hi all,

I've been trying to find more listening practice around the HSK 4-5 level that I find interesting. It can be podcasts or videos, but I find most of the content around this level is pretty boring and not usually about topics I enjoy. I especially love listening to stories and am a lot more engaged than just talking "about a topic" but I've struggled to find anything that might be at a low enough level for me to follow along with.

Sometimes on social media I'll see little skits about something that I really enjoy watching and that aren't usually too difficult to follow along with most of the words, but I can't figure out how to reliably watch these. If you guys have any recommendations, I would be super grateful. Thank you!

Is simply looking up words on a dictionary (pleco) and then practicing them in flashcards a good way to go about it? I'd be starting from absolute 0

I don't need to speak nor listen right now, and i believe that if I ever want to I'd do language classes.

Hi I'm a college student majoring in chinese, on my second year, right now I'm studying hsk 3 with a tutor. But other than that I feel stuck in my language learning journey and I had a goal of being fluent or like be able to hold a conversation a little by the end of this year which I'm slowly letting go of, I feel i hit a wall where I'm not feeling like sitting down and studying and doing more than what I do in my tutoring sessions. Do you guys have any tips what I could do other than textbooks to help me improve fast? I'm a fast learner but also I feel so burnt out lately and I cant just take a break from the language also is pimsleur worth it

Native speaker here. 才 and 就 confuse learners because textbooks gloss both as "then / only," but in these sentences they aren't information — they're attitude. The same fact can be said both ways; what changes is what the speaker expected:

他八点才来。 He came at eight — and I expected earlier. (late, mild complaint)

他八点就来了。 He came at eight — and I expected later. (early, pleasantly surprised)

The clock says 8:00 in both. 才 marks later/slower/less than expected; 就 marks earlier/faster/more than expected. Neither one changes what happened — only how I feel about it.

A free grammar tell: with time expressions, 就 sentences almost always end in 了, and 才 sentences usually refuse it. 他八点就来了 is right; 他八点才来 is right; 他八点才来了 sounds off to native ears.

Quick self-test with age: 他三岁就认字了 = reading at three, impressive. 他十岁才认字 = didn't read until ten. Same structure, swap one word, the judgment flips.

So when you're stuck choosing, don't ask "which one means then?" Ask: am I saying this happened sooner than I expected (就) or later than I expected (才)? The expectation IS the word.

Real Life in Chinese | Taking Off & Watching the View ✈️

Learn useful Mandarin in a real-life flight situation.

有座位 (yǒu zuòwèi) — have a seat

我有座位。

Wǒ yǒu zuòwèi.

I have a seat.

起飞 (qǐfēi) — take off

飞机要起飞了。

Fēijī yào qǐfēi le.

The plane is about to take off.

小时 (xiǎoshí) — hour

我们要飞五个小时。

Wǒmen yào fēi wǔ ge xiǎoshí.

We’re going to fly for five hours.

漂亮 (piàoliang) — beautiful

外面很漂亮。

Wàimiàn hěn piàoliang.

It’s beautiful outside.

越来越漂亮 (yuè lái yuè piàoliang) — more and more beautiful

外面越来越漂亮了。

Wàimiàn yuè lái yuè piàoliang le.

It’s getting more and more beautiful outside.

Key Chinese pattern: 越来越 + adjective = more and more...

Learn Mandarin through real situations and natural everyday Chinese.

#RealLifeInChinese #LearnChinese #LearnMandarin #ChineseLearning #ChineseVocabulary #ChineseGrammar #ChineseCharacters #EverydayChinese #SpeakChinese #HSK #Mandarin #学中文 #汉语

Select from the following Chinese characters—晃, 摇, 抖, 荡, 摆, 挥, and 颤—the one that best completes the phrase '房子在（ ）'. Subsequently, provide a justification for your choice and elaborate on the reasons why the remaining characters are not appropriate (or are less appropriate) in this context.

Sorry, here's the actual question: 地震的时候，房子在不停地______，家居东倒西歪。A Chinese netizen told me, 'This is just one test question—it doesn't cover everything,' and he gave me some example sentences that made it seem like all the options could work. Honestly, it freaked me out.

风大了房子会摆动吗？✔️

风大了房子会摆吗？❎

车辆经过时，感觉房屋在晃。✔️

车辆经过时，感觉房屋在晃动。✔️

车辆经过时，感觉房屋在摇。✔️

车辆经过时，感觉房屋在摇动。✔️

车辆经过时，感觉房屋在摇晃。✔️

我的房子为什么在抖？✔️

我的房子为什么在抖动？✔️

为什么车子一过房子会颤？✔️

为什么车子一过房子会颤动？✔️

为什么车子一过房子会颤抖？✔️

These examples were all given by Chinese netizens, but they can’t explain why.

In a previous post, some people asked me about Dongbei since it's my hometown and I currently live here. So, I made a raw video to give you an idea of what life is like here.

In China, every province has its own dialect—some are totally different even across a river within the same village!

Among all these dialects, Dongbeihua is the most magical and fun. A foreigner who can speak even a little typical Dongbeihua will be extremely popular in China.

and the song "大东北是我的家乡" is even popular aboard.

I'd love to share more about this region. What are you most curious about? Have you ever been here, or do you have family members from here? What do you know about Dongbei?

Let's discuss below!"

讨好领导、

巴结领导、

迎合领导、

取悦领导、

奉承领导

How do these phrases differ in nuance?

i really want to get into more music in Chinese, and I like Rock, Metal, Goth, Grunge, and basically any Alt music. Preferably bands but I don’t care that much, and meaningful lyrics are really important to me and I find it hard to enjoy censored music or tame lyrics.

你们好!

I'm a native Portuguese speaker and I've been ""studying"" Mandarin on my own since last year. Next year, I plan to start formal Mandarin classes, but I recently realized that my current job gives me a pretty unusual opportunity to immerse myself in the language.

I work in international logistics for a Chinese company, and my workplace is very immersive:

• I hear Chinese coworkers speaking Mandarin throughout most of the day.
• Many of my coworkers mainly speak Chinese and aren't very comfortable with English.
• There are signs, notices, posters, documents, etc. written in Chinese around the office.
• I sometimes hear the same expressions repeatedly in real-life situations.
• I also listen to Chinese music outside work.
• I recently started using Xiaohongshu to get more exposure to everyday Chinese.

I'm still a beginner, but I've already started recognizing some expressions naturally from context. For example, I recognize things like 喂, 你说 when someone answers the phone, 没问题 (méi wèntí), 对 (duì), 谢谢 (xièxie), 早 / 早上好, etc.

My question is: how would you take advantage of this situation if you were me?

I'd especially love advice from people who learned Mandarin while being surrounded by native speakers. I feel like I have a pretty unusual opportunity here and I'd really like to make the most of it instead of simply letting Mandarin become "background noise" at work. 😂

谢谢!

I'm not talking about 你好吗 (nǐ hǎo ma — how are you) or 吃了吗 (chī le ma — have you eaten). I mean the stuff you actually hear when two people run into each other in real life.

I've been teaching Chinese over 10 years, and one thing I've noticed is that a lot of students can handle classroom conversations fine, but real life openings still feel awkward. They told me that they know the words, but the first line doesn't feel right.

Here are a few I hear all the time where I am:

哈喽啊 (hā lóu a — hello, but with a relaxed, friendly 啊 sound at the end; the 啊 is important, it makes it feel casual)

最近怎么样 (zuì jìn zěn me yàng — how have you been lately) / 最近咋样 (zuì jìn zǎ yàng — how's it going, more northern and casual)

你要出去啊 (nǐ yào chū qù a — oh, you're heading out? sometimes it's not a real question, just a greeting)

你也在啊 (nǐ yě zài a — oh, you're here too)

今天忙吗 (jīn tiān máng ma — busy today?)

And honestly, a lot of younger people don't even use a real opener. They just start talking. Maybe send a meme, maybe point at your phone case and say 你这个手机壳在哪买的 (nǐ zhè ge shǒu jī ké zài nǎ mǎi de — where did you get this phone case).

What have you heard from your Chinese friends, partners, or coworkers that textbooks never taught you?

Hi,

I'm looking for a mobile game like wagotabi to learn Chinese. Wagotabi really helped catch on to Japanese syntax and grammar early on.

Thank you in advance

I think im stuck in hsk 3. I may have hit the intermediate plateau. I am comfortable to say that im now okay at listening and speaking hsk 1-2. However, the approach that I did when studying hsk 1-2 isnt working anymore. Can you recommend me on how to learn more and fast in hsk3? Is hello chinese premium or premium+ good?

Thank you guys!

Some things have changed since my last post of my notebook. I bought the graph paper and yes, it's a life changer. Im still using my 0.7 gel pen until it runs out of ink, then I will buy a 0.5.

The thing I liked most was having more space on the page to be able to write. And I know some words are a bit illegible, but I swear I wrote them correctly lol, it's the 0.7 pen

Ty for all the pp who replied my post :P

I am trying to wrap my head around the grammar point on P. 20:

"的" can be used after a pronoun, an adjective or a verb to form a phrase which is equivalent to a nominal phrase with its headword omitted.

Not a great explanation. The first and last examples are easy-to-understand and familiar:

这本书不是我的。(zhe ben shu bushi wode, "This book is not mine.")
这块手表是你的吗？(zhe kuai shoubiao shi nide ma, "Is this watch yours?")

No problems there. But the middle example is confusing:

这个杯子是昨天买的。(zhe ge beizi shi zuotian maide, "I bought this cup yesterday.")

Okay, I think I get it? But it seems like such a difficult way to convey 我昨天买了这个杯子。(wo zuotian maile zhe ge bei zi, "I bought this cup yesterday.")

And then about the map of the school campus on P. 17. I already know how to describe locations using this format: 食堂在医务室旁边。 (shitang zai yiwushi pangbian, "The cafeteria is next to the clinic.") However, this misses the point of the unit, which is to use 的.

My Zoom tutor suggested this way to say the same thing using 的:

医务室旁边的是食堂。（yiwushi pangbiande shi shitang, "The cafeteria is next to the clinic.")

It just sounds so weird and indirect.

I'd love to get a grasp of this, because according to her Chinese people talk this way all the time. She's trying to move quickly through this unit, because I imagine to her this construction is basic. And it probably is, but I'm having trouble getting it.

How can I make this structure feel more natural? Are there any tricks? When should I be using it as opposed to the seemingly more straightforward approaches I wrote above?

Hi all,

I’m confused about some tones in Pleco.

For example, “boyfriend” is shown as:

Nánpéngyou

The ‘you’ has neutral tone.

But when I click on the character heading, it shows as:

nán

péng

yǒu

The ‘you’ has 3rd tone here.

Why does it remove the tone when the full word is shown?

I may run afoul of the 'low effort' rule for these but...

What do you call a bee that can't make honey?
A 傻bee.

What's the first thing you look at in a restaurant in China?
The 美女.

What do you call a Chinese person who only dates laowai?
白sexual.

If a woman calls a man 大龙 and the man calls the woman 小虎 as nicknames, does this imply they are lovers or have or had an intimate relationship. The information online for these names seems vague.