We know that learning Chinese can sometimes feel like a cat-astrophe, especially when it comes to mastering its grammar. But fear not. Ninchanese is here to save the day with our new, AI Chinese learning feature that will revolutionize your language learning experience!

Introducing our latest addition to the Ninchanese family: an AI Chinese grammar feature. Easily pinpoint and correct errors in your Chinese sentence structure and grammar, so you can learn Chinese smarter and faster! And guess what? This groundbreaking technology is powered by GPT, a popular AI language model developed by OpenAI, like the pretty popular now ChatGPT. This ensures you receive accurate, reliable feedback on your learning.

Easily spot and understand the mistakes you make when building sentences in Chinese

With our new AI-driven grammar tool, you can expect:

1. Instant feedback: Submit your sentence and watch our AI, powered by GPT, get to work! It will analyze it and provide you with immediate feedback on your grammar and sentence structure when it’s wrong. You’ll get a clear explanation of the mistake you made. No more waiting for a teacher or a native speaker to correct your work. You’ll get the guidance you need right away!
2. Clear explanations: Not only will our AI tell you what’s wrong, but it’ll also give you clear explanations of why it’s a mistake, and guidance on how to improve. By offering detailed insights and examples, you’ll gain a better understanding of Chinese grammar rules and be able to apply them more effectively in your future sentences.
3. Adaptive learning: Our AI feature, backed by GPT, constantly learns and adapts to your language progress, offering personalized feedback and guidance tailored to your needs. This ensures you’re always challenged and engaged, making the most of your language-learning journey.
4. A fun, gamified experience: Our AI-powered feature is seamlessly integrated into the Ninchanese app. You can enjoy all the fun, feline-filled adventures while learning Chinese like a pro.

As a member of the Ninchanese community, you now have the purr-fect opportunity to put our new AI tool to the test and watch your Chinese language skills soar. Remember, practice makes purrfect!

Making our approach to Chinese grammar even more meowvelous

At Ninchanese, we have always been committed to making Chinese language learning meaningful and engaging. Over the past few years, we’ve been working diligently on our Chinese grammar lessons. Each lesson is regularly reviewed to ensure it is interesting, accurate, and easily digestible for language learners. As a result, we’re proud to have our Chinese grammar app ranked first on Android. We’re thrilled by the overwhelmingly positive feedback we receive from our users and readers on our comprehensive grammar lessons.

However, we understand that learning a language isn’t just about completing exercises; it’s also about understanding why we make mistakes and how to improve. While our users have been able to access our grammar lessons for free during their exercises, it was often challenging for them to determine the reasons behind their errors without direct guidance.
introduce our new AI-powered feature, which complements our handcrafted grammar lessons and exercises. This advanced technology allows us to provide targeted, insightful explanations for each mistake, helping you learners grasp the nuances of the Chinese language more effectively. We believe this AI-enhanced approach will not only elevate your learning experience but also solidify our position as leaders in the field of Chinese language education.
Give this new Premium AI Chinese grammar feature a try now

Join us in celebrating the launch of our meowtastic AI Chinese grammar feature! We’re offering a special 10% discount on your first subscription with the coupon code NINCHAI10. So don’t wait any longer – sign up now and let the learning begin! [Offer valid on new subscriptions and upgrades. Offer expires on April 4th, 11:59 pm CET.]

Stay pawsitive and happy learning,

The Nincha Team

P.S. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for even more language learning tips, tricks, and furr-ocious puns!

The post New AI Chinese Grammar Powered by ChatGPT: Unleash Your Inner Language Purrfectionist appeared first on Ninchanese.

If I asked you to think about words that had the character dragon in them in Chinese, you’d probably think of words like a dragon boat, a dragon fruit, and you’d be purrfectly right. But today, we’re here to talk about unusual dragon words. Words in Chinese you’ll be surprised to learn there’s a dragon in! So without further ado, here are unexpected words that contain the character dragon in

The following Chinese words, quite surprisingly, all have dragons in them. Which ones did you expect the least?

Dragon in Chinese phrase #1: Faucet

水龙头

shuǐ lóng tóu

faucet

literally: a  water dragon head

The name for faucet in Chinese is cool. It’s composed of:

水 shuǐ water
龙 lóng dragon
头 tóu head

What’s a Water-Dragon-head? Why, a “faucet” or a “tap”, of course! A little underwhelming, perhaps? Wait till you see this.

Sigh, if only all our faucets could look as dragonny as this one. Source

That’s why 水龙头 is our first word with a dragon in it!

Dragon word in Chinese #2: Boss

龙头

lóng tóu

Bicycle handlebar; boss

literally: a dragon head

In the same (water) vein, you have 龙头 which means a bicycle handlebar (as well as a faucet).
Interestingly, it also means “boss” or “chief”. That one’s easier to picture as a dragon head.

Dragon in Chinese language word #3: 龙卷 Tornado

龙卷

lóng juǎn

tornado

literally: a dragon roll

Literally dragon roll (doesn’t that make you hungry?), 龙卷 is how the Chinese say “Tornado” in their language. 龙卷 also means “Twister”.

No wonder Chinese CCTV called these nine tornados dragons.

Dragon in Mandarin word # 4: Tarragon

龙嵩

lóng sōng

tarragon

literally: dragon + lofty

Even the English name looks like it considered being a dragon, and then gave up halfway, only to come up with tarragon instead.
So way to go, the Chinese language, for being brave enough to include the word dragon in the name for tarragon in Chinese.
Yes, 龙嵩 is how to say tarragon in Chinese. You can also use 龙蒿 lóng hāo. Same dragon, same meaning.

Chinese Dragon word # 5: Lobster

龙虾

lóng xiā

lobster

literally: a dragon shrimp

Ah, the dragons of shrimp. We’re talking about lobsters, of course! Can you picture it? They are much bigger and badder than puny little shrimps!

其实我是龙
Actually, I’m a dragon

So, 龙虾 is how you say lobster in Chinese.

Two other fish and shellfish also have a 龙 in their name.

小龙虾, xiǎo lóng xiā, crayfish
The delicious, soft-water crayfish gets the name: the small dragon shrimp. They’re so yummy we can’t complain.

龙利, lóng lì, sole
Flat like a dragon? Like a dragon took a trip to 2D and became a flatfish.

Dragon word in Chinese # 6: Decrepit, senile

龙钟

lóng zhōng

senile

literally: dragon clock; dragon bell

Okay, this one isn’t so nice, and as fierce dragon lovers and protectors, we protest. But a word’s a word, so 龙钟 is a way to say someone is senile in Chinese.

How did this word come to mean “decrepit, senile”? That’s a question even the Chinese ask themselves.
Perhaps because as we age, we start to resemble a bell with droopy dragon ears that can’t hear much anything? Care to venture a guess? Let us know in the comments.

Dragon word in Mandarin #7: Queue

人龙

rén lóng

a queue of people

literally: a people dragon

When picturing a long line of people, you might think more of a snake in English. But the Chinese are all about dragons, and we love them for that.
So when you want to talk in Chinese about a large group of people waiting in line, say, in front of the post office, you can say 人龙. That literally means people dragon, and when you see the length of some queues, you have no trouble imagining why.
人龙 is a queue of people in Chinese.

Dragon in Chinese word #8: 恐龙 Dinosaur

恐龙

kǒng lóng

dinosaur

literally: fear dragon

Dinosaurs. Huge, powerful, mysterious creatures that roamed the Earth in ancient times called something close to dragons? Mm, that works for me. Fear dragons!

Is it a dragon? A dinosaur? A dragonosaur! — Concept art by Saleh Ahmad

Fun fact: most dinosaur names in Chinese have a dragon in them!

For example:
A velociraptor in Chinese is 伶盗龙, líng dào lóng.

A triceratops in Chinese is 三角龙, sān jiǎo lóng, a 3 horn dragon. Nice!

Bonus: 4 Chinese Loanwords that also have a dragon in them

Borrowed for its beautiful “long” sound, the word Dragon in Chinese is also found in these words imported from other languages:

Dragon loanword #1: Nylon

尼龙

 ní lóng

nylon (loanword)

What do you need to say nylon in Chinese? The Chinese character for a dragon, of course! Nylon in Chinese is 尼龙, ní lóng.

Dragon loanword #2: Salon

沙龙

shā lóng

salon (phonetic loanword)

Similarly, the Chinese conjured up the characters “sand” and “dragon”, for their phonetic pronunciation of the word “salon”.
Salon in Chinese is 沙龙, shā lóng.

Dragon loanword #3: Macaron

马卡龙

mǎ kǎ lóng

macaron (phonetic loanword)

Macarons can either be, depending on your viewpoint, either sweet French delicacies or yummy coconut treats. In either case, they’re sugary bliss. So much so that the Chinese decided you needed:
A horse (马), your card (卡), and a dragon (龙) to get some quickly enough. Just kidding, these characters were all borrowed for their sounds, of course, to form the word “macaron”. 马卡龙, mǎ kǎ lóng, is a macaron in Chinese.

Dragon loanword #4: Upsilon (greek letter Yu)

宇普西龙

yǔ pǔ xī lóng

Upsilon (phonetic loanword)

Lastly, Upsilon, the goatlike greek letter Yu was another excellent candidate for the character 龙. 龙 does indeed sound quite close to “Lon”.
宇普西龙, yǔ pǔ xī lóng is Upsilon in Chinese.

What did you think of these Chinese words? Unexpected to find dragons in them, right? Bet you wouldn’t have guessed all these words had a dragon in them! It shows how important dragons are in Chinese “animal culture”. So much so that they created lots of words with the Chinese character for dragon in them (128 in fact!).

Liked this article? Then you’re going to love this meowsome article on Five Words you didn’t expect to find a Cat in! Yeah, at Ninchanese, we’re all about cats, dragons, and learning Chinese.

The Nincha Team

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The post 8 Unexpected Words that Contain a Dragon in Chinese appeared first on Ninchanese.

If you meet a Chinese person, there’s a good chance they’ll ask you, “where are you from”?  Do you know how to say your nationality in Mandarin Chinese? Are you curious to know how to talk about where you come from in Chinese? Read more to discover all the nationalities in Chinese and how you can answer this question!

What nationality are you in Chinese – 你是哪国人

Two ways to ask your nationality in Chinese

You’ll probably get asked about your place of origin in Chinese with one of these two questions:

Question One:
你来自哪儿？
nǐláizìnǎr?
Where do you come from?

Question Two:
你是哪国人？
nǐ shì nǎ guó rén?
What nationality are you?

How to say “I”m from this country” in Chinese

It’s pretty easy to understand how saying “I’m from here” works in Chinese. Let’s use an example. To say that you are French, you say, “我是法国人.” The meaning is “I’m french.” You break down the sentence like this:

• 我 – wǒ – I
• 是 – shì – to be
• 法国人 – Fǎ guó rén – French

Did you see how it works?
You have on the left: 我 + 是 = 我是 = I am
And on the right, a key structure to remember: NAME OF THE COUNTRY + 人 rén = resident of the country.

Once you have that down, you’re golden. You can introduce yourself, no matter what country you’re from! You’ll still want to learn how to say your country in Chinese, but we’ve got you covered. Just pick out your country from the list of country names in Chinese here, and you’re all set!

The post Where are you from? Nationalities in Chinese appeared first on Ninchanese.

First, a question for you: what starts with playing and ends with laughing in Mandarin?

No clue? Ok, so do you know how to say to joke in Chinese? That’s the answer!  The Chinese use 玩笑 to say “to joke”!

How to say to joke in Chinese: 玩笑

玩笑

wán

to

玩笑 means to joke and usually, you’ll use it with the verb 开 like 我开玩笑. If you want to say “I’m just kidding“, the expression also uses 玩笑: 只是开玩笑   – zhǐ shì kāi wán xiào – Just kidding! 

玩笑 breakdown

Breaking down 玩笑 shows you it’s an adorable term. To see that, you just need to understand the meaning of the individual characters that compose it.

Let’s see: 玩笑 is composed of the character 玩

玩

wán

to

The word 玩笑 also contains the character 笑

笑

xiào

to

Now you understand better why we asked you, in the beginning, to guess what starts with playing and ends with laughing, right?

In Chinese, playing to make people laugh is how you “joke”. Isn’t that a very accurate way of describing joking?

Can you think of a better description of how to say to joke in Chinese?

That’s all for today folks! See you next week for the next Play with Chinese words! In the meantime, have fun playing jokes with your friends!

Don’t hesitate to comment with your best jokes in the comments!

The Nincha Team

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The post Chinese Word Building: How to say to joke in Chinese appeared first on Ninchanese.

The answer is the Chinese word 冲浪:

冲浪

chōng

to

 It’s  funny because the Chinese manage to give you a very clear idea of what surfing is about, just by associating words. Of course, it helps that these words literally show you what is going on when you surf. Think about it for a second: if you were to describe the action of surfing to someone who has no clue what it is, AND were only allowed to use two words, which would you pick?

Think about it for a second: if you were to describe the action of surfing to someone who has no clue what it is, AND were only allowed to use two words, which would you pick? Would you pick the ones the Chinese used to create the word 冲浪, to surf in Mandarin?

 冲浪 breakdown

Let’s breakdown 冲浪 to understand the meaning of the invidual characters that compose it.

First, 冲浪 is composed of the character 冲

冲

chōng

to

Notice how the character 冲 contains  冫, a very useful semantic component to know, as well as the phonetic component 中?

The word 冲浪 also contains the character 浪

浪

làng

wave

So in Chinese, surfing = colliding with waves! Can’t say we disagree with that way of putting it

That’s all for today folks! See you next week for the next Play with Chinese words! In the meantime, have fun colliding with the waves!

In the meantime, we hope you have fun colliding with the waves!

The Nincha Team

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The post Chinese word building: to surf appeared first on Ninchanese.