Did you know there’s a famous poem in Chinese composed of one sound and one sound only? What is this one-sound poem? How do you read a poem with only one sound? Welcome to the tale of the “Lion-Eating poet in the Stone Den”.
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Chinese characters
All posts tagged Chinese characters
Chinese Wordle: Play and Learn Chinese (chengyus)!
Ninchanese January 28, 2022Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Wordle, the word game taking the world by storm. Chinese learners, rejoice! We found a Chinese-language version of Wordle. So dear little dragons, read on to learn where to find Chinese Wordle and how to play it.
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8 Unexpected Words that Contain a Dragon in Chinese
Ninchanese November 8, 2021Let’s talk dragons. Yeah, those magnificent mythical creatures. Dragons are super popular in Chinese, so it is no surprise that many Chinese words contain the character dragon. To say dragon in Chinese, you say 龙 lóng, by the way.
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
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Writing Chinese characters: The purpose
Ninchanese February 28, 2020I think at one point everyone who starts learning Chinese asks themselves the same questions about writing Chinese:
- Do I need to learn to write Chinese characters?
- When is the best time to begin with them?
- Where do you start?
- How do you write Chinese characters? Are there any rules?
With this article, I want to share a bit of my experience in writing characters and maybe a helpful additional way of learning Chinese. To be clear, I’m not talking about the art of Chinese Calligraphy but just casual hand-writing. Handwritten Chinese with a pen a piece of paper.
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Simplified or Traditional Chinese: which should you learn?
Ninchanese November 1, 2018A very common question beginners in Chinese have is: should I learn Simplified or Traditional Chinese? To get to the bottom of that, you need to know: what’s the difference between the two? Why are there two forms? Which should you pick?
So, let’s see the difference between Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters. And, let’s find out which Chinese character form is for you!
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New world: The Chinese Character Universe – Science-based Chinese character learning
Ninchanese September 18, 2017You Today, we’re incredibly excited to announce a new science-based world on Ninchanese: the Universe of Chinese Characters – the most advanced way to learn Chinese Characters yet. This all-new word on Ninchanese has been designed with one goal in mind: to drive your Chinese character acquisition like no other. In a world that goes back to the Big Bang of Chinese, you’ll easily learn characters in a newly optimized way. Feeling excited? Let’s see what this new world is all about. To infinity, and beyond!
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Chinese Word Building: How to say to joke in Chinese
Ninchanese October 20, 2016Time for a new word-building! Today’s “Play with Chinese words” concerns Chinese humor! It’s all about playing and laughing. You are with your friends and one of your friends cracks a joke. everyone laugh and so the party starts. It’s the best time of your life for sure. A joke a day keeps the doctor away! So let’s play with the Chinese words 玩 and 笑 ! Together, they make the word 玩笑 , have you heard of it? If you haven’t, no worries. Read on and we’ll explain everything to you.
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Chinese word building: to surf
Ninchanese October 12, 2016Time for a new word-building, water edition! In today’s Play with the Chinese word, we explore the word 冲. When you combine it with a second word, you get a new Chinese word that is really fun to do. It’s also a great way to understand how word-building works in Chinese! Can you imagine what the Chinese word for to surf is? Surfing? Are you ready to hit the waves?
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Phonetic Components: The Secret Trick to Guessing the Pronunciation of Chinese Characters
Ninchanese June 29, 2016How do the Chinese read aloud unknown characters? That’s something we’ve all wondered once. What if we told you there was a trick that could help you guess the pronunciation of any character you run into? Read on to unlock the secret to pronouncing 80% of all Chinese characters: phonetic components and you’ll be able to pronounce any Chinese character you meet, whether it’s on a street sign or on a restaurant menu!
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How many Chinese characters do I need to learn? You may have wondered that when starting Mandarin, as many many learners do when embarking on the wonderful journey that is learning Chinese. Read on to know the answers to these essential questions and all about Chinese characters. Besides learning how many characters there are in Chinese, you’ll see how many the average Chinese knows and how much you need to learn to reach conversational fluency in Chinese!
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