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.

So cheer up and let’s keep learning!

1. China might be closed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t visit other Chinese-speaking places.

Yeah, waiting for China to reopen is taking a while. But, hey, there are plenty of Chinese-speaking places in the world. The great news is that some have reopened already!

The meowsome Gardens by the Bay in Singapore are another good reason to learn Chinese – Photo by Isaac Matthew 

Did you know Singapore, for instance, has the Chinese language as one of its official languages? Plus you can travel there again.
Taiwan is slowly reopening too. There’s still a quarantine, true, but it’s being regularly shortened. Here’s to hoping there’ll be none one day soon! With the fact you can now learn in Traditional Chinese on Ninchanese, you have everything you need to get ready to go!

Related: Simplified or Traditional Chinese: which should you learn?

2. China might be far but there are plenty of occasions to speak Chinese around you.

Next to English and Spanish, Chinese is the most spoken language in the world.
So, look around you. You’re bound to find occasions to speak Chinese. To hear Chinese.
Chinatowns. Stores. People.

DC’s Chinatown is one of the many places you can go to practice speaking Chinese – Photo by Richard Tao

Go talk! There are plenty of occasions, everywhere! Just the other day, I chatted a good hour with the salespeople in a Chinese tea shop in Bangkok’s Chinatown.

Finding occasions to speak in Chinese, when you’re learning, is essential. Otherwise, you get rusty! Believe me, from experience, getting a chance to speak in Mandarin, if anything, will act as a great motivation to review what you’ve learned in Chinese so far and practice some more in Chinese!

Did you know, for instance, that Richmond, Canada has a 74% Asian population? It has the highest concentration of Chinese nationals outside of China. Why not schedule a trip there?

And if there are no real occasions where you live, go online. Learn Chinese online. Find people to talk to online. Come chat in Chinese on our Discord chat. Game in Chinese with Chinese speakers. Find yourself an online pen pal. The options are endless, you just have to go looking for them!

Related: What is the Chinese language?

3. It’s good for you from an economic point of view

What’s the downside to knowing an additional language in the job market? None, really.
What’s the downside to knowing the language spoken by one of the biggest economic powers in the world? Even more non-existent. In fact, it’s another meowsome reason to learn Chinese!

China’s brand new skyscrapers – Photo by Road Trip with Raj

From working in China to working with China, to working with Chinese people, for Chinese people, in Chinese, you have plenty of options.
Do you want to do business with China? Have Chinese suppliers?
Do you want to do translations? Interpretation?
In all those fields and many others, knowing Mandarin Chinese, and Business Chinese is a huge plus. So get your learning on!

Related: Explore the Chinese Business course on Ninchanese and get ready to do business in Chinese! 

Liking these reasons to learn Chinese so far? Here’s more!

4. It allows you to see the world from a different perspective

By learning the Chinese language, you’re opening yourself up to a different way of seeing the world, of perceiving it.

See the world differently. Photo by Yiran Ding

Learning Mandarin Chinese helps you have a different world approach. Concepts and ideas are expressed differently in Chinese.

It can be small things, like the fact you don’t “take” medicine, for instance, you “eat” it in Chinese ((You 吃药). And bigger things. For example, the Chinese sentence order is wildly different from, say, the way sentences are shaped in English.
Or the fact that you and me, we might think “I” and point to ourselves. We’re used to thinking solo. A Chinese speaker, when tasked with drawing “I”, the self, might, on the contrary, draw themselves surrounded by others. The concept of “self” is a little different in the Middle Kingdom.

It’s the little details like that that give you insights into how the Chinese people think. Personally, I find that endlessly fascinating. It’s definitely one of the reasons I’ve never stopped learning Chinese.

Plus, if expanding your understanding of cultural differences wasn’t your cup of tea, seeing the world in a different way helps you grow your critical thinking skills. With all the fake news and conspiracy theories swirling around, you (and we all) seriously need that…

5. It’s good for your brain

Learning any language is wonderful for your brain. It develops new areas of your mind and, in particular, strengthens your natural ability to focus and process information.

Learn Chinese and fire up your brain connections! – Photo by Moritz Kindler

Mandarin Chinese, with its beautiful characters and lack of alphabet? It’s like acid for the brain. In a meowsome, wonderful way. It creates in your brain all those new connections. Purrfect to form and strengthen your brain. Go for it.

For instance, a 2003 study found that people who speak Mandarin Chinese use both temporal lobes of their brains to understand the language.  In contrast, English speakers only use the left temporal lobe. Unlock a whole new temporal lobe!

There are plenty of other reasons for learning Mandarin that are good for your brain:

• It keeps your brain healthy. No neural network degradation for you, good person!
• It helps form good thinking patterns in your brain.
• It develops new areas of your mind and utilizes other parts of your brain.
• Some studies say it even helps with math skills!

What’s not to like?

Related: Why learn Mandarin Chinese, the language of Confucius?

6. Chinese culture and history are still very cool

You can’t visit the huge country that is China at the moment, sure. But China still has an extremely interesting history and culture you can explore from afar and learn more about.

There’s a lot to love in Chinese culture aesthetically. Photo by Sahil Pandita

From a rich culture, which led to some amazing inventions for instance, to epic historical events, there’s a lot to discover. And why not do that in Chinese directly? That’s a great reason to learn Chinese!

Related: 10 amazing inventions you didn’t know were Chinese
All you need to know about Chinese dynasties

If you like the idea of learning more about Chinese history but aren’t into history books or museums, there are many many historical C-dramas, as well as youtubers you can check out! Also, check out Ninchanese where you’ll learn Chinese culture as you learn Chinese!

Related: 8 Vloggers to watch to learn more about Chinese culture

7. Reason to learn Chinese: You gain access to a whole new world of content and culture

There’s a large quantity of high-quality Chinese-language content out there, you just need to know how to find it!

From Music to Games, to Movies, to Art, to books… there are a lot of Chinese-speaking artists to discover.

Related: 30 Chinese celebrities to know about

On TV, Cdramas and Taiwanese dramas have a lot of fans, and rightly so!

Related: 10 popular TV shows to improve your Chinese

Romantic and historical C-dramas get their fair share of fans, and  Chinese Wuxia and XianXia are also two media genres that are very popular.

Related: Platforms to watch Chinese videos.
Films to watch

Music and books

In books, there’s a lot to discover too! From Chinese classics like the JingPing Mei, or… to science fiction novels, China and Chinese-language artists have a lot to offer. Take the time to explore!

If you’re more a fan of video games, lots of great offers there too.

 8. Beautiful language Chinese characters

Mandarin Chinese is an amazing language, and its Chinese characters are endlessly fascinating.

There’s the fact Chinese is the oldest written language in the world, dating back to over 4000 years ago.

There’s the fact there’s no alphabet, and that Chinese characters are usually logical. Most Chinese characters contain components and a phonetic component. There are also many opportunities for art with Chinese characters, especially Chinese calligraphy.

In short, Chinese characters are an excellent reason to learn the Chinese language. At the very least, explore the language!
Chinese characters also enable very intriguing poetry to exist. Ever heard of the poem composed only of the sound “shi”? It has a meaning, of course, and is written using many different characters!

9. [Insert your own reason to learn Chinese]

Here’s a secret. All that matters is that you find pleasure in knowing the language.

Truth be told, you don’t need a specific good reason to keep learning a language. You need yours. All you need is to want to learn it. If the language interests you, you’re golden. No need for a huge, lofty goal. It can be a very small goal. Or even, just the fact you derive pleasure from learning and knowing the language.
So find what motivates you and keep learning! Everyone has their own reason to learn Chinese.
Whatever your reason, we’re here to help you learn Mandarin Chinese! It’s all happening on Ninchanese.

And one more thing…

If you want to continue learning Chinese with authentic and entertaining content, then you’ll love Ninchanese.

With Ninchanese, you get a complete method to learn Chinese which has you speaking, reading, writing, and more in Chinese. What’s more, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced learner, there’s content your level on Ninchanese and plenty more!

Start using Ninchanese on the web, with your computer or tablet, or on your phone with the Android app.

The Nincha Team

Stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Try the best way to learn Chinese today.
Ninchanese is free to use!

Sign up now

The post 9 meowsome reasons to still learn Chinese even though China is CLOSED appeared first on Ninchanese.

How to say Christmas in Chinese

First things first, let’s see how to write Christmas in Chinese.

圣诞节
Shèng Dàn jié
Christmas

That’s how you say Christmas in Chinese: 圣诞节 / Shèng Dàn jié.

To talk about Christmas Eve, you say:平安夜, [Píng ān Yè], which literally means: the Safe and Sound eve.
That’s also how you say “Silent Night” in Chinese. And yes, the famous Christmas Carol “Silent Night” is called 平安夜, [Píng ān Yè] in Mandarin!

平安夜
Píng ān Yè
Christmas Eve.

To write Merry Christmas in Chinese characters, you want to add the word 快乐, which means happy.

So to say Merry Christmas in Chinese language, you’ll say:

圣诞节快乐!
Shèng Dàn jié kuài lè
Merry Christmas

Celebrate Christmas in Chinese with a special world!

Christmas in China

Christmas in China is not quite celebrated the way other Christian-oriented countries celebrate it. Still, the holiday is becoming more and more popular in Chinese, so we’ve put together something special for the occasion: a Christmas-centric Mini-Course on Ninchanese!

Spend Meowy Holidays on Ninchanese!

In this special mini-world, you’ll experience how the Chinese celebrate Christmas. You’ll also learn the purrfect words and phrases you need to know to celebrate Christmas in Chinese and enjoy the holidays!

The special world dedicated to the Holidays is now available on the App and free for all Nincha learners (that can be you! Just sign up!). This Merry Holiday world is available for a limited time only: from the 20th of December 2021 to the 3rd of January 2022.

All those that will have finished these Holiday Stages by that date will earn a Nincha Holiday Badge! Make your friends and fellow Nincha learners envious with this exclusive badge! What are you waiting for? Click below to get started!

Or click here to head to Ninchanese if you can’t load the image.

You will be learning these words in Chinese for the holidays

Ooh, you want to know what you’ll be learning in these stages? Here are some of the words and phrases you’ll see:

•  节日 jié rì holiday; festival; holidays;

• 礼物 lǐ wù gift; present;

• 祝 zhù to wish; to express good wishes;

• 快乐 kuài lè happy; merry;

• 新年 xīn nián New Year;

• 圣诞 Shèng dàn Christmas;

• 圣诞节 Shèng dàn jié Christmas; Christmas season; Christmas time;

• 圣诞老人 Shèngdàn Lǎorén Santa Claus; Father Christmas;

• 节日快乐 Jié rì kuài lè  Happy Holidays;

• 圣诞快乐Shèng dàn kuài lè  Merry Christmas;

• 新年快乐 Xīn nián kuài lè Happy New Year.

Discover the rest and learn how to use these holiday words and phrases in Chinese in the Special Christmas World on Ninchanese!  It’s free!

More Christmas in Chinese Words

Want to go beyond the special Christmas Mini-World on Ninchanese? No problem! With the Nincha Decks, you can create as many vocabulary lists as you want about Christmas and the holidays in Chinese to go with it!
Learn Christmas greetings in Chinese, explore more Christmas Words in Chinese, focus on Christmas meals… The World’s your Oyster so go wild!

Here are 16 more Christmas Words to get you started – purrfect for your first Holiday-themed Nincha Deck!

Chinese Words to put yourself in the Christmas Spirit

Enjoy! And hopefully, learning these words will spark a little extra joy these holidays.

On this note,

The Nincha Team wishes you 圣诞快乐!

Have great holidays, everyone!

And one more thing…

If you want to continue learning Chinese with authentic and entertaining content, then you’ll love Ninchanese.

With Ninchanese, you get a complete method to learn Chinese which has you speaking, reading, writing, and more in Chinese. What’s more, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced learner, there’s content your level on Ninchanese and plenty more to discover!

So, whether you already have a background in Chinese or not, you will enjoy a way of learning Mandarin, both enjoyable and effective.

Start using Ninchanese on the web, with your computer or tablet, or, for Chinese learning in your pocket and on the go, download the Ninchanese app from the Google Play Store.

The Nincha Team

Stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Try the best way to learn Chinese today.
Ninchanese is free to use!

Sign up now

The post Christmas in Chinese and Other Purrfect Words for the Holidays appeared first on Ninchanese.

The benefits of learning Chinese are multiple!

More and more students are taking classes to learn Mandarin Chinese, one of the most practiced languages in the world! As you know, China is on the rise, so it’s an understandable trend. Not only because of its booming economy but also because the Chinese language has particularities that make it interesting to learn. Learning a language benefits everyone, you, the individual, the family if you have Chinese relatives and communities in a larger sense.

Now, let’s discover why you should start Mandarin Chinese lessons already!

The multiple and unexpected benefits of Learning Chinese:

Significant advantages for the brain

As you start to learn a new language, especially Chinese, it will benefit your brain in many ways. According to a survey by the Journal of Neuroscience in 2015, bilinguals have better cognitive flexibility. It’s easier for them to do a task than others who speak only their native language.

Specifically, the mandarin Chinese language is a miracle tool to make the brain do its work. The Chinese language helps to activate a specific zone in your brain that other languages do not. That is because characters are graphical in nature, so we need to use that zone in our brain more to recognize them. Need another medical reason? Scientists have discovered that Chinese speakers tend to be less affected by Alzheimer’s or are affected by it later in their life than those who don’t speak Chinese. You know, Chinese is composed of thousands of characters to learn. Practice those, and your memory won’t have a rest! You’ll train your muscle memory more than with other languages. 

Because Chinese characters develop imagination

As you learn to write Chinese, you’ll discover the beauty that hides in the traditional art of calligraphy. You’ll develop your art skills by drawing characters, and so you’ll end up both developing your creative mind and your mental faculty. The fine art of calligraphy helps to build your subtle artistic movement in a good sense! As you discover new characters, you’ll find many ancient cultural meanings hidden in them. It’s almost as appreciating prose poems. also, when you understand the Chinese components, it’s easy to make a story to understand how characters fuze to make new characters and meaning, up to you to make a little story about it.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

Start Learning Now

Discover a completely new language

The Chinese characters

Interestingly, when learning Chinese, you’re learning a diametrical opposite language compared to our familiar Germanic/Latin language. Contrary to French, Spanish, or Italian, where we can guess the meaning of an unknown word, it is almost impossible to guess a character’s definition at a glance.

You must study Mandarin Chinese characters and review them one by one, Ninchanese SRS is made especially to learn better the Chinese characters. Chinese characters are numerous, and even one character can have multiple meanings: these are called polyphonic characters. But no worry, there’s a way to learn them faster by knowing Chinese character components. You’ll find an excellent course on Ninchanese about radicals and components, that we recommend doing when you are learning Chinese. 

A tonal language

Contrary to English, Mandarin Chinese use tones in pronunciation. Tones are pretty powerful stuff that changes the meaning of a word. So you’ll have to know a Chinese word’s form in characters and also their tones. It’s an entirely different way to speak than what we are used to in English. Yes, it’s sometimes frustrating, but it’s also sometimes amusing!

So, take great care of how you pronounce your characters. Depending on your intonation, the meaning will change! Thankfully, pinyin facilitates the learning process and helps you know which pronunciation to use. Also, the ninchanese app has a speech recognition system that understands your tone and analyzes them for you.

Speak Chinese to Visit China

Who doesn’t want to walk on the great wall of China?

China is the 4th most visited country in the world. So, naturally, China has an essential role in tourism, and many people, from all over the world, come to see its beautiful ancient constructions like the Great Wall and temples. More modern constructions also attract a lot, like, high buildings. If you’re going to visit China, then you should absolutely download our Chinese phrasebook app made for Chinese, it will be really handy.

How about immersing yourself in Chinese society to learn their language?

Whether it is for a holiday, staying with a Chinese family, or only for studying Chinese, being in the country is a great way to learn Chinese. Chinese society’s manners matter and they are handy to know when dealing with Chinese people.

It’s not convenient to use a dictionary or a translating app when you’re speaking directly with someone, so speaking the Chinese language will allow you to make direct communication with natives. That way, you’ll make real connections with the people.

There are multiple benefits to understanding Chinese when you are in China. First, you’ll recognize the signs on the road since they are all in Chinese. And so, you’ll be able to visit Chinese cities without the need to ask and bother people to find your road. Then you’ll have access to hidden experiences that other tourists can’t have. A good thing to know is Chinese likes to bargain, and as you buy souvenirs, speaking Chinese will give you a real advantage by getting you the best price possible! 

China’s billion-strong population will likely shape the coming days of the world, and it is indeed a good move to learn to speak Chinese. It’s becoming more and more important to understand the Chinese people and their society.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

Start Learning Now

Knowing Chinese to work in China

Mandarin Chinese is the most widely-spoken spoken language globally and one of the largest marketplaces in one nation with 1.28 billion people. So, knowing Mandarin Chinese opens a learner to many career opportunities. The Chinese language is a bridge between an emerging China and the rest of the world.

More people speak Mandarin Chinese than they speak English! One out of seven people speaks Chinese on earth. Chinese speakers are everywhere nowadays, like China, Taiwan, Singapore, and other Asiatic countries. But Chinese speakers are also present in North America, Europe, and, more recently, Africa.

As you can see from the facts above, it’s no wonder that speaking and learning mandarin Chinese are necessary skills today. By learning Mandarin Chinese, you will be able to communicate with more and more people.

Learn Chinese & Discover an Ancient Culture

China is one of the universe’s oldest and richest continuous cultures, over 5000 months old.

Being skillful in mandarin Chinese allows you to know their society better. Old or recent, you’ll discover many other exciting tales, very different from what you’ve previously learned. You’ll also see films in Mandarin Chinese and play a mandarin Chinese video game. China is opening up and creating a lot of cultural content. Knowing how to speak Chinese is the best way to make sure you’re there to enjoy it.

PS: And on the side, learning Chinese characters will help understand their neighbors, the Japanese. As the Japanese language uses many Chinese characters, even if there are differences, it’s close enough to get some insight.

So all in all, China has a richer culture and a rich language that will benefit you in multiple ways. Have fun learning Chinese with Nincha!

The post Why learn Mandarin Chinese, the language of Confucius? appeared first on Ninchanese.

How to handle doors checks? Going to the supermarket?

By now, everybody should have heard of the newly discovered Coronavirus, which is currently spreading worldwide.

People are afraid of getting sick or even worse and are worried about friends and family, not only in China but also everywhere else. This leads to many controversial discussions on how to handle the situation on different levels, from nationwide protection down to individual people’s lives.

As I am a foreigner living in China with (personally, I would say) intermediate knowledge of the Chinese language, this results in many new exceptional situations to deal with. I haven’t been in China for that long and don’t have that much practice in speaking, and there is especially a whole range of phrases and words which are rarely learned during the common Chinese learning path. But being in this Coronavirus situation, there are essential or at least useful Chinese words to know.

Depending on the city and district one lives in, the experience can be different, but I want to give a short insight into some everyday situations. This is an account of situations that happened in the past few weeks in the region I live (Sichuan – Chengdu (southern part)) and the challenges they may bring for a foreigner:

Door interviews:

These can happen often, and the biggest challenge is, of course, the language barrier if you’re not fluent in Chinese.

So, problems can be:

• None of the people can speak English, and your level of Chinese is far from fluent. The difficulty is here.
• They speak Chinese very fast and use different words than the words you know.
• Sometimes, they even speak a local dialect, which makes it even harder.

How to handle communication misunderstanding in Chinese?

Ask them to speak Chinese a bit slower (and hope that they understand you) with 请您说慢一点儿 – Qǐng nín shuō màn yīdiǎn er。

It truly makes a difference. When the Chinese speak slowly, it makes it easier to understand. At least you’ll have a sense of the meaning, even if you don’t understand every single word. Try to explain your situation as well as you can with the Chinese words you know.

They often collect personal information, so they most likely have a list to write it down. Don’t be afraid of the sheet of paper with all the Chinese characters. It’s not that complicated.

First, use a dictionary with an app like Ninchanese to translate the words on the list. With at least a bit of Chinese knowledge and common sense, you’ll guess most of the unknown words pretty easily. See the list below to know more about them.

Main entrance controls:

They put up main entrance control in every building which can be accessed by the public. This also accounts for the building I live in because it’s part hotel, part rented apartments.

As above, they’ll ask for personal information. They will hand you a list to write your info down. Or you may have to tell the security staff the information they want. Keep in mind that many people may have already touched the pen and the list before you. So you may want to wear gloves or bring your own pen.

You also have to scan a QR-Code and fill out a survey (only once). It’s on your phone, so the translation should not be tough – Before entering, you have to do a fever-check. They simply aim with a thermometer at your forehead; that’s it.

Supermarket/Shopping center-lockdowns:

One thing to know is shopping-centers or supermarkets with more than one entrance closed all entrances except one. Sometimes it’s hard to find the entrance, but the mall or supermarket is still open. Sometimes some small centers/shops are entirely closed down.

Before entering, you also have to do a fever-check. Check the sign below that says that you have to wear a mask (戴口罩 – dài kǒuzhào – Wear a mask) or you are not allowed to enter. So always wear a mask when leaving your apartment.

How does the Chinese news speak about Coronavirus?

Information about the epidemic is spread frequently through hundreds and thousands of channels in all media. In China, most of it is in Chinese, and only a few of them are aimed directly at foreigners and translated into English. Despite this, with some keywords and expressions, you’ll be able to pick up the general info, as it’s the most crucial info to know to protect you.

Below is a sheet which was published by CCTV News (央视 新闻 – yāngshì xīnwén). It lists a few common rules on how to increase personal protection. Originally it was only published in Chinese, but I translated it for some foreign friends here, and a Chinese friend helped me share it.

The common rules of safety by CCTV

I found it quite interesting because it’s visually appealing, simple to understand, and is not explicitly attached to the current situation. It also lays out a more common sense of protecting yourself from getting sick. This makes a good starting point to learn some new words and short phrases, which may also be helpful in the future or at least act as an excellent addition to the familiar “Getting sick / Having a cold”-lesson in the Ninchanese app.

Epidemic Sheet in Chinese – CCTV original

epidemic sheet English

Phrases on the sheet:

For a more convenient understanding, the sentences in the English version of the sheet above are translated to sound more natural. However, in the phrases below, I will stick as close as possible to the word-order to make the sentence structure more understandable (which makes them sound more like those typical funny translated signs you often can find). Fill words with no Chinese equivalent are added in [square brackets].

尽量不出门 – jǐnliàng bù chūmén – As much as possible, don’t go out
勤开窗通风 – qín kāichuāng tōngfēng – Frequently open window [for] ventilation
适量运动 – shìliàng yùndòng – [In an] appropriate amount, exercise.

出行时 – chūxíngshí – Going out time
戴口罩 – dài kǒuzhào – Wear a mask
N95 口罩 – N95 kǒuzhào – N95 mask [comment: a particular type of mask] 医用外科口罩 – yīyòng wàikē kǒuzhào – Medical-surgical department mask
保持手卫生 – bǎochí shǒuwèishēng – maintain hand hygiene
洗手 – xǐshǒu – wash hands
湿纸巾,免洗洗手液 – shī zhǐjīn, miǎnxǐ xǐshǒuyè – wet paper towels, no wash hand sanitizer

处理口罩 – chǔlǐ kǒuzhào – handle mask(s)
不要剪碎 – bùyào jiǎnsuì – don’t cut [in]to pieces
普通人直接丢弃进垃圾桶 – pǔtōngrén zhíjiē diūqì jìn lājītǒng – ordinary (no medical) people directly discard [the mask] in [a] trashcan
有症状的用自封袋包装按医疗废物处理 – yǒu zhèngzhuàng de yòng zìfēng dài bāozhuāng àn yīliáo fèiwù chǔlǐ – [mask, used by a person who] has symptoms, use self-sealing bag [to] wrap [it and] refer [to it as] medical waste [for] disposal
清洗穿戴衣物 – qīngxǐ chuāndài yīwù – Rinse clothing [and] other daily used articles
对携带物品进行消毒 – duì xiédài wùpǐn jinxing xiāodú – For carried goods conduct disinfection
洗手 – xǐshǒu – wash hands
使用肥皂和流动的水 – shǐyòng féizào hé liúdòng de shuǐ – use soap and flowing water
搓手时间不低于 20 秒 – cuōshǒu shíjiān bù dīyú 20 miǎo – rub [your] hands time not less than 20 seconds

有症状 – yǒuzhèngzhuàng – having symptoms
有轻微症状在家先隔离观察 – yǒu qīngwēi zhèngzhuàng zàijiā xiān gélí guānchá – having light symptoms, at home first isolate [and] observe
有可疑症状戴上口罩就近就医 – yǒu kěyí zhèngzhuàng dàishang kǒuzhào jiùjìn jiùyī – having suspicious symptoms, put in [a] mask, [get] nearest medical advice

Below are tables containing the medical symptoms, words from the phrases, and additional vocabulary according to the context.

Symptoms

Words from the phrase sheet

Additional Words

Thanks, Stefan, for these handy guidelines and vocab about the coronavirus and the protection measures taken in China around it. We hope these will help you stay safe and healthy in China, little dragons!
Would you like to learn these words on Ninchanese? Let us know in the comments below!

Stefan and 

The Nincha Team

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The post How is the Corona Virus affecting daily life in China? appeared first on Ninchanese.

One of the first things you learn about the Chinese language is that it’s a very melodic language. That’s because the Chinese language is a tonal language. A tone is a way to pronounce a syllable with intonation. Yeah, I know. It’s much easier to write it than to say it.

Tone trick: first, let’s go through a real quick reminder of what tones are.

There are four tones in Chinese, and we often say there is also a 5th tone, which is silent. Each tone should be used every time it’s needed to be understood. Even Chinese speakers on TV have courses about pronouncing the tones right. Just for you to see how important it is.

But don’t worry, it’s ok to make mistakes sometimes. Even the Chinese make tone mistakes from time to time. Doesn’t that put the pressure off a little? Having most of your tones right and a few off will be excused and you’ll still be understood if you’re speaking with someone that understands the context. Context over tones, but tones still matter.

Let’s see all 4 tones, because that’s the key to this tone trick. Understanding the tones and how they work.

• The first tone is a flat tone. You just stay on the same tune a little bit longer.
• The second tone is a rising tone. You just tune up the syllable.
• The third tone is a waving tone. Really funny to do, you go down and up when you’re saying that tone on its own, and a little down and mostly up, when it’s in a sentence. (note: the third note behaves differently when combined with other tones, but let’s explore that later on)
• The fourth tone is a drop tone. Like his name tells you, your tune goes down.

Are you starting to understand where I’m taking you with that? The secret about tones is that we already use these 4 tones in our language! When? When we want to put an emphasis on a word.

Isn’t that a meowsome tone trick to realize? Tones in Chinese aren’t so foreign after all.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

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Wait, I’ll show you with examples:

• The first tone, a flat tone is actually the same intonation you use when you agree with something. Or when you say ahhhh, when you’re realized something and so you keep the same intonation for a little while.
• Second tone, rising tone. I’m sure you can imagine already: it’s like asking the question what?
• Third tone, waving tone. Easy, you know when you want the other to continue speaking and you’re like humhum? The same.
• Fourth tone, the drop. It’s like when you’re on the verge of winning a Ninchallenge, one more card to go… and your opponent just got a 6 points card correct. And you’re like. No! Oh No! Sharp no. 🙂

  Here’s the tone trick with our cute Nincha and Lupishu as stars.

Okay, now, you’re all set to start speaking Chinese with the right tones. Just imitate how you speak in a certain situation to get you started. It’s a lot less daunting that way!

It’s a good way to start. Granted, it won’t feel natural until after a few tries but your tones will be alright!
Okay, now that you know this meowsome tone trick, you’re all set. Now, you can train your tones on the Ninchanese app. Start a new speaking stage, you’ll have to say words and sentence with the right tones! It’s a great tool to train yourself to use the right tones and pronounce Chinese perfectly.

Did this secret method help you? What’s your favorite way to practice saying tones? Let us know in the comments!

The Nincha Team

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The post The super hidden (and insanely useful) tone trick no one tells you about appeared first on Ninchanese.

How do you find the Chinese character you are looking for?

Today, we’ll show you tricks to study Chinese by using an IME. Using an IME is an excellent way to improve your Chinese and practice writing Chinese as the Chinese do.

Real fast: What’s an IME and how do you use one?

A Chinese IME is a Chinese “input method editor” which allows you to type Chinese characters easily like a native Chinese speaker, using Pinyin. They are kind of like a Chinese keyboard but with way more options than just 26 letters. Having an IME helps a lot with writing Chinese online and using it is a great way to progress in your Chinese. This is how you learn to write Chinese characters in the listening stage on Ninchanese.

No IME yet? Head here to see how to get one!

Because you use an IME to write in Chinese, it’s also a great tool to help you identify mistakes you may be making in the way you memorized some Chinese words. In particular, I see two points where using an IME can help you identify your mistakes:

• Using a Chinese keyboard allows you to notice if you’re not spelling a word right in pinyin / pronouncing a Chinese word right because it won’t bring up the right results.
• It also lets you see if you’re familiar with what the word looks like in Chinese and not just with its pronunciation: because once you enter the pinyin for the Chinese character you want to enter, you still have to be able to pick out the right character for the sound you want! 

Actually, IMEs are getting increasingly clever, to make your life easier. More and more of these Chinese input methods use predictive engines, kind of like autocorrect, to guess what you’re trying to say even if you don’t quite remember how to write the word you’re looking for.

The truth is, however, your IME sometimes won’t be that helping pal that does the thinking for you. It will just help you to know you’re wrong but won’t give you the word in Mandarin you’re looking for. So, in that case, what can you do to find the right character? What if there was a method that allowed you to find that correct Chinese character and at the same time train your Chinese to remember better the Chinese character you’ve mistakenly learned?

Let’s explore with an example

 The other day, I wanted to write the word that means “Jealous” in Chinese. I typed “chisu” to bring it up in my IME, but nothing that looked right was coming up in the results.

Uh oh. Something’s wrong. No “to feel jealous” there.

Sure, I could have grabbed a Chinese dictionary and looked up the word “to feel jealous” in Chinese.

But I felt that was too easy. I was determined to understand why I wasn’t getting any results, in a way that would really help me memorize the Chinese word for “to feel jealous”. So I put my detective hat on and went on a mission to discover the culprit.

So here’s what I did.

 My 吃 is correct; that I was sure of. So it must be the “su” that’s faulty.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

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 Searching for the character Su

These results definitely don’t look like what I’m looking for.

Clinging to your Chinese memories

I take a few seconds to remember how the words I wanted to find looked. While I wasn’t quite sure about the second character –  or I could just have drawn it – I remembered the second character had the radical 酉 alcohol radical in it. So, I looked for characters with that radical or component in it, with my IME. Components are often either a sound or a meaning component so it could be a good path to find the character I was looking for.

After going through the first 5 results the IME suggested for “su”, and looking at other options, I found this character 酥  on the IME. Not quite the mental image I had in mind but worth a shot. Could that be the Su(e) I was desperately seeking (sorry, bad Madonna joke :D)?

So I looked that character up on my favorite Chinese dictionary, Ninchanese:

Screenshot of 酥 on Ninchanese

Oh. So it means “flaky pastry; crunchy; limp; soft; silky”. Not the one I was looking for.

Strangely evocative but not what I’m looking for.

So writing “su” alone without “chi” did not give me the result I wanted. But it did not refute the hypothesis that the word was containing “chi”, right? 

This time around, it looks like my method trying to find the character I wanted using a key component and the pronunciation I thought was correct, was not helping to find the right character either. Either my “su” is wrong, and I’m seriously starting to think that’s the problem here, or I made up the presence of “酉“ as a component in it. 

Okay, time to need to investigate further!

What shall I 吃?

My “Su” lead obviously isn’t getting me anywhere. But, I know for sure the expression started with “吃”.

So I went online and typed 吃 in Ninchanese’s dictionary to see what kind of expressions contained 吃. It brought up these results:

The 吃 I was looking for was first, so I clicked on it to see what kind of expressions contained 吃. Guess what? There’s a bunch – 128 related words! The Chinese sure to use their word “吃” to create other words! But it’s easy to look up all the related words that contain a Chinese character in Ninchanese’s dictionary results. Time to dig in and find “jealous”!

To replicate this search yourself, go here: https://app.ninchanese.com/word/simplified/119585/%E5%90%83%E9%86%8B

Tada!

吃醋!

Found it!

Here’s the culprit: 吃醋 Chīcù. Which means, literally, to consume vinegar. But people use it to say someone’s jealous. Because of love, naturally.

See? I knew it had 酉 the alcohol radical in it!  Turns out I wasn’t indeed typing the right pinyin. It should have been with a “c” ->  chī cù.  “Su” sounds a little close to “cu”, too. (Bad memory! Thank you, IME and Ninchanese.)

 So there you go! You have learned Chinese a little on the side AND spot your mistakes in Chinese.

How about you? Has that happened to you before? If so, what kind of errors do you spot with your IME? Let us know if you have any other Nincha techniques with your IME!

 吃fully yours!

The Nincha Team

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The post What to do when you can’t find the word you’re looking for with an IME? appeared first on Ninchanese.

World 5 (HSK 5) – Part 2 is out of Beta!

Join Lupishu and Nincha through +100 new stages of advanced academic content to learn Chinese! You’ll be delighted to learn Chinese with these new stages full of HSK 5 vocabulary, upper intermediate to advanced Chinese grammar, and dialogues. It’s time to depart from the eternal intermediate level and move to a fluent Chinese speaker level!

Explore this new island of learning on Ninchanese here.

Why most Chinese learners stay at intermediate levels

It’s not their fault. It’s hard to find a teacher that has the experience to drive them well in their learning at this point. There’s also not much interesting content available for Chinese learners once they are at an upper intermediate level and want to brush past it. And, to give a final blow: the books weigh a ton and look impossible to go through.

They could use something to guide them further in their learning and help them take the next step. They’re ready for it.

A new world 5 to help you cross the bridge to HSK 5 advanced Chinese

At Ninchanese, we bite-sized all HSK 5 needs into small, efficient, and well-thought-out stages. You now have access to a complete world that will effectively help you improve each part of the Chinese language you need to be at ease in. That’s reading, writing, listening, and speaking.

This new advanced HSK 5 Chinese world offers structured learning perfect to support all the learning you’ve been doing up to now and all the freeform learning you’ve done in context.  The best part? Learn however you like, do a session of 5 minutes a day or however much more you want, and feel a recurring sense of achievement and progress.

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

Start Learning Now

What does it mean to have an “advanced level of Chinese”?

Wondering if this new advanced level of Chinese is for you? If you’re ready? We bet you are. If you see yourself in this, you sure are:

You have made great strides in their Chinese learning up to now. You are good at talking about common topics and are learning a lot on your own, by interacting with a Chinese environment. This has helped you realize there’s still a lot you want to learn.

Does it mean you’re looking for a lot of interesting and authentic content to learn?

That’s a good thing, because the new World 5 in Ninchanese is huge and full of cool content.

To give you an idea: Now that it’s complete, the HSK5 world is as BIG as world 1 to 4 reunited! That’s a good chunk of content to work on!

HSK 5 World 5: Advanced content on two islands

The complete World 5 is so big it had to be split into two islands. Once you’ve done both, you’ll have learned 1 300 Chinese words and over 60 of the more difficult and advanced grammar structures. And that’s not it! You’ll also learn by speaking and writing over 70 new dialogues and 1523 new sentences to be able to speak about advanced ideas.

You’ll be able to read newspapers and magazines, enjoy Chinese films and plays and give a full-length speech in Chinese. Discover the curriculum of the HSK world 5 here.

Vocabulary

The amount of HSK 5 vocabulary to learn and familiarize yourself with is much larger than in the previous worlds. Organized by theme, this vocab will give the keys to understand much of any given situation. You’ll be able to understand the words used in any TV show or newspapers for example.

Grammar

The HSK 5 grammar you’ll study in this world goes in depth. All lessons are still simply explained but you’ll be handling more complex structures here. Not to worry, you’ll have plenty of example sentences to rely on. They are relevant, all full of sense. Learn to use the grammar points and example sentences in the grammar stages, and you’ll be able to use very useful ways to express your thoughts in Chinese.

Dialogues

As always, the HSK 5 dialogues all have a very practical focus and day to day related events. The conversations are also much longer than in the previous worlds. You’ll get a sense of immersion through the interactive way of speaking.

Authentic Chinese material that stays interesting

Too often, content at an advanced Chinese level goes abstract and borderline stuffy, when there are loads of interesting topics to talk and learn about! Modern, day-to-day content, to talk about technology, the news, economics, your favorite artist, to debate and share your opinion, to understand the culture and social etiquette, and a lot more. One area this world particularly focuses on is working in a Chinese environment and doing International business. Those are key things to know to pass the HSK 5.

Learn to work in a Chinese environment: a highlight on one key topic in World 5

As you go through the thousands of dialogues in the app, you’ll see Lupishu evolve and learning working skills. Lupishu is going through every stage of the work market and so will you alongside him. From making a Chinese resume, explaining skills in an interview, starting with an internship at a coffee shop at the airport, to become a salesman for a big company,… Yes, our Lupishu has well grown. We are very proud of Lupishu. And of you, now already, and even more so when you’ll reach his level and you’ll be able to work in a Chinese environment at ease!

What’s else is in store for this new HSK 5 world?

What about the pearl?

The story, of course! Lupishu is still doing his best to recover the pearl from the Emperor! IceAly, one of our early users, loves Ninchanese tremendously and asked to help write the story. IceAly is very creative, lives in China and use daily Ninchanese. We gladly accepted her help to write the story. We are impatient to share this new cat-story full of epic Chinese adventures with you!

Final words

Creating this new world based on the Ninchanese method has been a tremendous and fulfilling amount of work. We greatly thank all the Chinese teachers that poured their hearts into it, and the many little Nincha dragons that beta-tested it and sent their corrections (Noornalini, a special mention to you). Thanks also to all the Nincha team for their excellent work. We hope you’ll love it.

True, we are cute, true we are fun, true we have cats. But very true, that you have access to great educational content is our top priority.

We want to thank all that have helped to make Ninchanese so meowsome.

The Nincha Team

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Ninchanese is free to use!

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PS: Help us spread the word about Ninchanese. Share the Ninchanese adventure with your Chinese learner pals and help the Chinese learning community know about us ;)! And if you like Ninchanese, subscribe to support your meowsome Chinese learning app!

The post World HSK 5: An Epic world for Epic Chinese learning appeared first on Ninchanese.

With Western languages, even though you don’t know what a “flitterWochen” is (it’s an English word), you can easily read it out loud. Unlike English or Spanish, or any roman alphabet based language, in Chinese, however, it’s not that easy to read characters aloud you don’t know. The Chinese language is not a phonetic language, and with over 80,000 characters in the Chinese language, it’s quite normal to run into a character you’ve never seen before and to be at a loss as to how to pronounce it. So, how do the Chinese know how to read characters they’ve never seen before?

The secret trick

At first glance, the many strokes that compose a Chinese character don’t look like they give out many hints as to how they are to be pronounced. In fact, for a long time, you were expected to connect the strokes of characters to the sounds they refer to by sheer rote memorization. But, this is no longer the case. The Chinese know something you don’t and we’re going to let you in on their big secret: Chinese characters do represent sound, thanks to phonetic components. Phonetic components are indications the character contains on its pronunciation. 

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

Try Ninchanese, an award-winning method to learn Chinese today:

Start Learning Now

How to deal with an unknown character

When you run into an unknown character, the first thing you want to do is analyze it and break it down to see what it’s made of.

That way, rather than seeing and trying to remember a jumble of strokes, when you break down a character, you easily spot the different meaningful elements that make it up.

You can break down the characters yourself, or look at a Chinese dictionary, like Ninchanese’s.  The dictionary will show you how the character can be decomposed, and allow you to look up the different elements in the character.

What can you expect to see?

Most of the time (over 80% of the time), the character you’ll be looking at will be a picto-phonetic character.

This is the most common way of forming characters. In fact, more than 80% of all Chinese characters are pictophonetic characters. That’s great news for us Chinese learners, and you’re soon going to understand why.

Picto-phonetic characters are made of two pieces, called components. These two components are usually a meaning (also known as semantic) component and a phonetic component. One piece gives you a clue to the word’s meaning, another to the word’s pronunciation. Isn’t that great? Meaning components and phonetic components really are the building blocks of the Chinese written language.

As today we’re exploring how to read out loud a character you’ve never seen before, our focus is on phonetic components. Let’s see what a phonetic component is precisely and how you can easily use it to know how a character sounds!

What are phonetic components?

Phonetic components are elements in a Chinese character that give you clues on a character’s pronunciation. They can be used to deduce the intonation of an unknown Chinese character. Curious to know how?

Let’s take the character 妈 mā mother. If you break it down, you’ll see it’s made of two parts:
女 which is a meaning component, symbolizing femininity, and 马, which is pronounced mǎ (and when used as a standalone character, means horse). As you can see, 妈’s sound matches the component 马’s pronunciation, aside from the tone. Here, 马 is a phonetic component.

Now that you know 马 is a phonetic component, can you pronounce: 吗, 骂, and 码?

That’s right, they’re all pronounced “ma”. Well done! You can expect Chinese characters that contain this phonetic component to sound the same.

In most of the cases, when you identify a phonetic component in a character, the character will be pronounced either exactly like the component or have a sound pretty close to it.

How to spot a phonetic component in a Chinese character

So you have your Chinese character in front of you. You may be wondering: is there an easy way to spot which part of the character is the phonetic component

The Chinese like to say:

有边念边，没边念中间吗，没有中间，自己编.

However, this method doesn’t always work. The phonetic component can indeed often be found on the right side of a character.
But, it’s also common for the phonetic component to be below the meaning component.

In other character structures, you’ll find the phonetic information inside another element; and, even more rarely, in other combinations.

When in doubt, go to your favorite online Chinese dictionary, and look up the character. Its character decomposition will help you research which element is the phonetic component, and what the other element(s) that compose the character are.

How do you master phonetic complements?

Phonetic components have traditionally less been studied than meaning components, which is a shame, as they are tremendously useful to knowing how to read and write a Chinese character. Before teachers used to expect the students to learn how to pronounce all the characters by rote, at least, now, we know we can rely on phonetic components to read an unknown character’s pronunciation.

One thing we don’t know for sure,however, is how many phonetic components there are.

Early research on the subject, by Soothill in the 1880s for instance, listed up to 1000 phonetic components. Other researchers have suggested other numbers, ranging from less to more. It may seem like a lot, but, we have lots of good news.

First, you can start by learning the most common phonetic complements first.

Excited by the idea of mastering the essential phonetic components? Then join us every Monday in our community.

Your Monday meeting with a component

Meet the phonetic component 包! Learn how to use it, by clicking here >> https://t.co/IJ5B4a3eZ6 #chinese #learn pic.twitter.com/M7sfpI6EF9

— Ninchanese (@Ninchanese) June 27, 2016

Every Monday, on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, get to know the key phonetic components and meaning components! You are introduced to a new component each week. You learn to use it all week in all sorts of fun activities, from silly dialogues to cool word building. Each component has a whole page dedicated to it, so you can also study in detail about it.

Head to this page to see all the Chinese character components you need to know. More are added each week! Don’t miss this weekly rendezvous.

Second, phonetic components are, more often than not, also standalone characters

This means: you’ll learn them as words, and then happily be able to spot them in words.

In addition, and that’s the second piece of good news: phonetic components tend to retain the same shape in the character they’re in. They don’t change shapes like a meaning component might do, which makes it even easier to spot them right?

Two key takeaways from this:

When you run into a new character, look for familiar elements. See if it looks anything alike the characters you already know and if it has anything in common with them. When you go to a place you’ve never been before, you look for something familiar, whether it’s a friend or an object, right?! By making an association between the characters you’ve learned before and the familiar features of the unknown character, you’ll possibly find clues on its pronunciation. For example, if you know the word 马 mǎ horse, there’s a big chance you’ll be able to pronounce words such as 吗 ma question particle or 妈 mā mother.

At Ninchanese, we know that phonetic components matter, so we help you help you learn all the components at your own pace. As you learn new words, you’ll learn and master new components so you can identify them better in unknown words. In addition to the learning stages, we also have many tricks to help you catch them all -yup, still talking about the phonetic components.

See, phonetic components come in particularly handy when you play a Ninchallenge.

Ninchallenge your knowledge!

In Ninchanese, you can engage your friends in fun battles called the Ninchallenges. Ninchallenges are the opportunity to review the Chinese words and characters you’ve learned before and learn new words while playing with your friends. They test your knowledge of Chinese. In the Ninchallenges, you mostly pick words you know but sometimes you pick unknown characters and words.

What happens, then? It’s up to you to guess their pronunciation! What are you going to need? That’s right: a phonetic component. If you know the phonetic component that is in the character you need to guess, you’ll be able to easily read them out loud and write down their pinyin.

For example, it’s your turn to play and you’re supposed to guess how to read the character 踉. You’ve never seen this character before, but that doesn’t mean all is lost. You now have your secret weapon: phonetic components!

Do you recognize a component you know in this in this character 踉? Yes, in the right-hand corner, there’s the phonetic component 良 liáng good, well-spotted! So how about taking a gamble and saying this character 踉 sounds about the same? Well done! You’re right, 踉 liáng jump sounds precisely the same, plus it’s an exact match!

Phonetic components are powerful in a Ninchallenge… and in real life

This happens in a Ninchallenge, but it will also happen to you in real life. You’ll run into all sorts of unknown character you’ll need to decipher and guess how they’re pronounced.

As you see, learning the components is essential if you want to expand your understanding of the Chinese language, and your resourcefulness when facing unknown characters.

There’s also many resources you can use to improve your knowledge of phonetic complements. For example, if you want to see all the perfect matches of the phonetic sets, Hanzicraft has an amazing database to explore.

Now you’ve got all the resources to master the phonetic components, you’re ready to pronounce an unknown Chinese character thanks to the phonetic sets. How can you use them to guess how to pronounce a character in Chinese?

What phonetic components will tell you about how to write and read Chinese characters

Great, so now you know where to look for a phonetic component in a Chinese character. Let’s move on to the indications these phonetic complements can give you on a character’s intonation.

As said before, Ninchallenges mirror the experience you’ll get in real life in a Chinese speaking country. Restaurant menus are the best example, but street signs and newspapers are also good ones to train yourself to read out loud unknown Chinese character. You’ll be often faced with unfamiliar and unknown words, but still, you have to deal with them if you want to win. So how do you overcome that obstacle? You look for clues.

Here’s an example that can happen to you in real life.

You meet the Chinese character 晴 when reading the weather forecast. The context may help understand the word, but how do you pronounce it? When you break down the character 晴 you get:

Here, 日 brings the meaning and 青, on the right side, is a phonetic component, which brings the sound. Then, you know the character 晴 will sound like “qing”. Indeed, 晴 is pronounced qíng and means clear (sky).

Phonetics can be essential on a daily basis. For example, if you want to order food but don’t know a character on the menu, you can try to pronounce it using your phonetic component knowledge and get an explanation from the waiter. Plus, you can practice your Chinese by speaking to the waiter. It makes you speak Chinese and practice your understanding skills. Neat!

The examples we’ve shown so far are perfect or near perfect matches for the phonetic component, but is that always the case?

Do characters always sound like the phonetic component they contain?

Yes and no. There are also several kinds of matches.

Perfect matches

If a character has the same sound, pinyin, and tone as the phonetic component it contains, it’s called an exact match. The character 洋 yáng ocean, for example, is an exact match with the phonetic component 羊 yáng sheep.

Near-perfect matches

Then you can find second-degree matches. These are characters that share the same sound as the phonetic component it is made of but not the same tone.

The character 样 yàng manner is a second-degree match with the phonetic component 羊 yáng sheep as they don’t have the original tone but share the same sound.

A little more distant matches

You can also find characters that share the same phonetic component and that have different, but very close sounds. Here, the phonetic component 可 kě to permit can be found in characters that sound like “ke”, “ge” or “he”. These three pronunciations share the finals “e”. A phonetic component can have two or more possible pronunciations that share the same initials, finals or tones.

Exceptions

As you can see, phonetic components aren’t an accurate science and there are some exceptions. The Chinese language has evolved a lot over the years, and therefore, sometimes, you have to look at character etymology, the traditional forms of characters or older sounds to understand why the character is pronounced the way it is.

Despite that, knowing phonetic components is a big piece of the Chinese puzzle, and your key to being able to be able to guesstimate the pronunciation of 80% of all characters. If that’s not meowsome then I don’t know what is.

So, learn to master the different phonetic components and you’ll be able to read any character.

Final words:

If you’ve always wondered how the Chinese managed to pronounce characters they’d never seen before, now you know they owe it to the phonetic compounds. Learning them is important to find unknown words’ pronunciation and also to understand the Chinese logic and memorize the characters better.

Here’s a quick summary of what you need to remember about the phonetic components that:

• Once you master a phonetic component, you master the pronunciation of the several characters that contains it.
• Most Chinese characters are either exact and second-degree matches for the phonetic component they contain.
• A same phonetic component can lead to various pronunciations that share the same initials, finals or tones
• In short: Dare to make guesses. If you don’t find the same intonation, you’ll end up close. And that’s a great start.
• Practice guessing the sounds of unknown Chinese characters and honing your deciphering skills in the Ninchallenges.

Don’t forget our one week one component to keep learning new components! You also continue your reading about Chinese characters and check out the following post about how many characters you need to know.

By the way, for your personal acknowledge, a “flitterwochen” is an old English expression to say “honeymoon”. Good to know when playing Scrabble!

Have you experienced an obstacle when meeting an unknown character? What’s your experience deciphering unknown characters? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Phonetic Components: The Secret Trick to Guessing the Pronunciation of Chinese Characters appeared first on Ninchanese.

Can you believe it’s already time for summer? How time flies! You’ll be soon on your long awaited holiday and doing all sorts of summer fun activities! Will you keep learning Chinese? Naw, no time for that, you think. Here’s a thought: what’s worse than having spent time learning so many Chinese characters to then forget them in less than 2 months? Nothing, right? You may be dreaming of sunshine, and being outside, rather than on your computer, using Ninchanese, but worry not! Ninchanese works great on your mobile devices. Summer is full of opportunities to speak and practice your Chinese, especially with this list of 10 fun things you can do right away to improve your Mandarin! So read on, and get ready to have lots of fun leveling up your Chinese this summer!

The first tip needs sand to be done! Let’s go to the beach, then! Well, only mentally for now…

Ninchanese is an incredible app for learning Chinese!

” I actually graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a MA in Chinese.
I’ve used Ninchanese daily, and it has helped me a lot!  “

 – Connor, Ninchanese User

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Write Chinese characters on the beach

You’ll probably spend your holidays on the beach. What are your plans? Swimming, tanning, building sand castles? No, forget sand castles, they are so overrated. Instead, how about drawing the Chinese characters you know in the sand? Take a picture of your beautiful creations and go Instagram them with the hashtag #myninchanesesummer! We’ll pick the best pictures of characters, and you’ll get a surprise!
The beach is the perfect place to practice your Chinese writing, now you know that. It can also be a very useful place to make new friends. Come on, have you ever played beach volley?

Make Chinese-speaking friends

Chinese learning requires practicing and daring to speak Mandarin from the beginning is a great way to set your Chinese pronunciation skills on the right track. Your holiday destination a perfect occasion to do so. Depending on where you’re going, odds are there’ll be Chinese tourists there too. Don’t miss your chance! This is a perfect time to meet new people and make Chinese-speaking friends! All you have to do is go and talk to them! I know it can be scary at first, but to practice and improve your Chinese, you need to leave your comfort zone.

The first time I went to China, I was alone and felt very nervous on the plane. Traveling alone is not an easy thing to do, especially when you’re young. It’s very scary. I knew, then, I had to make friends so they could comfort me. In the plane, my neighbors were an old Chinese couple. They looked very nice. They were the perfect target! I needed to talk to them! It all started with a 你好 and then she asked me questions in Chinese about my travel. It made me feel better. I was also very happy she could understand me. I really improved both my understanding and listening skills.

So don’t be shy, and make your holiday mission to connect with Chinese people. At least, dare to say “你好”! You’ll see they’ll be glad to hear someone speaking their mother tongue and most likely open to chatting with you. Plus, your family and friends will be very impressed to see you speaking Chinese with natives.

Another tip that will impress your friends for sure and prevent you from forgetting your Chinese over the summer, playing the DJ.

Create a Chinese playlist

Be a trendsetter, play the hottest 2016 Chinese pop songs on the beach! All your friends will be impressed by your DJ skills. Playing music in Chinese will also help you improve your listening skills. I just have the best 2016 Chinese playlist you need, that should help you.
Summer holidays are also the equivalent of Chinese learning loss, therefore, listening to someone speaking Mandarin will help you not become a total stranger towards Chinese.

If you want to stay discreet on the beach and keep your hottest songs for yourself, that’s totally fair. Listening to your fave Chinese songs on repeat is great to tune your ears to sounds in Chinese. At first, the lyrics might seem incomprehensible, but you’ll be happy to see after a few listens that you now understand each lyric a lot better! Read the lyrics to the songs online and look up all the words you don’t know in our Chinese dictionary. It’ll be a fun exploration!

Summer is the perfect occasion for outdoor activities during sunny days. But, the weather can surprise us, so here’s a list of indoor activities to keep you having fun practicing your Chinese on summer rainy days.

Sing in the rain!

OK, don’t sing literally in the rain, you might get sick from that. Sing in your shower. Come on, everyone does it. Learn to sing one of those Chinese songs you’ve listened to so much outside each day and perform while showering. This is your moment, so enjoy it! Learning Chinese can be fun and done everywhere, even in your bathroom! That way, you get a perfect combo of both having trained your listening skills with Chinese songs, and having o practiced your speaking skills! Tons of songs will use the vocabulary learned on Ninchanese, it’s a good way to review these words.

If you’d rather be entertained that entertain your neighbors with your amazing voice (I’m sure it is), here’s a great way to practice Chinese while playing!

The secret tip for gamers!

Not everyone has planned to go on vacation. Or maybe you’d like to stay home having fun and resting today. Be delighted dear gamers, I’ve got the perfect tip for you to keep practicing and learning Chinese without even knowing it –well kind of. Put your video games in Chinese! You can also play online with Chinese speakers, and use the chats to practice with them. We hear it’s particularly effective to learn swear words. to practice! Isn’t it amazing? In Ninchanese, we know that a fun learning is more efficient!

If you’re not a big fan of videos games, don’t worry, I have some other amazing tips for you! There are plenty of other fun activities you can do indoors to practice your Chinese this summer, like using your TV for example!

Watch movies. But in Chinese, please!

If you love watching movies, you’ve come to the right place. But this time, for a pleasant change, watch them in Chinese! Watching movies and shows in Chinese will help you improve your listening and comprehension skills! Here are the 10 best Chinese TV shows to watch. So, what do you say? Ready for a binge-watching kind of holiday?

Or maybe you don’t want to spend all your holidays in the dark, watching TV. If you want to be more active, here’s the solution: cook!

Cook Chinese dishes!

Channel your inner chef, and pick recipes that are in Chinese, or maybe in both Chinese and English. Challenge yourself, and cook awesome dishes to surprise your friends and family! There are so many easy recipes you can do. Plus, you’ll learn so many new words about food and cooking in Chinese along the way. Here’s a recipe to a cool and easy to make Chinese delicacy, that I like to cook myself, to get you started: the super-tasty 糯米糍 nuòmǐ cí (Sticky rice balls). You can also find cooking videos in Chinese on youtube that can help you to improve both your listening and cooking skills.

Just started The Best Chinese Food Board on @pinterest! Suggestions of good Chinese recipes? https://t.co/u7VHJHaI5W pic.twitter.com/IXEhtILzVn

— Ninchanese (@Ninchanese) 16 June 2016

Cooking in Mandarin is very useful for learning Chinese, you’ll see! And when you’re going to buy the ingredients, don’t forget to say “你好” to the sellers of the shop! Seize all the opportunities to speak Chinese with natives!

The next tip on your list is also one you can share with your family.

Teach Chinese to your family

If you’re lucky enough to have siblings that are willing to learn some Chinese, then go for it! Try teaching your family a few words and sharing with them your adventures learning Chinese. If someone else in your family is also learning Chinese, you can also play games in Chinese on the way to your holiday destination. You can play Chinese learning games about guessing characters or their meanings, or challenge them to a Ninchallenge, a duel over your knowledge of learning Chinese. You’ll have arrived before you know it!

This tip is also a good way to spend some family time bonding with your parents and siblings. You’ll remember these summer holidays forever, and your Chinese will be so much improved. Your friends can also be a good help when learning Chinese , especially on social networks when they notify you. Learn how to turn those pesky notifications into sneak Chinese learning sessions in our next tip. in the following method.

Learning Chinese with Facebook

Change the language input of your Facebook account and set it in Chinese is a great way to practice using a site completely in Chinese and learning the web and computer terms in Chinese. You’ll learn new words regarding social networks, but you’ll also review ones you’ve learned with Nincha. You’ll see, it’s an interesting experience turning a tool you’re so familiar with into something a little more challenging.
And whenever you post something on Facebook, like a picture of you during the holidays, you’ll be notified in Chinese of the likes, reactions and comments! Isn’t that super cool and super sneaky?

Whether it’s on the beach, in the countryside, in another country or at home, most of us will be spending our holidays with family and friends this summer. Don’t forget to give yourself some me-time too, it’s also a good way to enjoy holidays and rest before going back to work. So, how can you prevent summer Chinese learning loss if it’s just you and your cat?

Ninchanese your cat!

Talk to your cat in Chinese, it won’t judge you, I swear! Try to teach it a few words. For instance, order your cat to bring you a coffee but in Chinese! See? There are so many things you can do with it! Practice with your cat as if you were practicing with Nincha, except your cat won’t answer you, well, I guess so…
If your cat would rather hunt than listen to you speak, you can also try speaking to yourself or speaking in front of a mirror. If you do, watch your face, your match and your body language as you speak, and try to talk for 2, 3 minutes, just like you’d be talking to a friend. Or to your cat. If you don’t know how to say something, don’t stop to look it up. Just keep going, find a different way to express yourself or change your sentence. It’s great to see what areas in speaking you’re having trouble with and need to be worked on, and to identify words you don’t know but would like to look up.

And if you want to know if your Chinese pronunciation is good, use our voice-recognition feature to get instant feedback on your speaking skills.

Final words:

From outdoor to indoors, we hope this list of summer activities will keep your holiday fun-filled and full of Chinese! You may have noticed that all these activities have one thing in common: to have you practicing and learning Chinese as much as you can this summer. Take every opportunity to do a little Chinese, whether it’s on the beach with Chinese tourists, by drawing characters in the sand or at home by listening Chinese songs and reviewing word. And remember the key to making Chinese learning enjoyable is to find a fun way to do it! You also know you’ll have Ninchanese with you, on your mobile devices, so whenever you have a few minutes, keep improving your Chinese learning online with Ninchanese. We’ll be here all summer to guide you and take care of your Chinese language learning. You can also check Ninchanese secret tips to fully enjoy the platform!

Do you have any secret tips to keep learning Chinese during summer? Share them with us in the comments!

Pauline and

The Nincha Team

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The post Top 10 Fun Activities to Keep Learning Chinese This Summer appeared first on Ninchanese.