The Inspiration Behind the Change:

You, our dedicated users, have always been at the heart of everything we do at Ninchanese. Your love for our app and the way it has helped you make significant progress in your Chinese learning journey has been our driving force. However, we also listened closely to your frustrations and challenges, such as the overwhelming review system, the difficulty of speaking stages, and the tiresome task of typing vocabulary on a phone…

We realized that to truly address your concerns and create the best possible learning experience, we needed to do more than just update our existing app. It was time to take a step back, re-evaluate our approach, and start fresh. And so, the journey to the new Nincha app began.

Crafting a Better Learning Experience:

With your valuable feedback in hand, we set out to create an app that would cater to the needs of both beginners and advanced learners. Our goal was to build a more supportive learning environment that encourages exploration and growth, without the fear of making mistakes.

One of the most significant changes we’ve made is in our teaching philosophy. Instead of focusing solely on testing your knowledge, we now offer more guidance and support.

The new grammar mode

For instance, our new grammar building mode suggests correct word placement when you’re unsure, helping you learn progressively making sentences with new words.

The new speaking mode

We’ve also tackled the challenge of speaking exercises head-on. Understanding the frustration of perfecting pronunciation in a tonal language like Chinese, we’ve made the learning process more forgiving. You can now retry sentences and even see the pinyin if you’re struggling, ensuring that you can practice and improve at your own pace.

The new listening mode

Listening exercises have been revamped as well. While our previous stages were rewarding, they could be time-consuming and challenging. In the new app, you can simply listen to the sentence and select the corresponding blocks, making the process more engaging and accessible, or still choose to type what you hear for an extra challenge.

The new vocabulary and review mode

Another problem we wanted to overcome is feeling overwhelmed by the reviews. Reviewing the words you learned is essential to progress and consolidate your knowledge of the Chinese characters. But if you let them pile up, and never complete your reviews, that’s frustrating and detrimental to your learning progress. Completely counter-productive, even.

So now, you’ll be able to do your reviews faster by indicating whether you know a character or not, without typing it. It’ll be a lot easier to finish your reviews and consolidate your progress, which is the goal.

Learn Chinese in your own language

What’s more? We’ve translated the app and its content into several new languages, making it easier than ever to learn Chinese. Whether you’re a native speaker of English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, or Korean, you can now dive into learning Chinese in the language you feel most comfortable with. This expansion is all about breaking down barriers and creating a more inclusive, accessible learning environment for everyone.

A New Chapter Begins:

The journey to the new Nincha app has been one of discovery, innovation, and collaboration. Your feedback has been our guiding light in creating a better, more intuitive, and more supportive Chinese learning experience. There’s so much more we want to do and we hope we can make it together.

We can’t wait for you to experience the new Nincha app for yourself. Stay tuned for more updates, and get ready to embark on a new chapter in your Chinese learning journey with us.

Thank you for being a part of our community and for helping us shape the future of language learning. Together, let’s continue to explore the beauty and depth of the Chinese language, one character at a time.

The post Introducing the New Nincha app appeared first on Ninchanese.

我喜欢坐火车旅行

Wǒ xǐhuan zuò huǒchē lǚxíng

I love taking the train to travel

Let’s break down the words:

• 我 – Wǒ – I, me, my. Here: I
• 喜欢 – xǐhuan –  to like, to be fond of.
• 坐  – zuò – to sit; to take
• 火车 –  huǒchē –  train
• 旅行 – lǚxíng – to travel, journey, trip. Here: to travel.
  • Here’s a tip to find 旅行 with your IME (input method editor, what allows you to type in Chinese): instead of the ü, type a v! That’s the norm in Chinese as most keyboards don’t have an easy way to type such things (with the exception of languages like French or German, that have diacritical marks like ¨ or accents).

Did you know?  To say “to take the train”, the Chinese say 坐火车, which literally means “to sit (in) the train”. That actually makes a lot of sense. When you take a train, you’re sitting on the train, not driving it, so why not be specific and say that instead of just “take”? Make sure you remember. In a similar fashion, you can say  坐公共汽车 to take the bus or  坐飞机, to take a plane.

Stay tuned for more of Nincha’s adventures and travels!

Related: Nincha discovers mooncakes!

The Nincha Team

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Try the best way to learn Chinese today.
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Happy mooncake eating!

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

Just make sure you don’t overdo it, like Nincha did below:

Poor Nincha!

Happy 中秋节!

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 Happy mooncake eating! appeared first on Ninchanese.

One day, you suddenly start seeing a new word or an expression pop up everywhere online or hear teenagers use it all the time and you don’t even know what it means yet. Chances are, you’ve encountered a catchphrase; a popular slang word or expression that everyone starts suddenly using to talk about a concept.

In China, new slang and catchphrases emerge at break-neck speed and become immediately immensely popular on Weibo and other online forums. So if you want to speak really modern Chinese, being familiar with Chinese catchphrases as well as the things you learn in class will help you a lot.

Nincha’s here to help though so don’t be worried, you’ll know all you need to know! Here we go!

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

Chinese catchphrase #1 : It’s a Duang thing

“DUANG”

duāng

“boing,”  “ta-da!”

Our first must-know Chinese catchword is a word you’ve probably come across already, and not necessarily in a Chinese text. It was a big hit not only in China but also in some parts of the world (hello 9gag): DUANG.

Duang, this strange little word (pronounced: dwong) suddenly hit the Chinese Internet by storm and became viral throughout China. You can now hear people use it jokingly in the streets, on TV shows, everywhere!

This word doesn’t actually have a meaning, it is a modal word like “Oops”, “ta-da” or “boing!”, a mimetic word to show your excitement or to describe something that happens all of a sudden. A majority of Chinese netizens also seem to use it as an adjective before another word to emphasize it.

For instance,

他 duang 的一下摔倒了。

tā duāng de yī xià shuāi dǎo le. 

“Duang”, he fell down all of a sudden.

DUANG first appeared in a Jackie Chan interview. In the interview, to show how he felt about a shampoo advertisement, he used this word to explain how magical the shampoo could be. Just like magic, after DUANG a second your hair turns black again.

Now, if you google Duang, in addition to Jackie Chan’s face, you’ll see this everywhere:

Since Duang didn’t have a character associated with it in Chinese, netizens came up with this: It’s a combination of Jackie Chan’s name in Chinese + Duang written on top. ^^

Later on, out of nowhere, a netizen remixed this advertisement with the music of 庞麦郎 Pang Mai Lang’s “My sneaker” “我的滑板鞋” (wǒ de huá bǎn xié) – a spoof music that is unreasonably hot in China right now. In it, you hear “Duang” repeated over and over with a bunch of special effects. It’s really quite something. So let’s get duangggggg now!

Chinese slang #2: Tired like a dog

累成狗

leì chéng gǒu

tired like a dog

Nowadays in China, a lot of sayings are used to express how tired or bored we feel, but the most popular slang expression is this one: “累成狗” (leì chéng gǒu, tired like a dog).

This Chinese catchword works more or less like an adjective, and means “like a dog” (Adjective + 成狗). So you can add anything you want in the front, like 饿成狗 “hungry like a dog”; 热成狗 “hot like a dog”; 穷成狗 “poor like a dog”, anything you want. This slang expression works just like 热死了rè sǐ le “I am hot to death”. Both 成狗 and 死了 are used here after the adjective to add emphasis.

You might be wondering why a dog? I didn’t find the answer as to how this all started, but just picture a tired little puppy face with its little tongue hanging out of its mouth, lying on the ground. I think it perfectly sums up our feeling.

Chinese catchphrase #3:  Moe-moe cutie

萌萌哒

méng méng da  

cutie-pie

I feel so cute ~~ – picture credit: Duitang

萌萌哒  is an expression influenced by the Japanese Manga.

“萌” (méng) literally means “cute”, and “哒” (da) is a modal particle. The Chinese like to use a word twice to add emphasis to it, such as:

好好吃 hǎohǎochī. It taste good

好好玩 hǎohǎowán. It’s funny.

That’s why here “萌萌” actually means the same as “萌”. It is generally used to describe someone who is especially cute and lovely. This expression originated on 豆瓣 Douban, a very popular social website used by Chinese teenagers, where people can exchange their thoughts about the books they read, movies, music, events, blogs and other contents. On Douban, one day a netizen posted “Today I forgot to take my medicine and I feel so cute.”

今天出来没吃药<(￣▽￣)>感觉整个人都萌萌哒p(#￣▽￣#)o

jīn tiān chū lái méi chī yào, gǎn jué zhěng gè rén dōu méng méng da

Today I forgot to take my medicine and I feel so cute.

You can use this word to express someone is really cute or sometimes you can use it to make fun of yourself. Just for fun~.

Chinese slang#4:  么么哒 mua~

么么哒

momoda

kiss kiss

么么哒 shares the same pattern as 萌萌哒 (words reduplication) and is now used by teenagers and also adults in China to express one’s love and affection when they text a message or chat online. It is not only used between lovers but also with family and friends. It is a cute mimetic word of a kissing sound, just like mua~ Teenagers always use this symbol as a kiss too: >3333333

Maybe you’ll shocked by this photo, an ugly girl with a running nose, seriously? Haha, the Chinese now like this mock-picture, this face is very popular on the internet. Send a kiss to your lovers like this? So funny!

Chinese catchphrase #5:  Rich and bitch

有钱就是任性

yǒu qián jiù shì rèn xìng 

have money, can act however I want

有钱就是任性 is a saying that says “you’re rich so you can do whatever you want and bitch as much as you want”.

This slang expression originates from a real event: One day in April 2014, Mr. Liu spent 1760 yuan online to buy a health care product. Soon after, he got a strange call persuading him to buy other drugs for the first product to be effective. In the following four months, Mr. Liu sent about 540,000 yuan to the fraud scheme. He said that he’d figured out after dishing out 70 000 RMB that it was a scam but kept going. “I just wanted to see how much could they take from me!”, said Mr. Liu. Everyone was amazed by his words and absurb rich-guy behavior. He must be really rich, huh? So that’s how the expression 有钱就是任性 became popular.

Next time you want to show off your wealth, but not exactly in Mr Liu’s way, you can say:

Chinese Internet slang #6: Crazy or Drunk?

也是醉了！

yě shì zuì le 

Are you kidding me? Have I become crazy?

The literal meaning of this expression is: being drunk. But now, it is used in Chinese to show how helpless one feels, and in situations where one has nothing to say or doesn’t understand. The slang meaning is therefore closer to “Are you kidding me?!” or “Have I become crazy?!”

Chinese catchphrase #7:  You can you up

你行你上

nǐ xíng nǐ shàng

If you can do it, do it.

你行你上 literally means “you can you up”. As a slang expression, it means “if you can, do it , go ahead, if not please shut up.” It’s especially used about people who like to criticize others, especially when the person who’s doing the criticizing is not capable of doing the same thing as you.

Chinese buzzword #8:  No zuo no die

不作不死

bù zuō bù sǐ

Don’t do silly things, don’t die

作 “zuō” in Chinese means to “act silly or daring”. This saying means that if you don’t do something silly, you won’t end up with bad consequences.

Look at this conversation and you’ll understand:

KEEP CALM AND NO ZUO NO DIE – picture credit: keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk

Chinese catchphrase #9  Goddesses and She-males

女神和女汉子

nǚ shén hé nǚ hàn zi

Goddesses and masculine women

我美吗？ Am I beautiful? These two muscular fine ladies ask.

Needless to say, we all know what a goddess is, like Audrey Hepburn, so beautiful and elegant that everyone admires her. In Chinese, we call a woman who is incredibly beautiful and shinning a goddess 女神nǚ shén.

On the other side, what’s the opposite of a goddess? There is another group of girls that exist in our daily life; they act carelessly and sloppily, they always have a generous personality and are forthright by nature. Some are even more manly then men. In that case, these men-like women in Chinese are called 女汉子(nǚ hàn zi), masculine women or manly girls. Here 汉子 hànzi means man; it is the formal way to say  男人 (nán rén) ‘man’. 女汉子usually carries a positive meaning and is used to describe an independent girl who is not afraid of hardships.

Mandarin slang #10:  Have yourself a loneliness party

寂寞党

jì mò dǎng

寂寞党 is a popular saying that started when one day, a netizen posted a photo of him eating noodles, with the accompanying sentence: “哥吃的不是面，是寂寞”(gē chī de bú shì miàn shì jì mò) which means “What I am eating is not noodles, it’s loneliness.” Since then, this kind of saying has been very fashionable. Everyone think it’s funny, cool and even a little ironic. Actually, this expression doesn’t have a special meaning. Here 党 means a group of person. 寂寞jìmò means loneliness. You can use this expression when you feel lonely or bad or just for fun.

么么哒!

Yanjie and 

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!

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The post Top 10 Chinese catchphrases you have to know appeared first on Ninchanese.

Two cat expressions you’re puuuurfectly familiar with

You’ve probably heard of the first two expressions before. They also exist in English and are used the same way as in English. All you need to do is learn how to say them in Chinese and you’ll be good to go.

Cat saying #1: Curiosity and cats don’t match

好奇心杀死猫

hào qí xīn shā sǐ māo.

Curiosity killed the cat.

一只好奇的小猫。A curious cat – Photo by Juliàn Cantarelli

You all probably know “Curiosity killed the cat”:  this cat quote is used to warn of dangerous situations. Here at Ninchanese, we try very hard not to think about what happened to the first cat who was too curious and from whom this quote derives…and choose to focus on a more positive note: Wikipedia notes “A less frequently-seen rejoinder to “curiosity killed the cat” is “but satisfaction brought it back””and we kind of like that idea!”

Cat saying #2: Cats live multiple lives

猫有九条命

māo yǒu jiǔ tiáo mìng.

A cat has nine lives!

The Chinese, as do many cultures, believe that a cat has multiple lives. They also opt for 9 lives, just like we do in English (and in a number of other places). Lucky cats!  In Chinese, this expression is used to symbolize someone who has a stronger vitality than others.

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

Four cat sayings you’ll be pawzzled with

The following cat expressions and sayings are unique to Chinese, as far as we know. Cats are given interesting roles in Chinese sayings, we’ll tell you that!

Cat saying #3:  Cats as women

猫性女子

māo xìng nǚ zǐ

A woman with the character of a cat

Photo credit: Fanny Latour-Lambert

Chinese people often like to compare cats and women. Here’s why.

A cat can be very gentle, but it also has a strong sense of self-esteem. For example, if a baby kitten does something wrong, you need to comfort it, not scold it. For, if you hit it, it will remember that (and blame you) forever.

In Chinese, some woman are considered as cats: we/they have varied personalities and are seen as gentle, elegant but also sly, elusive creatures with a high level of self-esteem. That could also describe a cat, don’t you think? The Chinese like to liken the two anyways.

Cat saying #4: Cats as men and fish as women

猫改不了偷腥

māo gǎi bù liǎo tōu xīng.

A cat cannot stop stealing fish.

Photo credit: Serena (Flickr)

Eating fish is most likely inscribed in a cat’s DNA: it’s pretty sure that all the cats in this world like the smell of fish. Well, expect for Nincha, who doesn’t like fish. But that’s another story. So, for most cats, fish are a fatal attraction, and they can’t resist the sight of fresh fish.

The Chinese tend to think some men are the same, and won’t ever be satisfied with one girl, be she his girlfriend or his wife. This cat quote is therefore used to refer to those men who are married or have a girl friend, but are still ready and open to seducing others.

Cat saying # 5: of cats and rats

不论白猫黑猫,抓到老鼠就是好猫

bù guǎn hēi māo bái māo

 bái māo hēi māo, zhuā dào lǎo shǔ de jiù shì hǎo māo.

No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat, a cat that can catch rats is a good cat.

This is a very popular saying in China because it is linked to a special era: the 70s and to Deng Xiaoping, who frequently used this proverb to emphasize the importance of participating to bring about social change.

The idea behind this saying is: the truth can only be tested in practice, we should try before jumping to any conclusions.

Cat proverb #6: of cats and rats (2)

猫哭老鼠

māokūlǎoshǔ

A cat is crying for a rat.

Cats and rats don’t match? Source – Kantsuu.com

Everyone knows that cats eat rats so how can a cat be sad for a rat? Impossible, right? Especially considering the lousy trick the rats pulled on cats in the zodiac race to fame…So this Chinese cat proverb means the same as “crocodile tears” in English. It is used to describe fake compassion or sympathy.

Yanjie and 

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!

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The post Cat sayings: 6 purrfect quotes in Chinese appeared first on Ninchanese.

Jiangshis make Chinese Halloween more fun

Read more about 僵尸-jiāng shī on Wikipedia

Happy Halloween! 万圣节快乐!

The post Chinese Halloween: ready for some Chinese ghosts? appeared first on Ninchanese.

What scary things do you have planned for Halloween?

万圣节快乐! Happy Halloween!

The Nincha Team

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Try the best way to learn Chinese today.
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The post 万圣节快乐! Happy Halloween appeared first on Ninchanese.

Valentine’s day in Chinese

Valentine’s day in Chinese is called 情人节 (qíngrén jié), literally the festival for those who have feelings, i.e. lovers. Awww.

Declare your love in Chinese with a love Nincha

As Nincha shows, saying I love you in Chinese is easy:

Share this Love Nincha to show your love! Or use this Nincha Valentine’s card to declare your love in Chinese to someone special!

Ninchanese is a new platform where you’ll have a blast learning Chinese! We’re still working on it for now, so sign up to try the beta for free when we launch! Check out our trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahnj5pLMulo and stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Weibo.

The post Happy Valentine’s Day in Chinese! 情人节快乐! appeared first on Ninchanese.

Miaow! The Ninchanese trailer is here!

Calling all Chinese learners! Are you ready to save the Ninchas, get the pearl back and have a blast learning Chinese? ^_^

Check out the trailer and let us know what you think!

And make sure to sign up on www.ninchanese.com to be part of the upcoming beta!

We heart you!

The Nincha Team

The post The Ninchanese trailer is here! appeared first on Ninchanese.

(=^ェ^=) Let me push this button!

Definitely one of the cutest and funniest cat videos. I got an eye on you Nincha!

The post Funny Cat Videos: Let Me Push This Button! appeared first on Ninchanese.