One of the most famous poems written in Classical Chinese is The “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den”. It’s renowned for being composed of only one sound. One sound! The sound “shi”.

Is it a poem or a tongue-twister?

On the one hand, this text deserves to be called a poem. It still manages to use different characters and mean something!

On the other hand, as a one-sound poem, with lots of different tones, it also interestingly becomes quite the tongue twister.

When you’re learning Chinese, tongue twisters are always a challenge and a great way to practice your tones, so let’s explore this one!

Facts about the “Shi shi Shi” poem

• Often informally referred to as the “shi shi shi” poem, the poem’s full name in English is: “The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den“.
• This poem’s name, in Chinese characters, is 施氏食獅史. In Pinyin, that would be “Shī shì shí shī shǐ.”
• This text was composed by the Chinese-American linguist, scholar, and poet Yuen Ren Chao in the 1930s. Mr. Chao also significantly contributed to the modern study of Chinese grammar.
• The sound “shi” is the only sound in the poem. You find it 94 times (in some versions, there are only 92). Only the tones differ. That’s right!
• Mr. Chao wrote this poem as a linguistic demonstration.
• Therefore, the poem shows that writing a one-syllable text that means something is possible.
• That’s because Chinese is a tonal language.  So, the same syllable can have a different tone and correspond to a different character. Pawwsitively fascinating.

A one-sound poem that makes sense… in writing

This short narrative poem is written in Classical Chinese.

What is Classical Chinese? Also called Literary Chinese, or 古文, Classical Chinese is the written form of Old Chinese. It was used for literature and all formal texts, from the 5th century BC to the 2nd century AD, end of the Han Dynasty. It actually continued being used as a literary language, for all formal writings, until the 20th century! 

Since Classical Chinese is a written language, this poem makes a lot of sense in writing.

That’s because different Chinese characters compose it. More importantly, you have no trouble getting its meaning when you read it. That is if you’re somewhat familiar with Classical Chinese, which is a lot more condensed than modern Chinese.

Why did its composer write this poem as a “one sound poem”?

The poet behind this clever text wanted to make a linguistic demonstration. So, to create a fun tongue-twister of a poem with just one sound, he used the fact the Chinese language is full of homophones (i.e., words that sound the same but mean different things). When read in modern Mandarin, every syllable sounds the same: “shi”.

In other words: if you read this poem out loud, orally, it becomes challenging to understand.

In the same vein, if you try to read it in pinyin, you won’t be able to understand it either. That’s why it’s important to learn Chinese characters

Read the whole one-sound poem in Mandarin Chinese

Stone lions – Photo by Michael Myers.

《施氏食狮史》
石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。

氏时时适市视狮。

十时，适十狮适市。

是时，适施氏适市。

氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。

氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。

石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。

石室拭，氏始试食是十狮。

食时，始识是十狮尸，实十石狮尸。

试释是事。

As this poem is written in Classical Chinese, it’s good to know that it was composed using single characters rather than the double characters that are more commonly found in modern Chinese.

Let’s see the poem in pinyin now, just for fun.

Read the one-sound poem in pinyin

« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.

Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.

Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.

Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.

Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.

Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.

Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.

Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.

Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī.

Shì shì shì shì.

That made a lot of sense, right? I told you it was going to be fun!

What does this poem mean?

Okay, now, it’s time to prove that this one-sound poem actually means something! Here’s the translation of the Poem in English.

« The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den »

In a stone den was a poet called Shi Shi, who was a lion addict and had resolved to eat ten lions.

He often went to the market to look for lions.

At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.

At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.

He saw those ten lions and, using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.

He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.

The stone den was damp. So he asked his servants to wipe it.

After wiping the stone den, he tried to eat those ten lions.

When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were, in fact, ten stone lion corpses.

Try to explain this matter.

See? This poem is full of meaning! The poor poet thought he would eat, only to find stones instead!

Hear it read out loud

Ready to test yourself? Here’s what you can do:
1. Practice your Chinese pronunciation with the many dialogues and speaking stages on Ninchanese
2. Try reading this one-sound poem aloud and see how good your tones are!

Have fun, little dragons!

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 “The Lion-Eating Poet”: the meowsome one-sound poem you can only read appeared first on Ninchanese.

What’s Wordle?

First things first, maybe you’re not familiar with Wordle yet, and that’s 100% okay.  If you are, keep scrolling, you’ll learn about Chinese Wordle faster that way.

Wordle is an English-language word game, where you need to guess a word.

Your clues: it’s a 5 letter word. You get 6 tries.

• Each try, you’re shown:
• GREEN: which letters are correct.
• YELLOW: which letters are in the word, but not in the right spot.
• GRAY: which of the letters you entered are NOT in the word you’re trying to find.

Then you get to try again.
If you run out of tries before having guessed the word, that’s it. You’re done.

And if you find the word before that, congrats!

Guessed the word, with one try to go! Woot

What makes Wordle fun and super popular is the fact you only get one word per day.
And everyone gets the same word to guess.
Ah, competition. The drive to do better than your counterparts.  It never gets old.

Anyways! As a Chinese language learner, perhaps you too were wondering: how can I play Wordle but in Chinese? So, we went searching for a Chinese version of Wordle. And we found one here!

Why play Wordle in Chinese?

Why go looking for a Chinese Wordle?  Well, why not?

First of all, It’s great language practice.
Trying to play a game in your target language, i.e. the langue you’re learning, is a wonderful idea. It makes you actually use the language you’re learning, which is an excellent way to strengthen your learning and maximize retention.

Second, it’s fun to try to guess things in Chinese. And to play in Chinese!

How do you play Wordle with Chinese Characters?

Before you start wondering how it would work with the thousands of Chinese characters out there, let’s set something straight. Pinyin is key here.  Just like in English, pinyin offers a set number of letters, which makes the entire game, well, easily playable.

You’re not guessing Chinese Character Strokes. You play Chinese Wordle with pinyin. UPDATE: for a Chinese character based Wordle, scroll down. 

How Wordle in Chinese works

Now that’s out of the way, how does Wordle in Chinese work?

Same basic principles:

• One game per day
• 6 tries
• GREEN for letters you get right (该字母在正确的位置)
• ORANGE for almost right ((该字母不在正确的位置)
• GREY for those that aren’t in what you’re trying to guess. (当前成语的拼音中没有该字母).
• Everyone gets the same (UPDATE: or so we thought. In the Ninchanese Discord Server, we discovered you don’t always get the same. It changes per region, perhaps?)

The rules for Chinese Wordle are the same

Speaking of which, perhaps you’re wondering: What do you guess? Is it a word like in English Wordle? Nope!

Guess the 成语

In Chinese Worlde, you’re trying to guess … 成语 Chengyus!
That’s right, 4 character Chinese idioms and sayings.

In fact, Wordle in Chinese is called 拼音猜成语 – which literally means Pinyin Guess Chengyu. It’s made by Limboy. Thanks for making this fun puzzle game!

So, in 拼音猜成语 (aka Chinese Wordle), you have to guess the pinyin for 4 Chinese characters, which compose the chengyu. The number of letters for each Chinese character ranges from 2 to 5.  It’s no easy feat, but that’s what makes it fun!

Knowing which letters aren’t in the chengyu and which you haven’t tried yet is very helpful

Gaaah, so close!

The goal of the puzzle game is to get it right before you run of tries!  In both cases, whether you win or lose, you get to see the chengyu in Chinese characters at the end.

Success!

What else is cool about this game?

It’s good pinyin practice. You work on how familiar you are with Chinese sounds, think about syllables in Chinese, common word endings, and common words. This game makes you think about the words you know and recall pinyin sounds you’ve heard before. Excellent training.

Fun fact: if you try to enter a sound that doesn’t exist in Chinese, you get told: this sound doesn’t exist in Chinese.

In addition, all the instructions and comments you get are in Chinese, which immerses you nicely in the Mandarin language, without making it daunting. In context, you always know what they’re telling you.

Lastly, by playing this game, you’re guessing and discovering new 成语, chengyus. 成语 are an essential part of speaking Chinese.

The higher you get in your Chinese learning, the more you realize how important knowing Chengyus is. They are what allows you to show off your intelligence and education, and more importantly, you hear them a lot. In Chinese Dramas, in everyday conversations, in books… They’re also an integral part of the HSK 5 and above exams!  So learn 成语!

Starting at the HSK 5 world on Ninchanese, you’ll be learning 成语 in context. You’ll also be learning stories about what 成语 mean and how they came to be. Sign up to start learning now!

Learn the Chengyus you discover for good

Once you’ve discovered a new Chengyu in the puzzle game, don’t just quit there!
You can…
Look it up on Ninchanese in the dictionary.

For instance, this is a chengyu discovered above:

Look up the chengyus in Ninchanese’s free dictionary!

Simplified Chinese: 方兴未艾 Traditional: 方興未艾
Pinyin: fāng xīng wèi ài

Then you can create a special deck of 成语s in the Nincha Decks

That way, you’re having fun and maximizing what you can learn from the game at the same time!

Happy Wordling and Chinese learning!

Come join the Discord and post your 拼音猜成语 results in the  #游戏-games channel! You’ll find other motivated players there!

Looking for a non-pinyin-based Chinese Wordle? We got you. Here are some based on Bopofomo and on Chinese characters!

New find! Wordle with Chinese Characters and more

Looking for a  Chinese character-based Chinese Wordle? The meowsome community on Discord got you and discovered this other Wordle-like game:  汉字Wordle

The basic principle is the same: guess the 成语. The Twist? Guess it using Chinese characters this time! Using an IME, each time you enter characters, you’re told whether:
– the Chinese character you entered is correct, and if it’s in the right place;
– there are correct letters in the pinyin of that Chinese character and if the’yre in the right spot;
– the tones are correct or not.

Needless to say, this is a more hardcore version of Chinese Wordle. It keeps you on your toes. It makes you think about the chengyus you know, the Chinese characters you’re familiar with, the tones… Give it a whirl, too!

Yeah, it’s not going too well…

This Chinese Wordle is available in both simplified and traditional Chinese.

The nice thing is they give hints!

Here are a few more Chinese Character-based Wordles to explore:

https://bryony.dev/chengyu/chengyu.html
https://allanchain.github.io/chinese-wordle/
https://cheeaun.github.io/chengyu-wordle/
http://samuello.io/jndle/

Chinese Wordle with Bopomofo

Bopomofo is used in Taiwan and is a lot more widespread there than pinyin. It comes therefore as no surprise that a Chinese Worlde using Bopofomo was invented!
Play it here: Bopofomo Chinese Wordle

Poems and Chinese Wordle?

That exists too: you can guess the poem line in Chinese with  https://peotik.com.

Have fun exploring! In my case: I think I’ll stick with pinyin Chinese Wordle though!

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,

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 Chinese Wordle: Play and Learn Chinese (chengyus)! appeared first on Ninchanese.

This week’s rather big update is all about your user experience learning Chinese. Thanks to your feedback, we’ve added a lot of new things in this update, including what we gave away in the title but not only! So now, you guys know what to do: experience the changes on Ninchanese and give us feedback! But first, you can read up on the improvements below.

In this week’s update, you’ll find:

A better responsive experience

We want you to be able to use Ninchanese everywhere: on your computer, on your tablet, on your phone… So making sure you can browse and use Ninchanese smoothly whatever the device you’re using is one of our priorities (I really want to use Ninchanese on my phone too!). Little by little, we’re working on improving the layout of Ninchanese on different screen resolutions. We’ve just redone some of the pages, such as the level selection screen where you choose what you’re going to do. Go on, give it a try, whip out your phone or resize the page. We guarantee it’ll look nice, whatever your screen (almost). Many more responsive improvements are coming in the next beta updates!

Improved display of the answers

Nincha put his paw down: No more displaying answers with definitions that were extremely long and tough to read, not to mention sometimes were cut-off in his vocab stages! Now, answers are displayed in a nice, numbered, orderly manner, so you can easily see what a word means, and get an idea of how many different meanings it has!

Sound plays automatically

You’ve been asking for this, and this beta update has listened. Now, when you get a word right in the vocab stages and in your reviews, it’ll play automatically! By hearing the sound more, you’ll be helping your brain make more associations and memorize the sound as well as the visual representation of the word. When you click on a block in the sentence building stage, you’ll also be able to hear the sound! Mewsic to your years, right?

A Meowsome Pop-up

You’re going to be friends with this pop-up

Perhaps this sounds familiar: you entered an answer, confident it was right, only to realize you gave the reading of the word in pinyin, rather than its meaning in English… Since the system was expecting English, your answer was counted as wrong. Well, good news, there is now a popup that gently lets you know that you entered the right word, but in the wrong language! You’ll therefore get a second chance to try again, albeit in the right language. We bet this was a major source of frustration for some. Now it’s gone. Sweet, no?
Naturally, if you get the answer wrong, no matter in what language, your answer will still be be counted as wrong.

A new help button with Nincha

Feeling a little confused about the word you just saw? Would like to have more information on it? Just hit help in the vocab stages and Nincha will take you straight to that word’s page, where you’ll be able to see the word’s stroke order, read example sentences, so you can understand how that word can be used and see how it behaves in context, and more!

Just hit Next!

Pick: go back to the selection screen or continue? You Clicked Continue? Skip selection. Go straight to the next stage. Don’t collect 20, 000. Uh, no, this is not Monopoly.  Still, we’ve added a new “next stage” button that’ll take you directly to the next stage without breaking your flow. Ain’t that cool? The next button is great when you want an uninterrupted study session in Mandarin Chinese!

New star system

As you learn words and get them right in your reviews, your memory level improves; this lets the Great Nincha Machine know you’re starting to know that word pretty well and can push back when it’ll show you the word again.
These stars were already visible in your word list, but we’ve decided to make them more visible: you can now see them in the vocab stages and in the reviews! They are an indicator of your progress and a better way to see where you are at in pushing that word in your long-term memory. We’re likely to be toying with these stars some more, so let us know what you think of them as they are now and if you see a need to improve them!

Unifying the structure

The whole structure of Ninchanese was redone and unified so that all stages work in a similar way (on our side at least) and have a unified design. It’s visually more pleasing, don’t you think? You might not see what changed that much, but believe us, it has, and these changes pave the way for a lot more, like the boss stages! Something to look forward in the near future

And a bunch more things in this beta update

In addition to all this, as usual, we’ve fixed a bunch of little stuff:

•  bug fixes: they’re spotted, they’re squashed.
• Word corrections: I corrected several words by adding some of your definition suggestions, fixing a typo here and there, and adding more example sentences. We also are gradually introducing British spelling for words, if you see any more that need British spelling, let us know in the feedback interface!
• Story fixes: there were a few typos to correct in the story, and sometimes Lupishu’s head wasn’t quite right…

These are little things we correct everyday as soon as we or you spot them, so if you see any such thing, you know what to do!

Before we stop rambling and let you go check out this beta update’s newest changes for yourself, one last word:
We hope you enjoy these improvements and they help you learn Chinese even better. Our commitment to bringing you an enjoyable and efficient Chinese learning experience is strong, so please, let us know what you like and don’t like, and what other features and improvements you’d like. As always, we’re looking forward to your feedback!

Enjoy learning Chinese!

The Nincha Team

With Ninchanese, enjoy learning everything you need to know to really speak Chinese! The web app is now in beta so sign up now to join the Ninchanese beta! Stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Pinterest and pre-order now to get access to the full beta!

The post The Automatic Sound, Stars and Awesome Popup Beta Update appeared first on Ninchanese.