Backstory, irrelevant-ish:Long story short my mom got some Chinese tattoo written on her foot when she was my age, (before I was born) and I thought it was the coolest tattoo ever so I got it too. She got it done with a few of her girlfriends that were her like, ride or dies basically. When they got it done they got told it meant “good friends” or something of the sort, and I didn’t realize to even get it properly translated until after I also got the tattoo. Anyways I want to get a matching tattoo on the other foot with her. I’m not sure how the writing works, I’m assuming that it’s sort of like Japanese kanji? With different meanings?

TLDR: Basically my question is: what would translate to mother/daughter love, my mom is the #1 person in my life, I love her and she feels the same at me. How would I translate that? (For a tattoo) Lmk if that doesn’t make sense and idk, ik translation is not the easiest, thanks for reading!

Anyone thinking of getting it? The price seems ok, and I really need more practice speaking.

Do you have to do correct stroke order or is it more if a suggestion

For background, I'm working with a group of people every Sunday where we serve people in the downtown area of my city no questions asked, and usually we have a decent number of Chinese elders come to get food. It would be nice to be able to communicate better with them sometimes. Also I studied Chinese in high school for 3 years and admittedly I didn't retain very much but I do understand pinyin and tones and some basic grammar so I have a kinda solid base of Chinese knowledge, for me it's really a matter of brushing up on some relevent phrases and vocab.

So with that being said what are some good (preferably free) resources for learning these things? I feel like the biggest hurdle for this is gonna be learning the measure words for different things. Thanks in advance!

First of all, how many of you even know who this guy 单(pronounced Shan!) 田芳was? He was a great storyteller on the radio every day at noon. His stories were loaded with idioms and other hard-to-understand expressions. You can find him on Spotify,

https://open.spotify.com/episode/47XOfaHqYNx6Ks9FEUbBbT?si=2-oTzyCgSYG49me6BpTmJw

and of course, on many Chinese platforms like Youku, etc. Check him out if you’ve never heard him. It’s great listening practice!! Anyway, I was wondering if anyone knew where I could find a collection of transcripts to study. I’ve found a bit through Baidu, but would like more.

I was always told for items you own you use 的 for possession, but for family members or friends it is optional to use 的 because they are a person and you don’t “own” them like you would an inanimate object.

That being said, is the 的 mandatory or not when speaking about a human slave? One person owns them like property, but they are still human.

Context: I'm learning Mandarin full-time for two years. I have in-person instruction for 5 hours a day. I self-study 3-5 hours per day in addition to that and 2-4 hours per day on the weekend. I learned Korean and Spanish in a similar way, though over 36 and 24 weeks, respectively.

I am 8 weeks into my Chinese study and felt like I had enough of a grasp of MB to write a review.

Bottom line: Mandarin Blueprint's method is excellent. I do highly recommend it if you are self-studying. It's expensive. Very expensive. But if you aren't going to have an in-person teacher, I think this is the best thing to do. That said, you do need a native person to help with your pronunciation. I spent the first 3 weeks of my in-person classes doing nothing but mastering the pronunciation.

Review: I learned in October 2023 that I'd be studying Chinese starting in September 2024. I wanted to get a head start and came across Mandarin Blueprint on YouTube. I really liked Luke's explanations.

For those unfamiliar, this is how MB works. It uses the concept of memory palaces to teach you the meaning, pronunciation, tone, and construction of each character. You do this by making short "movies" in your mind. Since Chinese has a finite number of sounds that combine an initial and final sound into a syllable, you can use this to your advantage to make a mnemonic.

Initial sounds are represented by actors. For example, in my mnemonic system, I used Ryan Reynolds for R initials. The final sounds are represented by the scene in which your "movie" takes place. For example, in my system, "en" finals take place at the tube in ENgland. Tones are represented by which room the action takes place. For me, the first tone is outside the tube, the second tone is on the escalator, the third tone is the platform, and the fourth tone is on the train. So when I learned the character 人 (rén), I picture Ryan Reynolds (R) on the escalator (second tone) of the tube (EN).

The props in the scene are used to remember how the character looks. For 人， this might be a sword and a banana. The course has a lot of good ideas for what to use, but one of the strengths of the system is that it's personalized to you. You can use your dad George for all Zh initials. These make the mnemonics much more memorable than what you'd get from traditional books.

My thoughts: the system for the initial, the final, and the tone works very well for me. It does slow you down a bit at first but not as much as you'd think. It seems so complicated to have all this going on, but it allows you to recall the word from Chinese to English OR English to Chinese. For example, when speaking and I need the word for person, I picture Ryan Reynolds on the metro escalator absolutely slammed by all the people around him. That image reminds me it's R and EN. The opposite also works. When I hear the word rén and I need to remember what it means, I can just say R is Ryan EN is tube and remember the scene.

What doesn't work well for me is the props. For simple characters like 人， it was working with zero problem. However, it becomes very complex when you reach other characters like 我 that would require a lot of props. MB handles this fairly well if you are using it as the main (or only) manner of studying. They order their words in such a way that props are introduced in an order that allows you to reuse them for other characters that share strokes or character segments.

This brings up the main issue I had with MB and I saw it coming all along. My course requires me to learn the words in the order taught in my textbook. I can't learn both the MB words and the ones in my in-person course; it'd be too much and too confusing. So instead, I've taken the MB method and adapted it, making up my own props and stories along the way.

I use the Pleco dictionary extension Outlier Essentials, which tells you how/why characters look the way they do. I've found this to work well for me, using the "real" reason over props, even though some of the real reasons are so obtuse and rooted in history that they aren't always perfectly helpful. That said, I've built a good understanding of enough characters that sound and meaning components are beginning to naturally inform me about the meaning. Using this system, I've learned about 240 characters according to Anki. That's 30/week with 96% recall.

A few more details on my method: Vocab: I use Anki for vocab. With the Chinese extension, I make four cards for every word. First, I study Pinyin on the front with English on the back and audio auto-play. Day two will show me that same word but the character with Pinyin and English on the back with audio. Day three is English on the front and Pinyin and character on the back with audio. Day four will be only audio with Pinyin, English, and character on the back.

Input: You must have a method for input at a level you can understand. MP has some resources for this. You have to do both listening and reading. Focusing on one over another will hurt you down the road. You can get both from YouTube and graded readers.

Output: Likewise, you need somebody to converse with, ideally a native. I use HelloTalk for this at home, but I also am speaking or listening for all 5 hours of my in-person classes.

https://preview.redd.it/ibzfbtjeoyxd1.png?width=694&format=png&auto=webp&s=fd5695e5577d6502b7721ec83d64d7436d0549b4

I can speak, listen to, and read Chinese at a fairly advanced level, but I haven't focused much on writing it. The materials I find online are usually too easy and don't seem to be helpful (I feel like I'm stuck in an odd gap where my Chinese level is above what most materials offer, but I'm still not as proficient as native speakers)

Title, I was looking around something to boost my learning, and found out Chinesepod that really seems high quality, although a bit pricey, but I think it's worth it.

What are other high quality paid resources you know of?

I’m chinese and never figured this out. In context, it’s often used after 小姑娘（家家的）.

Im interested in learning mandarin, but have absolutely no idea how to approach the topic and start learning. What are some good resources I can use?

I know stuff like this annoys some of you I apologize , but my college classes are only 50 minutes and my professor really doesn’t have time to let us ask many questions, she just rushes through the lessons .. gotta love uni

So here’s my question .. 大 means big ( least that’s what I’ve been taught ), and 不大 means not big at (least as far as I’ve been taught in how to use 不 right now ), but if I type 汉子不大 （ I was trying to explain why I increased the type size on my phone ) I try and use the limited characters I’ve learned to form new sentences to reinforce class learning but 汉子不大 according to google translates to “not a big man ?” Could someone offer an explanation to help educate me why 不大 doesn’t work in this context ?

Edit Thank you to everyone that replied , I guess that certain explains my error!

Learning my first characters and I'm fascinated by the historical depictions from Oracle script and seal script. I can usually follow along with the basic concepts and they are elegant! But sometimes the dissonance is strong, like with what the old stuff says is a pictograph for "hand" which evolved into "shǒu".

Hello. Ive been watching a lot of Korean fitness YouTubers lately who do vlogs of workouts or challenges. I was wondering whether there you know some people from the Chinese fitness scene who produce content? On yt or bilibili.

Preferably not those who post home workouts since I don't want to do sports but learn the language lmao.

What dictionary are you using for Kindle? The built-in one sucks cuz it doesn't show pinyin except for 1-character words, and doesn't support traditional (although this is less important).

I found this one https://github.com/gkovacs/cantodict-kindle-mobi (mentioned here on reddit a few years ago) but it is in MOBI format, and modern kindles no longer work with it. I tried converting it to EPUB but online converters fail because the file is too big. It is not available for purchase in amazon kindle store either.

There surely must be some other options?

UPD I managed to buy the dictionary from the URL above via kindle store! Only cost 3 bucks lol. Switching to US region probably helped.

Hello everyone

My partner is originally from China and after studying in the UK, decided to stay here. During our time together, I've picked up random Mandarin words and fun phrases to annoy each other with. To understand their family and interests better, I’d like to learn at least some basics in Mandarin.

While they’re an expert in Mandarin and experienced in learning a second language, I think some additional resources or structure would be helpful for me.

I’ve read about a lot of recommended resources on here, but I’m not necessarily looking for the most efficient ones. Do you have any recommendations for a fun book we could go through together? Or maybe resources that focus on more practical modern language rather than purely academic material? Also general advice about keeping things balanced between relaxed but productive?

Click here to see the previous 学习伙伴 Study Buddy Requests threads.

Study buddy requests / Language exchange partner requests

If you are a Chinese or English speaker looking for someone to study with, please post it as a comment here!

You are welcome to include your time zone, your method of study (e.g. textbook), and method of communication (e.g. Discord, email). Please do not post any personal information in public (including WeChat), thank you!

点击这里以浏览往期的「学习伙伴」帖子

寻求学友/语伴

如果您是一位说中文或英文的朋友，并正在寻找学友或语伴，请在此留言。

您可以留下自己的时区，学习方式（例如通过教科书）和交流方式（例如Discord，邮件等）。 但千万不要透露个人私密信息（包括微信号），谢谢！

Click here to see the previous Quick Help Threads, including 翻译求助 Translation Requests threads.

This thread is used for:

• Translation requests
• Help with choosing a Chinese name
• "How do you say X?" questions
• or any quick question that can be answered by a single answer.

Alternatively, you can ask on our Discord server.

Community members: Consider sorting the comments by "new" to see the latest requests at the top.

Regarding translation requests

If you have a Chinese translation request, please post it as a comment here!

If it's an image (e.g. a photo), you can upload it to a website like Imgur and paste the link here.

However, if you're requesting a review of a substantial translation you have made, or have a question that involving grammar or details on vocabulary usage, you are welcome to post it as its own thread.

​

若想浏览往期「快问快答」，请点击这里, 这亦包括往期的翻译求助帖.

此贴为以下目的专设：

• 翻译求助
• 取中文名
• 如何用中文表达某个概念或词汇
• 及任何可以用一个简短的答案解决的问题

您也可以在我们的 Discord 上寻求帮助。

社区成员：请考虑将评论按“最新”排序，以方便在贴子顶端查看最新留言。

关于翻译求助

如果您需要中文翻译，请在此留言。

但是，如果您需要的是他人对自己所做的长篇翻译进行审查，或对某些语法及用词有些许疑问，您可以将其发表在一个新的，单独的贴子里。

Ill be typing something, then need to make notes in english so windows+space, but then when i windows+space again to go back to the Chinese keyboard it switches to 英.

Anyone know how to stop this from happening? its v annoying because my touchpad is bloody awful so I cant easily switch back. Thank you

Hi, I was wondering if anyone knows of a good app for extracting vocabulary from a digital text, ideally with a way to exclude super high frequency words.

Please recommend me a novel in Chinese, I want to use it for study. I’ve been studying Chinese for 5 years (I’m taking HSK 3 in December and HSK 4 next year), and I’m Russian, so please recommend a book that I can buy from Russia or I can print from the Internet.

20y.o college student, as a native Chinese, looking for language partners, just for casual.

You can offer me English or other languages and I can offer you Mandarin Chinese I think.

I major in CS, pretty good at computer things and won a lot of competitions.

Also love techs, photography, literature, anime, PC games, JPOP music and so on.

So if u need any help with Mandarin or just wanna make friend with me, maybe just wanna know more latest trends in China or some memes?

Anyway, feel free to DM me.

The left radical, 女, means girl, and the right radical, 那, means there... so what meaning am I supposed to discern from this?

I am native speaker of mandarin (heritage) and when I used to learn chinese at Chinese school as a kid everything was taught in simplified characters. But because I didn't really care for mandarin as kid I never really learned enough characters to, for example read a newspaper. So recently when I realised that mandarin is actually very important to me and that it is really annoying not being able to read a language you can speak pretty well, I started to learn characters again. Now I am learning mainly simplified, but also traditional at the same time, by writing both sets when I do writing just for some extra input. By doing that I came across this 隹 zhui component a bunch of times in traditional. I don't really know what it does though, it's seemingly completely random and it's really annoying. So if someone could explain what it does or used to do, that would be great! :) Thanks in advance!

(I am aware that it exists also in simplified, for example in 推, but not so abundantly)

So I am currently studying HSK (beginner) in China at a university. But it is extremely slow paced. Two months in and only 7 lessons from HSK 1 course book have been completed.

Moreover, when I ask undergraduate students who’ve studied HSK they say that they finished HSK 1 in less than 2 months and had multiple different books they used in class.

My cousins who’ve also studied in China and have done HSK have told me they used different books for listening, oral and writing aswell as the standard course book.

I want to know if anyone has access to such books and resources which can help me learn at a faster pace.

I would also love some tips.

i know that as of 2021 there is the hsk 3.0, which includes way more vocab, so i was wondering if this book would be worth buying, since it said it was published in 2019 and there dont seem to be other editions of it

https://preview.redd.it/21haypwnvsxd1.png?width=1671&format=png&auto=webp&s=2b06524b1d5f080e70095bff6f9f1de962038cdf

https://www.amazon.com/HSK-Standard-Course-SET-Textbook/dp/B07PMV711L/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2KNA99TH527Q0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.yoQkWMZuZypnDGDI55FbsQYv2tbAx6KHLNjIGVtvlcTUcyEJSb791S9zYHOQ66YfYv8snGNoqDKb8b8zs3vzj6gbg_-lozlKpz8GA5vNdzN5k0HRe8P_uYJ7e02xEWKIiRdnirPuG1VErPS2LVvrO4TGjhXOI4DBJKI_OzL91XaAaogeOUKoF6KhIFevA4WK6Q2hJyR2L5W3vR-jJ6znXe51M4ZaRVpMgdw9GmyLpAU.B4HeEKllBUqIy6p57Sockk8der8_BVz5j6k6ggKdyKg&dib_tag=se&keywords=hsk+3+3.0&qid=1730253173&sprefix=hsk+3+3.0%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1

(the picture isnt showing up)

Does anyone know any online Chinese language courses available from Dec/Jan - March? Preferably one that meets more than once a week. I already have some background in Mandarin