jenny's blog

With the advent and rise of the Trump Administration, many students have asked me curiously on what is the Mandarin name of Donald Trump?

Well, in Mainland China, Trump is named 特朗普 (tèlǎngpǔ). This is because for foreign names, those in Mainland China usually prefer to transliterate every consonant sound from the original name into the Chinese name, adding extra vowels to fit Mandarin phonetics.

Chinese grammar is in many ways similar to English grammar. A simple Chinese sentence structure consists of a subject, a predicate and an object. For example, 'I wash my hands' in Chinese is 我 Wo (I) 洗 xi (wash) 手 shou (hands). Chinese gammar is even simpler in some ways. For instance, the Chinese language does not have different forms based on gender, or singular/plural. There are some differences between Chinese and English, but it is not hard to trace the clue and bridge the gap.

Written by Teacher Jenny!

One of my students started Mandarin study two to three years ago, but he stopped learning and pending for two years. When we restarted the Mandarin lessons, it was a bit challenging for him to pick up the lesson quickly. But comparing to a beginner without the language basis in Chinese, he has good basics in Chinese Pinyin and pronunciation. So the initial stage would be the most difficult stage for a language learner, once pass through this, it will be much easier to pick up the language.

According to a research in 2008, about 40 million people were studying Chinese as a second language around the world. However, in today's time, the estimated number is over 100 million!!

Regardless of whether you are one of them or not, you might agree that Chinese, as a foreign language, is indeed difficult to learn. In fact, it seems to be one of the hardest languages to learn. There are over 80,000 Chinese characters, and only around 3,500 of them are commonly used in standard Chinese. It won’t be possible to recognize all the Chinese characters!

When learning Mandarin Chinese, there are 4 main areas to focus on to learn Mandarin Chinese. They are mainly:

1. Listening

You need to practice listening Mandarin Chinese to build a sense of familiarity. You can do so by watching Chinese tv shows, radio and listening to people speaking Chinese in general. You can also check out Mandarin Chinese songs by famous artistes such as JJ Lin, Jay Chou or G.E.M.

2. Speaking

For “仍然” (réng rán): it serves to describe that the situation is status-quo

However, while the meaning is similar as it still conveys the idea of ‘still’, for “依然”（yī rán): it serves to be more casual, to describe that it is as usual.

One language represents one type of culture. The Mandarin Chinese language is akin to an elegant and graceful woman, where every wordplay is a symphony of different stories and legends! The Chinese history spanning across 5000 years of culture has allowed Mandarin Chinese to evolve into one of the most complicated and complex languages.

When a Chinese person speaks, they are very mindful of their words: A different setting or occasion would warrant a different way of speaking. From that, you can imagine the richness of the Chinese language!

Here comes 20th May! 5.20 resembles the sound of "I love you" in Chinese(wo ai ni)~ So let's learn how to say "I love you" with Kirin today!

Know your best and favourite learning medium. Then use it and be in it.
My favourite way to learn a language, and as a result, the culture itself, is to be immersed in the country where the language originates.

Mandarin is primarily spoken in mainland China as well as Taiwan (R.O.C.). You will also notice at your city's Chinatown (if you have one) that the owners and workers there will speak either Mandarin or Cantonese, usually.

What is your favourite learning medium?

Here are some reasons I believe -- as a Mandarin speaker of nearly 30 years -- you should consider learning the language as well:

Chinese matters more than ever before. With 1.3 billion Mandarin speakers at home, and several million more speakers living in nearly every country of the world, Chinese is one of the most widely spoken languages on earth. It's also one of the most popular languages on the internet (Chinese love the internet and have taken to social media with a fervour that is hard to match anywhere in the world)