Yoyo Chinese Blog

While there’s certainly no express lane on the Chinese language learning journey, it’s important not to be intimidated by the challenges ahead! Here are five quick and simple ways to get your feet wet in your daily life and sound like a pro doing it!

Last week I wrote about different dialects in China and why English speakers learning Chinese don’t need to worry so much because for the most part, Chinese natives will speak to you in standard Mandarin and reserve heavy accents and dialects for their fellow locals. Today, I will give you a real life example of what I like to call the “dialect dance”.

If you have been studying Chinese for a little while, you may have noticed that you have an easier time understanding some Chinese speakers more than others. Of course things like gender and alcohol consumption are factors, but so is the fact that people from China speak with lots of different accents and dialects – much like the different kinds of English spoken by Americans, Brits, Australians etc. So maybe you understand the differences between Mandarin and Cantonese, but how do you navigate those other pesky dialects? Shanghainese? Beijing-er? Hunanese?

Let's add more fun to your learning journey! I’ve hand selected this lovely Chinese pop song for you to learn “Mice Love Rice - lǎo shǔ ài dà mǐ (老鼠爱大米)". I know mice love cheese in the west but in China, mice love rice.

As a student of Chinese, you have probably already learned some Chinese idioms (or at least heard about how many there are!) Chinese people use idioms all the time so it's important to have a few under your belt that you can use in conversation. Luckily, Chinese people have a great sense of humor and our idioms tend to reflect that. This makes Chinese idioms easy to remember and fun to use.

There are seven common ways to say “Chinese” in Chinese. What’s the difference between 中文 (zhōng wén), 普通话 (pǔ tōng huà), 国语 (guó yǔ), 汉语 (hàn yǔ), 汉文 (hàn wén), 中国话 (zhōng guó huà), 华语 (huá yǔ) and 华文 (huá wén)?