Chinese writing has a fascination all its own: from the ornamental aspect, which all can appreciate even without being an expert, to the symbolic value which is exotic to us, to the long tradition that the characters bring from over two millennia of history full of meaning and even magic.

There are those who don’t consider it so much as a form of writing the words of a spoken language as much as a system for “writing the world”.

In this article I will speak to you about the rules through which this “world” is created on paper: starting from an alphabetic writing you’ll be used to, up to simple signs that indicate sounds whose combinations create the written text, while the question becomes a little more complicated for Chinese.

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Learning Chinese has become an increasingly common objective not just for future Sinologists and experts but also for neophytes in the world of business where it has become continuously more important.

There are in fact an infinite amount of resources for how to best learn this language and facilitate learning for the user in this difficult undertaking.

These days, the quickest and most intuitive are certainly the numerous mobile apps for learning a language, and when it comes to Chinese, there’s one you probably already know.

I’m talking about Pleco, the English/Chinese dictionary for iOS systems and Android for which I’ll now present a brief review.

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When speaking about the Chinese language, one of the most disturbing “facts” is that there is no alphabet. “So how do they do it? Is every word different? And how do they remember how it is written?”

It’s not easy to respond to these and other similar questions without understanding a little bit more about Chinese writing. In this article I will try to speak about the “alternative” system to the alphabet, that of radicals: perhaps, after having read it, you too will better understand the logic behind the Chinese language!

The smallest unit

What is the smallest unit of the Chinese language? For us it is the letter: a graphic symbol that indicates a sound (technically called a phenome). This makes English (along with Italian, Spanish, and German) an alphabetical language.

The smallest unit of the Chinese language is the syllable: this means that the characters (the units of writing that have the same function of our letters), in Chinese 汉字 (Hànzì, “Han characters”), correspond not to a single sound but to a syllable – making Chinese a syllabic language. [Read more…]

Have you just started learning Chinese and have often heard about “Traditional Chinese” and “Simplified Chinese” and want to know what the difference is?

Do you already know the language rather well and want to know more on this particular aspect of writing?

Do you want to know how and when Chinese characters came to be simplified?

Have you studied simplified Chinese and would like to learn how to read a little of the traditional Chinese or viceversa?

In each of these cases, this article has been written just for you!

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This article is a guide for people who want to study Chinese in Suzhou. Whether you already live in Suzhou and don’t know where to study or want to know if Suzhou is the right city for you, this article might be useful for you.

PS: if you’re interested in a more general overview of learning Chinese in China,
you can read our complete guide to it.

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Certainly one of the most curious things about the Chinese language is the writing system, with complex characters that are fascinating, often mysterious and almost magical. If you are in some degree familiar with this language you’ll have heard this question quite often – how do you write my name in Chinese?

You will have realized though that the answer isn’t all that simple! Translating a name into Chinese presents a different challenges that make it hard to do it straight away.

First of all, the Chinese language doesn’t have an alphabet: with the exception of a few cases, each character corresponds to a syllable and not a letter/sound as in alphabetic languages. For this reason, in the majority of cases you can’t simply just “transcribe” your name using different graphic symbols, as you could do with Japanese Kana for example.

Moreover, some sounds, syllables and sound combinations don’t exist in Chinese, such as the “v” or doubles and combinations with consecutive consonants, and so the necessary syllable for writing your name may not exist. In this case you’re forced to use a syllable that “sounds like” the original but isn’t exactly equal since other than missing “sounds”, Chinese also has another bonus – tones.

Each syllable corresponds to a character, which can then be used to transliterate (or write with another alphabet) foreign names. In modern Chinese there’s a set of characters that are often used for transcribing foreign names (similar to the Japanese Katakana, which is an alphabet created just for this reason): in practice, it’s a list of characters that when arranged in a combination that feels “odd” to Chinese people, will immediately indicate that it’s a foreign term (an actual name or borrowed term). [Read more…]

Which are the best Chinese language dictionaries? What type of dictionaries are available? How do you use them? If you’ve ever asked any of these questions, this article is for you!

Why learn how to use a Chinese paper dictionary?

We’ll speak about Chinese paper dictionaries, an indispensable tool for those learning Chinese (at least at university, where cell phones and computers aren’t allowed in classes or exams). The list we’re proposing is certainly not complete, but represents a good start for starting to understand something or have an idea about which tool is best for you and your study.

Once a staple until a few years ago, lately the paper dictionary is an increasingly less-used tool in favor of digital dictionaries (electronic dictionaries, online sites, specific software, pdf/ebook dictionaries and cellphone apps).

So why should you learn how to use one? There are two basic reasons, one of a practical nature and the other, theoretical so to speak.

First of all, those who study Chinese at university will already know this: you’re not allowed to use cell phones and tablets during exams, and as a result, a paper dictionary is the only option. Alternately, there are lots of electronic dictionaries that contain one or more paper dictionaries in digital format, which could be allowed by the teacher.

On the other hand, knowing how to use a Chinese paper dictionary presupposes a knowledge of the structure of characters that can’t be neglected by those who study the language, which I will try to explain in the simplest way possible. [Read more…]

What is LingQ?

LingQ is a platform created by polyglot Steve Kaufmann, for the purpose of learning one or more languages in an interactive way.

What impressed me, compared to the many other courses that I’ve used or reviewed here on this site, is the level of interaction the platform allows, which offers sort of an “open system” for importing study material and using it the way you want.

For example, you can import an entire book in PDF, click on words you don’t know to find the meaning and pronunciation, save those words to a list of flashcards (or “LingQ”, as the platform is called), which you can then use to review the new words.

But let’s go in order… [Read more…]

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The first step for enrolling in all exams: Create an account on www.chinesetest.cn

The first thing you have to do is go to the site www.chinesetest.cn; if you’ve never studied Chinese, look at the highest point on the top right of the page and you’ll see a listing of all available languages (简体中文 | English | 日本語 | 한국어 | Français | Русский | Español), from which you can choose the language that works best for you. For explanations, I will use the command terms in Chinese.

Once you’ve chosen your language, you must create an account by clicking on the blue rectangle with the writing 注册 (registration, see the photo at the beginning of this article).

You’ll then see a form 用户注册 (user registration, see the figure below) to fill out. The writing in parentheses in the middle (以下带*表示必填项) indicates that everything that has an asterisk (*) must be filled out. [Read more…]

We’ve received and have published this article written by Camilla Fatticcioni, author of the blog “Per Quel Che Ne So Io“.

I’m writing this article from Hangzhou, a beautiful city located on the east coast of China, not far from Shanghai. This year was my first year as a student in a university in China. Last March I applied for a Chinese government scholarship and now I find myself here counting down to my return to Italy for summer vacation.

The reason why I chose China as the place to continue my post graduate studies is quite simple: I studied at the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, school of Oriental Society Languages and Culture choosing a curriculum on China, and for this China seemed the easiest and most direct way to continue my studies and deepen my linguistic and cultural knowledge learned in Venice.

I came to learn about the chance of this scholarship a year ago, when I was already in China during one of my first trips to the “Middle Kingdom”: in fact, in 2016 I had won my first scholarship, the one reserved each year by the Confucius Institute, which gave me the precious chance to better study the language in Lanhzou, in Gansu Province.

To be honest I wasn’t too excited about the city where they decided to send me. I was hoping that I’d be placed in the frenetic atmosphere of Shanghai and instead when I got off the plane I found myself in front of a reality that was a little more backward and still evolving. [Read more…]

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