A Chinese joke about accidental bank robbers (more homophone puns)

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on May 23rd, 2013
蒋英羽

A Chinese joke / story involving homophone mix-ups and homophone names in Mandarin. Three sisters with unfortunate names and unfortunate vocabulary choices get into trouble. → Read more

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173 Chinese economic terms (general economic vocabulary)

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on May 9th, 2013
Chinese economic terms (经济)

A list of 173 Chinese economic terms, including only general economic vocabulary and excluding specialist terms. TXT, CSV, Skritter formats available. → Read more

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美国想打谁就打谁 (America hits whoever it wants): versatile Chinese question words

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on April 17th, 2013
美国想打谁就打谁 - Chinese questions words are vesatile

A little joke about the behaviour of various countries shows how Chinese question words are very versatile and easy to use, e.g. 谁 is “who” and “whoever”. → Read more

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Get daily Chinese handwriting practice with Google Pinyin IME on Android

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on April 2nd, 2013
Handwriting 修

Install Google Pinyin IME on your Android phone to get daily Chinese handwriting practice. It’s a bit slower than pinyin input, but you’ll remember the hanzi. → Read more

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Funny names found in the 2010 Chinese Census (homophones again)

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on March 22nd, 2013
史珍香 (a funny name)

Here’s a short list of some funny names that the 2010 Chinese Census apparently came across. Some highlights: 朱逸群 (猪一群), 杜琦燕 (肚脐眼) and 杜子腾 (肚子疼). → Read more

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Some fun with Mandarin homophones

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on February 25th, 2013
誓言 / 失言

I just came across this list of Mandarin homophones, kind of amusing. The tones of the word pairs are different, but the pronunciation is otherwise the same. → Read more

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Hutong School webinar: “Chinese for Dummies”

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on February 21st, 2013
Hutong School

Another webinar at Hutong School, this time titled Chinese for Dummies. The webinar will cover facts and figures about the Chinese language and other stuff. → Read more

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Should you learn Mandarin in a place with a standard accent? Which Mandarin study programs are good in China?

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on December 11th, 2012
Pronouncing pinyin

Mark Lore asks about getting a standard accent when learning Mandarin Chinese, plus other issues surrounding Mandarin study programs in China, such as cost. → Read more

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How to pronounce Li Keqiang (李克强) – China’s next Premier

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on November 25th, 2012
李克强 / Lĭ Kèqiáng / [lì kʰɤ̂tɕʰjɑ̌ŋ] / "lee kuh cheeang"

The pronunciation of Li Keqiang is a little bit like “lee kuh cheeang”, but that’s not totally accurate. You can do a better job of it with practice. → Read more

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Chinese opposites words

By Hugh Grigg (葛修远), on November 19th, 2012
真假

Chinese opposites words are words like 真假, 大小, 左右 and 快慢 etc. where each part is the opposite of the other. They’re pretty interesting and work in a few different ways. → Read more

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