If you were tasked with the mission to make the Chinese language easier to learn, what would you do? A stone carving depicting a wealthy scholar with his apprentice, whose main job was to carry the scholar's scrolls around For thousands of years, the Chinese language was exclusively studied by the privileged, or those who… Continue reading How did people learn Chinese before Pinyin? (1)
“Slip carefully” is the Google Translate for 小心滑倒, a common sign in Chinese for “Caution, Slippery”. Hilarious fails aside, we have to say Chinese-English translation can be tricky. Sometimes, what seem to make sense logically from the translators’ point of view, is spectacularly wrong for the audience. Here are four most common reasons for translation… Continue reading Not so lost in Translation 2
How many Chinese characters are there really? This can be answered with a simple number, but this number itself in isolation does not tell us much. Instead, if we dig deeper into the question, it would reveal some fundamental characteristics of the Chinese language. To start with, what actually is a character? A character or… Continue reading How many Chinese characters are there?
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