Monday, December 9, 2013

"Eat" (吃chī) in Chinese Culture


中国吃的文化
zhōng guó chī de wén huà
"Eat" (吃chī) in Chinese Culture

岗位 = 饭碗
gǎng wèi = fàn wǎn
Job

谋生/受雇 = 糊口/混饭
mòu shēng/shòu gù = hú kǒu/hùn fàn
Be employed

混得好 = 吃得开
hùn de hǎo = chī de kāi
Well done

受欢迎 = 吃香
shòu huān yíng = chī xiāng
Be welcome

受单独照顾 = 吃小灶
shòu dān dú zhào gù = chī xiǎo zhào
Separate care

不干活,花积蓄 = 吃老本儿
bú gàn huó, huā jī xù = chī lǎo běnr
No job and cost savings

活干太多了觉得累 = 吃不消
huó gàn tài duō le jué de lèi = chī bù xiāo
It's too much to take

受委屈或有经济损失 = 吃亏
shòu5 wěi qū huò yǒu jīng jì sǔn shī = chī kuī 
Suffer losses

没事找事 = 吃饱了撑的
méi shì zhǎo shì = chī bǎo lē chēng de 
Ask for trouble

犹豫不决 = 吃不准
yóu yù bù jué = chī bù zhǔn
In hesitation

Thursday, December 5, 2013

The 3 Plans of 2014 Chinese National Holidays

Do you know there are 3 plans of 2014 Chinese National Holidays? Let's start to talk about them now. 

Three of the holidays are simple, Qingming, Duanwu and Mid-Autumn Festivals are straight up Monday off work. Three day weekends with no make up work days on the weekends. Brilliant.
Now it gets a little interesting. For Chinese New Year we’ll potentially be working the extra Sunday before and the Saturday after the holiday. So before a full 7 days of holiday we’ll have a 1 day weekend, 4 days of work, 7 days off, then after another 3 day work week with a 1 day weekend! Lets look at that another way:

5 days work (normal work week)
1 day off (Saturday)
4 days work
7 days off
3 days work
1 day off (Sunday)
5 days work (normal work week)

Confused? Me too!

Moving on, May Day (Labor Day), is a little disappointing with a work day on the Sunday following the 3 day holiday (Thursday to Saturday), which gives us a 6 day workweek after a long (but too short) weekend holiday.

Now for the good stuff. For next year’s National Day, on October 1, there are three “proposed” plans that offer 3 days, 5 days and 7 days off:

The 7 day plan is the only one that shows working weekends, with a similar set up as the Chinese New Year plan. For this proposal they haven’t counted the weekend as holiday, but added 2 more days holiday from the following week, making 7 days off total. But of course you make up for it by working weekends before and after. So it looks a bit like this:

5 days work (normal work week)
1 day off (Saturday)
3 days work
7 days off
4 days work
1 day off (Sunday)
5 days work (normal work week)

The 3 and the 5 day plans don’t count the weekend as the holiday, so you don’t have to make up any “extra” days on the weekend. The 3 day holiday is only for Wednesday-Friday, then a normal weekend. But the 5 day holiday is Wednesday-Sunday. Isn’t that the same thing? …Yup.

Hoped that helps clear everything up!

Check out the image below to help make more sense of it or check out from: http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2013/1127/c1001-23664133.html

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Some Popular Chinese Buzzwords

1. 潮人 cháo rén

Trendsetter













e.g. 他是个潮人,每天出门都要精心打扮一番。

tā shì gè cháo rén ,měi tiān chū mén dōu yào jīng xīn dǎ bàn yī fān 。 

He is a trendsetter, he will dress up before going out everyday.


2. 剩女 shèng nǚ

Single Woman










e.g. 大城市里,剩女越来越多了。
dà chéng shì lǐ ,shèng nǚ yuè lái yuè duō le 。

There are more and more single women in some big morden cities.


3. 土豪 tǔ háo


Someone who is very wealthy but uncultured.

 










e.g. 那个土豪买了七个金色的iPhone 5s.
nà gè tǔ háo mǎi le qī gè jīn sè de iPhone 5s.

That rich, trashy guy bought seven gold iPhone 5s.


Monday, October 28, 2013

Why to learn Chinese characters


With the increasing amount of Chinese learners, more people choose to learn Chinese with Pinyin, not characters. The main reasons are:

   1 Pinyin is easier and similar to English letters, people don’t need to worry about memorizing a lot.
   2 Most people want to acquire Chinese language at a fast way, like the fast food ,they don’t want to be bothered by the slow pace of writing with  strokes .
   3 The majority people learn Chinese for the purpose of communicating, they think it useless for the character study.
   
Are they right?
   No.
   For beginners, it might be easy and effect to learn with Pinyin only. But for those who would like to improve their oral speaking at a intermediate level, they will have a hard time. CLE used to have many students who want to learn oral speaking only. They think they can finish everything with Pinyin. But when seeing the characters in their advanced textbooks, they seemed totally lost. Even if their teachers helped with Pinyin, they couldn’t tell the difference between “ bao zhi “ and “ bao yuan “,they have to memorize this syllable, therefore it is very difficult for them to learn and improve more and higher.

The reason is the spirit of Chinese language exists in the character part. If you understand the radicals, you will find it easy to remember the related character, e.g. 饱 抱. They share the same pronunciation radicals, but the differences exist with the meaning radicals. The Pinyin bao 3 and bao 4 doesn’t make any sense at all. The two radicals and tell people that they are related with food and hand action. This will help student know about more characters.

So it is clear the Chinese learners will try to understand the Chinese characters. People have the fear of learning to write characters, but you need to at least understand each character and know to read it without Pinyin. Only in this way, can you understand the structure of the character and know the differences between similar characters.

Friday, October 25, 2013

What is your Chinese zodiac animal?

中国的十二生肖  Chinese Zodiac

What is your Chinese zodiac animal?

Animals
Name
The   Year
(shǔ)
()(zhī)(shǔ)

1984  1996  2008
(niú)
()(tóu)(niú)

1985  1997  2009
()
()(zhī)()

1986  1998  2010
()
()(zhī)()()

1987  1999  2011
(lóng)
()(tiáo)(lóng)

1988  2000  2012
(shé)
()(tiáo)(shé)

1989  2001  2013
()
()()()

1990  2002  2014
(yáng)
()(tóu)(yáng)

1991  2003  2015
(hóu)
()(zhī)(hóu)(zi)

1992  2004  2016
()
()(zhī)()

1993  2005  2017
(gǒu)
()(tiáo)(gǒu)

1994  2006  2018
(zhū)
()(tóu)(zhū)

1995  2007  2019