General Chinese (Advanced Level)

With all that goes on every day, and all that could go wrong, we sometimes forget to be grateful. Of course, with Thanksgiving (感恩节 Gǎn ēn jié) right around the corner gratitude is in the air in the U.S., but we thinking that no matter where you are or who you are it’s important to ...

All across Chinese social media, English letter abbreviations are running rampant. Whether on web forums, text messages, or WeChat, terms like “yyds”, “dddd” and “u1s1” have been evolving and gradually working their way into everyday conversation. As it’s easy to just dismiss them as silly trends (or even typos), today we’re breaking down what some ...

Last time we talked about 5 Mythical Chinese Creatures beyond the world of Chinese dragons and it’s about time you discovered some of the mythical places from Chinese folklore and literature including heaven and hell. Whether these places are real or not, you must decide on your own. But they are places that can ...

If you were to Google “confusing things about Chinese”, you’d get approximately 39,100,000 results (trust us, we just tried). There are a lot of aspects of learning the language that might trip you up, things like pronunciation, writing characters, all the different ways to say “grandparent”, and more, but today we wanted to have some ...

Recently, the Ministry of Education issued the international standard for Chinese education. This was the first standard for foreign Chinese students by the National Committee on language and culture. The levels were divided into level three and level nine. The international standard for Chinese education will officially be implemented as of July 1, 2021.

According to ...

Muslim Ramadan
Ramadan refers to the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is called Ramadan in Arabic. According to Islamic doctrine, Ramadan is a grand, festive, auspicious, and noble month.because it was this month that Allah handed down the Koran to Muslims.
1. Ramadan
The beginning and end of Ramadan are based on the appearance of the ...

5 Psychological Phenomena You Probably Haven’t Heard About
“Psychological phenomena” is often kind of just a fancy way to refer to reasons behind human interactions, and ways to describe the cause-and-effect relationships between actions and reactions. It’s important to keep in mind that this terminology is neither positive nor negative, but often examples ARE interesting.
Additionally, being ...

“Poverty Limits My Imagination”
Whenever people see others flaunting their wealth on social media, or interact briefly with the rich and famous, a common refrain is often heard: “贫穷限制了我的想象! (pín qióng xiàn zhì le wǒ de xiǎng xiàng) Poverty limits my imagination!”

This self-effacing sentence is saying that those with money can live lifestyles that ...

What You Don’t Know About Chinese New Year
2021 is the Year of the Ox, the ox being of the twelve Chinese zodiac animals. In fact, there are similar customs in many countries. For example, Myanmar has eight zodiac animals that, similarly to the Chinese zodiac, are assigned to people depending on their date of birth.
In ...

“愿意(yuànyì)” and “肯(kěn)” are both auxiliary verbs, both of which indicate the general compliance with demands or willingness to do something.
“愿意(yuànyì)” is used to express how someone feels, particularly a feeling of acceptance or desire to do something without feeling unhappy. It can also be modified by placing adverbs of degree, like “非常(fēicháng)” or “很(hěn)”, ...