Category: Mandarin Insights
Where does the the English word China come from? It is possibly derived from Sanskrit and probably refers to an early dynasty in China called Qin (also written…
The concept of face is a vital cultural component to the Chinese culture. There’s been a lot written on this topic, and still it is hard to define…
A great place to start in learning any foreign language is to learn how to say “I love you”. This universal human expression can teach us 2 pronouns…
Ni he shen me is the pinyin for 4 characters which together mean “what do you want to drink?”. Note that the pinyin used here does not have…
Nihao is the pinyin representation of two characters, 你, pronounced nǐ, personal pronoun meaning ‘you’ and 好, pronounced hǎo, meaning good. Note both of these characters are 3rd…
Mandarin Chinese is called Guoyu or Hanyu. Hanyu is the national language and standard dialect in mainland China. It’s often called Putonghua, Zhongwen or Zhongguohua.