兰丝

I’ve recently opened a discord server for people learning mandarin chinese. I’ve been struggling to stay motivated studying by myself because langauge learning is super tough, but hopefully more manageable and fun with a community doing the same! 

It’s open to any level of chinese proficiency, so if you’re interested pls come join. I’d love to see you there!

玫瑰 méiguī - rose 月季 yuèjì - Chinese rose 芍藥 (芍药) sháoyào - peony 蘭花 (兰花) lánhuā - orchid 菊花 júhuā - chrysanthemum 茉莉花 mòlìhuā - jasmine 櫻花 (樱花) yīnghuā - cherry blossom 梅花 méihuā - plum blossom 桃花 táohuā - peach blossom 薰衣草 xūnyīcǎo - lavender 水仙花 shuǐxiānhuā - daffodil 雛菊 (雏菊) chújú - daisy 丁香花 dīngxiānghuā - lilac 百合花 bǎihéhuā - lily 荷花 héhuā - lotus 鬱金香 (郁金香) yùjīnxiāng - tulip 葵花 kuíhuā - sunflower

花瓣 huābàn - petal 花園 (花园) huāyuán - garden 開花 (开花) kāihuā - to bloom 採花 (采花) cǎihuā - to pick flowers 朵 duǒ - measure word for flowers 束 shù - measure words for a bunch of flowers

Some of the flowers have more than one name so if you know other version, tell me. Also, feel free to correct me ^^

The Ba-Sentence 1: A把B + V + ……

In Chinese, a ba-sentence can be used to indicate a certain action done on a definite person or thing, the structure being “A把B + V + ……”. This type of ba-sentence is often used to request or order other people to do something. It is noteworthy that A is the agent of the action, and B is the patient. Both A and B should be specific or know to the speaker and the listener. For example:

请你把衣服洗了。

帮我把这本词典还了。

你把灯关吧。

我把爸爸的生日忘了。

If there is a negative adverb or a modal verb etc., it should precede “把”. For example:

你没把书给我。

你别把手机忘了。

你不能把电脑给你。

你可以把空调关了吗？

The Ba-Sentence 2: A把B + V + 在/到/给

In Chinese, a ba-sentence is often used to indicate a certain action is done on a definite person or thing and has changed the location of the person or thing, the structure being “A把B + V + 在/到 + Location”. For example:

我把照片放在你包里了。

老师把作业放在桌子上了。

我没把裤子放到椅子上。

我帮你把衣服放到行李箱里吧。

If an action has changed the owner or user of a definite object, the structure “A把B + V + 给 + sb.” is used. For example:

我把鲜花送给老师了。

我朋友把书借给我了。

弟弟没把钱还给哥哥。

你帮我把这本书带给小刚。

The Ba-Sentence 3: A把B + V + Complement of Result/Direction

In Chinese, the structure “A把B + V + Complement of Result/Direction” can be used to indicate an action which is done on a definite person or thing and has brought a result to or has changed the position of the person or thing. For example:

我把衣服洗干净了。

妈妈还没把饭做好呢。

请问学们把铅笔拿出来。

Generation III

252. Treecko = 木守宫 (tree gecko) 253. Grovyle = 森林蜥蜴 (forest lizard) 254. Sceptile = 蜥蜴王 (lizard king)

255. Torchic = 火稚鸡 (fire young chicken) 256. Combusken = 力壮鸡 (power strong chicken) 257. Blaziken = 火焰鸡 (flaming chicken)

258. Mudkip = 水跃鱼 (water jumping fish) 259. Marshtomp = 沼跃鱼 (pond jumping fish) 260. Swampert = 巨沼怪 (huge pond fish)

Generation II

152. Chikorita = 菊草叶 (chrysanthemum grass leaf) 153. Bayleef = 月桂叶 (bay leaf/moon laurel leaf) 154. Meganium = 大竺葵 (big true sunflower) 

155. Cyndaquil = 火球鼠 (fireball mouse) 156. Quilava = 火岩鼠 (fire rock mouse) 157. Typhlosion = 火爆兽 (fiery beast)

Generation I

1. Bulbasaur = 妙蛙种子 (wonderful frog seed) 2. Ivysaur = 妙蛙草  (wonderful frog grass) 3. Venusaur = 妙蛙花  (wonderful frog flower) 4. Charmander = 小火龙 (small fire dragon) 5. Charmeleon = 小恐龙 (small dinosaur/frightening dragon) 6. Charizard = 喷火龙 (fire-spouting dragon)

7. Squirtle = 杰尼龟 (heroic turtle) 8. Wartortle = 卡咪龟 (kami-turtle) 9. Blastoise = 水箭龟 (water arrows turtle)

1. Halloween: 万圣节 [wànshèngjié]

2. Costume: 服装 [fú zhuāng]

3. Mask: 面具 [miàn jù]

4. Trick or treat: 不給糖，就搗蛋 [bù gěi táng, jiù dǎo dàn]

5. Candy: 糖果 [táng guǒ]

6. Ghost: 鬼 [guǐ]

7. Pumpkin: 南瓜 [nánguā]

8. Witch: 巫婆 [wūpó]

9. Bat 蝙蝠: [biān fú]

10. Black cat: 黑猫 [hēi māo]

11. Spider: 蜘蛛 [zhī zhū]

12. Vampire: 吸血鬼 [xī xuè guǐ]

13. Mummy: 木乃伊 [mù nǎi yī]

14. Zombie: 僵尸 [jiāng shī]

15. Werewolf: 狼人 [láng rén]

16. Skeleton: 骷髅 [kū lóu]

17. Horror movies: 恐怖电影 [kǒng bù diàn yǐng]

18. Scary: 可怕 [kěpà]

19. Monster: 怪物 [guàiwu]

20. Spider: 蜘蛛 [zhīzhū]

21. Haunted: 闹鬼 [nàoguǐ]

06:00 - 09:00: 早上 zӑo shàng 09:00 - 12:00: 上午 shàng wŭ 12:00 - 13:00: 中午 zhōng wŭ 13:00 - 18:00: 下午 xià wŭ 18:00 - 00:00: 晚上 wӑn shàng 00:00: 半夜 bàn yè 00:00 - 06:00: 凌晨 líng chén

Yesterday: 昨天 zuó tiān Today: 今天 jīn tiān Tomorrow: 明天 míng tiān

Day before yesterday: 前天 qián tiān After tomorrow: 后天 hòu tiān

Last week: 上个星期 shāng ge xing qī   This week: 这个星期 zhè ge xing qi Next week: 下个星期 xià ge xing qī

Last month: 上个月 shāng ge yué   This month: 这个月 zhè ge yué Next month: 下个月 xià ge yué

A recent question inspired me to write this post! So I hope it’s helpful! 

 I’ve been studying Chinese for a couple years in what feels like an uphill battle to keep up. There are thousands of characters to learn and no alphabet to use to help except for Pinyin, but no book is written in Pinyin and no one is writing anything in pinyin. So aside from learning pronunciation, pinyin is worthless. You’re just going to have to straight up memorize of thousands of difficult characters. This is a drastically different system compared to English and is very hard for a learner at any stage to learn and then retain. However, over the years I have come up with a system that has worked absolute wonders for helping me memorize characters and actually retain them. The downside, it takes A LOT more time than simply putting a character down on a flash card. As you’ll learn, Chinese requires a certain level of blood, sweat and tears to learn thoroughly so if you’re new to Chinese, get used to putting in a lot more time learning basic stuff than your peers learning romance languages. Take frequent breaks if you need to, space out your studying, and make sure you give yourself enough time to study. You’ll learn how long it typically takes for you to study as you go. What’s also important about learning characters is your attitude. You must try to have a good attitude about learning and say whatever you have to to yourself to get yourself to be at least somewhat enthusiastic about the prospect of learning around 8000 characters. Otherwise, your negativity will delay your study process and even disincentivize you from studying at all. With that in mind, here is the best way I have found to study Chinese characters laid out from start to finish. 

As clarification: Beginners should always use pinyin. Intermediate and up should try their best to remove the pinyin from their studies by not including it in flashcards or notes. If you forget the pronunciation, refer back to your vocab list.  

1. Read Whole Vocabulary List

First thing you need to do before you begin memorizing anything is to simply go down the list of vocabulary and read them aloud both the Chinese pronunciation and the English definition. Mark the vocabulary you don’t quite understand the meaning of so that you can do additional research a bit later. 

2. Assign Colors to Represent Tones

You will only need to do this once in your Chinese studies, but it’s very very important. It’s important to remove your dependence on pinyin ASAP. It’s very helpful for beginners to help them learn to pronounce things, but as soon as you get comfortable with pronunciation in about the intermediate level you’ll want to remove the pinyin from your studies completely. Pinyin after a while becomes more of a problem than a help if you become over reliant on it. How do you remove pinyin? Well you use colors! For the tones at least. For each tone, assign a different color and then write each character in that color to help you memorize the tone without the pinyin. I personally use blue for the first tone, yellow for the second tone, green for the third and red for the fourth. Now for the actual pinyin, bad news is, you’re just going to have to omit it from your notes and flashcards. The only exception is If you’re a beginner. If you are, please write out the pinyin in your notebook and in your flashcards because you’ll need the pinyin in your early stages. But as you advance in Chinese (starting at the intermediate level), DO NOT study with the pinyin. 

3. Take Apart the Characters 

Now that you have your colors ready to go, on to the important part. This is a very important part of your memorization process and that’s using radicals. Radicals are your best friend and act as a guide to help you distinguish the meaning of a word. So if you encounter to the animal radical ( 犭) in your studies, you’ll know from then on that whatever the word is has something to do with an animal. So yeah, they’re important. With your first vocabulary word, before you write it down, stick your vocab word into The Written Dictionary and take a look at the radicals. This will require you to have a Chinese keyboard either on your phone or on your computer. Go ahead and enable that in your control panel. Then keep the page up because you’re going to write them down write below the vocabulary word in your notes. 

4. Write Down the Character and the Radicals Below 

Now you can finally write down the vocab word! Get your colored pen out so you can write the vocab words according to their tones. And then right below them, write their radicals. It should look something like this:

1. 顺利 - (both characters in red to mark the fourth tone) 

顺 = 川  river +  页 page/leaf

利 =  禾 grain +刂    knife

Okay, so you see how this method takes a while, but let me tell you, if you do this, you will remember SO MANY characters. 

5. On a Separate Page, Practice Writing Vocab 10 Times Each And Read Aloud (Optional)

This part you can skip if you’re short on time, but I highly recommend making time to do it anyway. In grade school, Chinese students must repeat each character 10-12 times a day. It helps really cement the knowledge into your brain. The key here is that you are only writing the characters and then saying the word. It completely leaves out pinyin, which is GREAT! You want to establish a connection between the character and the word, not the word and the pinyin. 

6. Plug Vocab Words into Online Flashcards

I recommend either using Cram or Study Blue to study with but go ahead and plug in all your vocab words into some flash cards with or without the radicals. Whichever is better for you. I put the character on one side and the radicals on the other with no pinyin whatsoever, but I do have colors to help me differentiate the tones like I mentioned above. Again, if you’re a beginner PUT THE PINYIN IN YOUR FLASHCARDS. If you are intermediate or above, take ‘em out! 

7. Review Flashcards Every Week or Every Other Week 

Make sure to go back to your flashcards in a week or two so that you can review them. 

Whew, and that’s it. I know it’s a lot but believe me it will save you time in the long run because you’ll actually memorize characters instead of those who will probably promptly forget them after learning them and then have to go back and re-learn them all over again. That would really suck. So do yourself a favor and learn them really well first and then just review them when needed and you’ll be golden. It isn’t easy at all, but no one said learning Chinese would be easy! I’m sure you’ve got the ambition, no you just need to put it to work! You got this!

“Here, then, is an attempt at collecting Mandarin scholarships. They’re listed in approximate order of how wide their applicant pool is. I will try to keep this post updated. Please send updates, other scholarships to include, and other link collections to me via the contact form or leave them in the comments.”

this post is meant to be a directory of every resource I come across for Mandarin, often referred to as Chinese or Standard Chinese. It will be a continuous work in progress so thank you for your patience! if you have any issues or things to add, please reply to this post!

info

history of the chinese writing system

language learning profile

playlist of samples

wikipedia

A Visual Guide to Making Milk Tea

*yes, the pinkish one isn’t milk tea but it’s still deelicious so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyways, I’ve been drinking tea and milk tea more often these days so I made a graphic showing y’all how to make my favorite drinks! I added the Chinese just cause. Maybe you could use it to study ingredient names? haha idk

Enjoy a cup of tea on my behalf and lemme know what you think about the drinks or about this graphic! <333

Li Qingzhao (李清照), Ruined Flower (残花). Song dynasty.

Li Qingzhao is widely known as one of the greatest female poets of Chinese literature, and is recognized for her lyric poetry of the ci (词) form that followed set rhythms and tempos. Born in 1084 in modern-day Shandong to a family of scholar-officials, Li was one of an exceedingly small percentage of women who received education in childhood. Her prolific literary career included seven volumes of essays and six volumes of poetry. However, beyond fragments of her poetry much of Li’s work has been lost. 

我最喜欢的颜色是… - Wǒ zuì xǐhuān de yánsè shì...  - my favourite colour is...

红色 - hóngsè - red

绿色 - lǜsè - green

蓝色 - lánsè - blue

黄色 - huángsè - yellow

褐色 - hèsè - brown

粉色 - fěnsè - pink

橙色 - chéngsè - orange

黑色 - hēisè - black

白色 - báisè - white

灰色 - huīsè - grey

紫色 - zǐsè - purple

金色 - jīnsè - gold

银色 - yínsè - silver

古铜色 - gǔtóngsè - bronze

彩色 - cǎisè - multi-coloured

彩虹 - cǎihóng - rainbow