Ms. LEARNER

还是 and 或者, both mean or. This post is about the difference between the two. Though both mean or, one is used with interrogative sentences and the other with declarative sentences.

还是 is interrogative. Here’s a scenario. You have guest and you want to ask them if they would like either tea or coffee. Here’s how to do it.

The structure is Subject+ Verb+ Option A+ 还是+ Option B

你 要 喝 咖 啡 还 是 茶？

When you use 或者, it’s not really about a choice, but is more of an opinion. 

The structure is Option A/Opinion A+ 或者+Option B/Opinion B.

今天晚上吃米饭或者面条都可以。

Note: you have to use 还是 n sentences that contain an interrogative clause. With sentences that imply a choice you have to use 还是. For instance, I don’t if this is my pen or my boy friend’s. This sentence will become the following in Mandarin.

我不知道这支笔是我的还是我男朋友的。

Here’s another example.

This post will be to explain how to use the passive markers 被 (bèi) and 把 (bǎ). 把 is especially important because it is so commonly used to stress an object over the subject and what happened to the object.

First off, if you don’t know how to make a passive sentence, here’s a little tidbit for you. The object becomes the subject and has something done to them by someone/something (known as the personal agent). If you can stick “by zombies” into a sentence and have it make sense, congratulations! You just made a passive sentence!

e.g: My bike was stolen by zombies.

Let’s put that English sentence into Chinese using 被:

我的自行车被僵尸偷了。 (Wŏ de zìxíngchē bèi jiāngshī** tōu le.）

See how the 被 goes after the object which is considered the passive subject? It is most often an inanimate object because only an object with the ability to do something can be used after 被. So a rolling boulder, even though inanimate, can be the personal agent in this sense.

You can also drop the personal agent after 被 as well, but always keep the 被 in your sentence so it stays passive!

我的自行车被偷了。 ( Wŏ de zìxíngchē bèi tōu le.) - My bicycle was stolen.

我十点被捎脚了。 (Wŏ shí diăn bèi shāojiăo le.) - I am being picked up at ten.

** 僵尸 (jiāngshī) is a type of Chinese vampire-zombie that devours souls or spirits. I’m not completely sure of the whole lore but it was the closest thing I could find and I used it here. If you know more about them, or have a better word for zombies, let me know!

Now for 把!

This little bugger has a few uses like I said above, to emphasise something or what happened to it.

把 usually is placed in the second spot in a sentence. The personal agent (considered the subject here, though) will go before this, so it’s the opposite of 被. The object that goes after 把 must be a definite thing, not something abstract (like a table as opposed to peace, which is abstract). The action must have a conclusion or a result.

我把哈利波特系列看完了。 (Wŏ bă Hālì Bōtè xìliè kān wán le.) - I finished reading the Harry Potter series. / I took the Harry Potter series and finished reading it.

我把我最喜欢的杯子打破了。（Wŏ bă wŏ zuì xĭhuan de bēizi dăpò le.） - I broke my favourite cup. / I took my favourite cup and broke it.

So the book series is no longer unread, and the cup is now broken into pieces. Although it still looks active, it put the agent on the back burner and highlighted what happened to the object.

For other uses of 把, I really recommend reading Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma’s Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar. They have an entire section devoted to using 把 and right after that section is the passive.

个 gè: for people, abstract things and objects | Ex: 我有一个老师。

口 kǒu: for family people | Ex: 我家有四口人。

只 zhī: for animals | Ex: 我爸爸家有三只狗。

条 tiáo: for long and narrow things | Ex: 她有两条鱼。

张 zhāng: for flat things | Ex: 教室里有五张桌子。

把 bǎ: for objects that can be grasped by hand | Ex: 我房间里有一把椅子。

本 běn: for books | Ex: 桌子上有四本书。

支 zhī: for long and thin things | Ex: 笔袋里有一支笔。

家 jiā: for establishments (house, hotel …) | Ex: 我哥哥开了一家公司。

块 kuài: for portions or pieces | Ex: 来吃块西瓜吧。

岁 suì: for years (old) | Ex: 我今年40岁。

棵 kē: for trees | Ex: 这棵树又高又大。

台 tái: for machines | Ex: 这台电脑是新买的。

双 shuāng: for pairs | Ex: 一双筷子。

辆 liàng: for vehicles | Ex: 一辆汽车。

篇 piān: for articles and texts | Ex: 这篇报道是我写的。  

节 jié: for time periods | Ex: 我们下午只有一节课。

Hi everyone.

I’ve finished writing a lengthy post on how to improve your vocabulary only to lose it because I didn’t save it as draft beforehand. Writing in an iPad sucks because this is not the first time this happened to me. Why hand why.

Anyway, one of the secrets to learn new words quicker and improve your vocabulary is surprise surprise

To read.

HA. You think there’s a shortcut for success. No.

So back to reading, I found that by reading out loud, I memorize words quicker and plus it’s also improved my pronunciation.

During my first months of learning Japanese, I started by reading textbooks because that’s the only material that I could read with my limited vocabulary and kanji.

Then I tried reading manga but the interest quickly wears off. I’m the type who prefer words more than visual so I turn myself into the Internet and google articles on topics that I’m interested in like how to improve your Japanese but in Japanese lol.

And it works.

Next, I use the Quora Japanese version to increase my reading material which is a free app where people ask questions and answer. Sort of like Yahoo Answers and Japan 知恵袋. I love everything that is free and easily accessible by using phone *wink*

I’m not sure about android but iPhone has a built dictionary where you can select a word and look up the meaning. Plus, there’s also a speech function that you can use to hear the pronunciation. 

Here’s a short video that I edit using InShot of me reading one of the answers in Quora. 

Good luck! and if you’ve any tips to add please free to do so x

*for future reference the masterlist link should be under my profile pic on my homepage!

FLASHCARDS

C-SERIES INTEGRATED CONTEXT VOCAB 

01_10 Flashcards 

02_16 Flashcards

03_18 Flashcards

04_18 Flashcards

05_17 Flashcards

06_15 Flashcards

07_18 Flashcards

RADICAL VOCAB 

01_General Vocab

02_Colours 

03_Valentine’s Day

HELLO TALK - Real life Chinese Conversations with Native Speakers 

Part O1 

Work, Continuing a conversation, Clarifying questions, Language ability, Getting ready in the morning

OTHER VOCAB

EMOTIONS

Emotions vocab list (w GIFS)

APPEARANCE

What type of boys do you like?

What type of girls do you like?

CHINESE PARTICLES

The three DE’s

MISCELLANEOUS VOCAB

01_My Mr. Mermaid + Body Parts 

02_My Diary Phrases 

03_My Mr. Mermaid + Body Parts PT2 

04_My Mr.Mermaid ep 2 + 3 

05_My Mr. Mermaid ep 3 + Chinese Pod describing drinks

06_PETS (describing animals/pets)

07_My Mr. Mermaid ep 4 + Home vocab 

08_My Mr. Mermaid ep 4. cont

Sentence Order 

Basic sentence order 

Time/place word order 

Test Yourself:

Listen to music in that language. Listening to music in the language you are trying to learn surrounds you in the language and helps you develop a sense of how it sounds.

Watch TV and movies in that language. Listening to people have actual conversations in the language can help give you an idea of how it works. I recommend watching variety shows and children shows because the language is normally very basic. Plus, variety shows normally have certain words and phrases on the screen.

Use flash cards and take quizzes frequently. This helps you stay sharp with things you really need to know and remember. I personally don’t like flash cards, but when it comes to learning vocabulary, it can be a big help.

Practice writing and spelling. You can do this by writing daily in a journal. This can also help with forming your own sentences. Simply write about things like what you ate or what you did, or your thoughts in general. The more you write, the more comfortable you will be forming your own sentences.

Try speaking in the language whenever you get a chance. Do it with a friend who’s also learning or someone who already speaks the language. If you can’t do either one of those, you can practice by talking to yourself or an assistant on your phone. There are also apps such as hellotalk or kakao where you can talk to people. ALWAYS BE CAREFUL WHEN TALKING TO STRANGERS!!!

Learn words and phrases that you find yourself using often. Don’t try to learn advanced phrases and terms that you don’t use on an everyday basis. You may think it’s helping you, but it’s actually setting you back.

Learn more about the culture that surrounds the language. When you learn more about the culture, you will understand why certain things are said in certain situations. Understanding the culture = Understanding the language

Master the alphabet + pronunciation. Before you learn any sort of vocabulary or sentence forms, fully understanding the alphabet and each letter’s pronunciation is a MUST! In every language, there are those letters’ sounds that change depending on certain factors.

Master sentence structure. Sentence structure is a big problem that many people face when first learning a language. Chances are the sentence structure of the language you’re learning is the complete opposite from your own. (Unless you speak English and are learning Chinese; vice versa)

Become familiar with the keyboard. You will probably find yourself typing in the language often, so you might as well learn the keyboard. I recommend downloading a keyboard on your phone from the play store or app store.

Practice daily. When you do this, you’re bound to remember the information better. If you don’t and you stop studying for too long, there’s a high chance that you’ll forget some of the basics. I would know. It’s happened to me before.

Hi, there! I have a big exam next month and decided to create an exam study kit to organize and increase my productivity. I hope this exam study pack help your final exam. Good luck with your exam, everyone! We can do it!

Exam Study Pack Including

Final Exam Schedule 

Final Exam Time Schedule (week)

Weekly Study planner

Monthly Style Study planner

Essay Planner

Glossary (definitions & terms)

Note

Click HERE to download the printable (PDF). Please save the file to your computer and open with Adobe Reader DC. Use Adobe Reader, otherwise, it will not work correctly and colors may display completely different. Please let me know if you are having trouble downloading the file.

* Important note: All files are Personal Use (non-commercial) ONLY! Please Do NOT Copy and Edit. Please Do No distribute and sell these files or upload them to other websites.

this post is meant to be a directory of every resource I come across for Cantonese, a variety of Yue 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

about world languages

glottolog

how different are mandarin and cantonese? [video]

language learning profile

omniglot

playlist of samples

“this user is learning (hong kong) cantonese” userbox

wikipedia

world atlas of language structures

Hey! Here are a whole heap of links :-) I’d also go through my /tagged/q for more answers (or emmastudies.com/archive and filtering by ask, since I haven’t tagged things for a while).

Organisation

2018 student planner

2019 student planner

2018-19 digital student planner

planner brand recommendations

planner vs bullet journal: pros and cons

how to set up a bullet journal

setting up a digital bullet journal

bullet journal spread ideas

bullet journal decoration hacks

bullet journal brand recommendations

whats in my bag

my favourite stationery

back to school basic supplies

how to improve your handwriting

handwriting font suggestions

balancing study and work

desk/workspace essentials

student finance tips

2018 monthly planner printables

Productivity

productivity and time management applications

how to remove distractions

types of procrastination and how to deal with them

google chrome new tab options for improved productivity

10 small ways to improve your productivity

applications to block websites

no distraction writing applications

100 days of productivity challenge

how to focus in class

how to stick to a schedule

how to stay alert

how to build self-discipline

how to organise for exams

my after school routine

how to reduce perfectionist ideas

Motivation

what to do when you’ve tried everything

how to gain back motivation

motivational monday printables

how to stop avoiding studying

what to do when you feel exhausted before studying

how I stay motivated

tips on maintaining motivation

10 tips to increase your motivation for study

how to start a studyblr

how to utilise your studyblr for motivation

how to set up a studygram

dealing with competitive people

how to bounce back from ‘failure’

how to learn from a lower than expected grade

how to structure a weekly review

how to deal with a difficult class

things to do during holidays/study vacations

Studying

applications for students

how to take effective class or lecture notes

how to take notes from a textbook

how to prepare for exams

my note-taking method

my notebook system

how to write faster

how to study more effectively

how to summarise information

how I organise my binders

good habits to implement

how to study (my method)

how to revise from notes

how to organise a colour code

how to memorise information effectively

how to memorise quotes

how to use flashcards

how I reduce waffle and narration in essays

tips for essay writing

how to find out where you’re going wrong

how I prepare to study

different ways to study

how to study during the semester

how to annotate a book/novel/etc

how to get ahead in school

how to break up a large textbook

studying as a visual learner

how to practice and present a speech

mindmapping apps and extensions

how to deal with online classes

how to study a language

how to study maths

how to improve group assessments/projects

ipad study inspiration

Self Care

how to improve your sleep schedule

how to wake up earlier

how to study when sick

over-coming self doubt

dealing with stress

how to balance studying and anxiety

how to balance studying and depression

apps that help with depression

ways to reward your productivity

my favourite tv shows

my favourite podcasts

ways to use empty notebooks

how to be more sociable

tips for getting a job

advice for the first day

things (personal, academic, etc) to do every week

Printables

all my paid student printables, planners, digital planners + stickers, etc

2018 monthly planner printables

2018 student printables (includes 2018 overview + calendar, daily + weekly + monthly planner, 30 habit tracker, class overview and timed worklog)

2019 free student printables (2018-19 overview, 2019 overview, 2019 key dates, year in pixels, monthly portrait planner)

weekly study schedule

weekly planner

weekend planner

daily planner

assessment planner

subject to do list planner

study session planner

exam revision printable pack (includes revision checklist, formulas + definitions sheet, essay + project planner, weekly schedule)

note-taking printables (includes dotted, grid, lined, cornell method)

organic chemistry printable

literary techniques and devices sheet

100 days of productivity tracker printable

ultimate student organiser pack

study and revision pack

2018 student planner

2018 weekly planner

pomodoro tracker

grade and assessment planner pack

essay guide and planner pack

productivity planner

student reading journal printable

student finance planner

goal and habit planner

customisable weekly study planner

write 1 or 2 sentences to sum up your day

learn 5 new words

listen to a song

watch short video

conjugate a verb

read and attempt to say out loud a tongue twister

count from 1 to 100

sing the alphabet

Hit Cmd+F or Ctrl+F to search for your language! I’ll update this list as I come across more, so contact me if you have something that you think should get added!

WEBSITES

Duolingo - Spanish, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese. More are coming very soon, including Irish and Danish.

Memrise - Any language, even Klingon. Over 200 languages are offered.

Lingq - German, Chinese, Russian, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Korean, and more.

FluentU - Chinese, Spanish, and French are offered currently. It’s like a youtube for languages.

Babbel - Russian, Indonesian, Polish, Spanish, German, French, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Turkish, Italian, Portuguese. Similar to Duolingo or Memrise.

Ukgermanconnection - German children’s books for English speakers.

Babadum - Swedish, Polish, Russian, English, German, Italian, German, Spanish, French, Danish. Great for building vocab.

Radiolingua - French, German, Spanish, Italian.

DW - German.

Textfugu - Japanese.

Busuu - German, French, Arabic, Polish, Chinese, Turkish, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Italian.

FSI - A whole ton of languages; if you want to learn it, chances are it’s on here. These courses were developed by the US government.

Kana101.com - Japanese. Learn Hiragana and Katakana.

Guidetojapanese - Japanese.

Imabi - Japanese.

Lernu - Esperanto.

RESOURCES

Conjugator for French, Spanish, and German.

Anki - Flashcards that use spaced repetition. Great supplements for any language.

Languagetool - A great tool for proofreading what you write.

Forvo - 318 languages. Listen to a native speaker say the word you’re having trouble with.

Lang-8 - Many languages. You post in a language and native speakers proofread it.

Word Reference - Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, Romanian, Czech, Greek, Turkish, Arabic. It’s a dictionary and a conjugator as well.

pons [Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish]

shabdkosh [Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu]

wordreference [Arabic, Chinese, Czech, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish]

dict.cc [Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latin, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish]

bab.la [Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Swahili, Turkish]

linguee [Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish]

cambridge [Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese]

dicts.info  [73 languages]

dict.com  [30 languages]

larousse  [French, German, Italian, Spanish]

hablaa [73 languages]

glosbe  [2150 languages]

freelang  [267 languages]

Afrikaans  rieme.co.za

Albanian  argjio

Amharic  abyssinica,  amharicdictionary

Arabic  arabdict, almaany, firdaous

Armenian  nayiri, english2armenian

Bengali / Bangla  bword, english-bangla, ovidhan

Burmese burmese-dictionary, myordbok

Cantonese  cantodict

Catalan  catalandictionary

Croatian  hrvatski-rjecnik

Czech  seznam, slovnik

Dutch  vandale

Estonian  sõnastik, dukelupus, eki.ee

Farsi  dictionary-farsi, farsidic, aryanpour, ariadic

Finnish kaannos, findc

Georgian  lang.interes,  translate, targmne, nplg.gov, margaliti

German  langenscheit, leo

Greek  greek-language

Hawaiian hawaiiandictionary

Hebrew  morfix

Hindi  hindi-english, hinkhoj, hindi wordnet

Hungarian  sztaki, dictzone, topszótár

Icelandic snara

Indonesian  kamus, sederet

Irish irishdictionary, potafocal

Italian garzantilinguistica

Japanese  tangorin, excite, jisho

Javanese kamusjawa

Kazakh  lugat

Korean naver, daum, zkorean

Khmer  angkor-planet, kheng

Latvian letonika, latvianforyou

Lithuanian anglu-lietuviu, dict.lt

Macedonian  time, off.net.mk

Malay bhanot, kamus

Maltese  mlrs.research, englishmaltesedictionary

Mandarin  dict.cn, mdbg

Mongolian  bolor toli, englishmongolian

Norwegian  ordnett

Palauan  tekinged

Polish pitt.edu, ling.pl

Portuguese  portuguesedictionary

Punjabi  ijunoon, learnpunjabi

Russian  multitran

Spanish  spanishdict

Swahili kiswahili, africanlanguages

Swedish  ord

Tagalog pinoydictionary, tagalog-dictionary, tagaloglang

Tamil  tamildict, tamilcube, agarathi, tamildictionary

Telugu andhrabharati, telugupedia

Tibetan eng-tib

Thai  thai-language, thai2english, longdo, linedict

Turkish tureng, turkishdictionary, turkishclass

Ukrainian slovnenya, cybermova

Urdu  urduword, urduenglishdictionary, urdu123, studypart

Uyghur uyghurdictionary, yulghun

Uzbek  zangorikema

Welsh  geiriadur

Vietnamese vietdictionary, vdict

光 guāng - light, ray

阳光 yángguāng - sunshine

光明 guāngmíng - radiance

晨光 chénguāng - early morning light

彩霞 cǎixiá - rosy clouds at sunrise or sunset

櫻花 (樱花) yīnghuā - cherry blossom

星座 xīngzuò - constellation

露水 lùshuǐ - dew; fig. ephemeral

暮靄 (暮霭) mù'ǎi - evening mist

花蕾 huālěi - flower bud

白日夢 (白日梦) báirìmèng - daydream

雪花 xuěhuā - snowflake

蜂蜜 fēngmì - honey

雨傘 (雨伞) yǔsǎn -umbrella

明星 míngxīng - star

棉花糖 miánhuatáng - cotton candy

花火 huāhuǒ - firework

香味 xiāngwèi - fragrance

落花 luòhuā fallen petals

紛飛 (纷飞) fēnfēi - to flutter around (of snowflakes, flower petals)

Apps Lingodeer Pleco dictionary Chinese Skill Online courses ChineseClass101 ChinesePod Cambridge basic Chinese online course

Miscellaneous Mandarinbean Wordbrewery sentences with vocab from news (many languages) 100 most frequent characters BBC Chinese Reddit Chinese forum

Podcasts Slow Chinese BearTalk Hanzi and Pinyin Purple Culture Pinyin Converter How to learn Pinyin

Textbooks Berlitz Basic Mandarin Chinese Integrated Chinese New Practical Chinese Reader (PDF)

Traditional Chinese Speak Mandarin in 500 Words (PDF) Huayu world beginner to advanced PDFs (really good resource) Lee Katrina Youtube lessons BoPoMoFo Taiwanese song by Louis