Articles for helping kids learn about china culture

Outside of mainland China, Mandarin Chinese is spoken by 83.5% of all the population in Taiwan, which unarguably makes it their official language. Likewise in Hong Kong, the Official Languages Ordinance has declared both Chinese and English as official languages with equal status, and are to be used in communication between the government and members of the public. Nearly half of the population speaks Mandarin Chinese in Hong Kong. Likewise in Macau, a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China where Mandarin Chinese also has status as an official language. In Singapore, the Constitution, realizing the presence of a large Chinese ethnic group, has recognized Mandarin Chinese as one of the four official languages. About 35% of the total population of Singapore speak Mandarin Chinese. In other Asian countries where there is a large presence of a Chinese immigrant community Mandarin Chinese is not the official language but is also spoken. For example, cou

Rapid advancements in information technology lead to rapid increase in adoption of mobile technology for language teaching and learning. Mobile Assisted Language Learning provides easy access for any learner without the constraints of both place and time. Numerous apps have been developed and utilized by people to learn  languages free. Besides, these apps are available free of cost. So one must take advantage of this freely available source of learning languages free. Here I will briefly describe some free language learning sources. One of the most effective and popular tools for online learning is “Duolingo”. It is available free of cost. It is very user-friendly app. It offers 11 completed language courses for English speakers and two beta languages. Duolingo also includes language courses for speakers of languages other than English. The learning tasks at Duolingo are pleasantly presented and cleverly gamified. Virtual rewards for reaching certain milestone makes it more engaging

Everybody know that Spring Festival is the most important festival of China. But do you know what do people usually have during the festival? I mean what kinds of food! Let’s explore the dinning table of Chinese people during the CNY! Fish is normally eaten as a last dish during Spring Festival because its name sounds similar to ‘surplus’. By having surplus, it means that from last year you have increased your wealth. How the fish is eaten depends on the province but the idea is that you shouldn’t eat the whole fish, leaving some ‘surplus’ for further emphasis. Dumplings Normally, as a family, you can make dumplings together to be eaten during Spring Festival eve, this is the most iconic dish, even though we eat dumplings throughout the whole year. The more dumplings you eat the more fortune you will bring yourself in the upcoming year, so get your stomachs at the ready! Sometimes a coin may be hidden in one of the dumplings with the lucky person who finds it receiving good

Perhaps, you have seen a lot of people learn other languages or you have read several articles that enjoin you to learn another language and you wonder why learning another language is so important. Or maybe, you ask questions like; ‘What do I stand to gain from learning another language?’ ‘What value will the foreign language add to my life?’ ‘Does it help my thinking or is it really only about communication ?’ The following will tell you more about what you about the benefits of learning another language. When you learn another language, you will gain insights into a different culture which will allow you to be more flexible and appreciative of other ways of doing and looking at things. Of course, you can still learn about other cultures, but language learning really allows for a more immersive experience because most cultural traditions are tied to their language. Also, another phenomenal benefit of learning a second language for your Children is that you will be able to make

"No wonder" is an important phrase in Mandarin Chinese to learn if you’re going to travel or live in China, a country with abundant cultural traditions and surprises for its visitors.  As you’ll see, both words feature the character “怪 / guài”, which has a few meanings, including “strange”, “to wonder at” and “to blame”. For the purposes of this post, we’re going to focus on the definition “to wonder at”. (1) 难怪 / nán guài Literally “difficult + to wonder at”, “难怪” is a fairly straightforward word and fits into a sentence just as “no wonder” does in English: Zhè shì yījiā yǒumíng de Běijīng kǎoyā diàn? Nánguài mǎnyuán le! “这是一家有名的北京烤鸭店？ 难怪 满员了！” ‘Aaah, so this is a famous Beijing Roast Duck restaurant?? No wonder it was totally full!’ Nánguài dàjiā jiābān. Jiézhǐ rìqī gǎi dào míngtiān le! “ 难怪 大家加班。 截止日期改到明天了！” No wonder everyone is doing overtime. The deadline was changed to tomorrow! Nánguài nǐ juéde yǒudiǎnr shānggǎn. Hái méi xíguàn zài Zh

Unlike how the ancient people acquired a new language which were usually through daily interaction and immersion, people now master foreign languages by studying them . In other words, teaching a language can be said to be a modern concept. Perhaps you are curious about how ancient people learn foreign languages or you want to know if there are any similarities or differences between ancient time methods and modern methods, your search is over as you are on the right page. How people in ancient Roman learn? Learning the language of a foreign land was a necessity mostly for the traders in the ancient Rome. Many Romans admired Greek and Latin. Greek was the  lingua franca  of the Mediterranean and more Greek was probably spoken in Rome than the local lingo. There were manuscripts which consist of vocabulary lists, basic grammars, and texts. The texts appear in two columns, similar to the texts used today to teach modern foreign languages. With these texts, learners were introduced

  Systematical differences between two languages could cause language learners make mistakes.  A good way to improve your language ability is to spend time on this differences and figure this systematical distinction and then you would know how to avoid them in the future. Today, I am going to discuss the 4 important differences between Chinese and English. Do hope this can make your journey of Mandarin learning a little bit easier! Tones vs Intonation This is the first difference you should learn about the two languages, because tones are very important to Chinese but doesn’t exist in English. Chinese has 4 tones (5 if you count the silent tone), as an example, the word in pinyin ‘ma’ can have 5 different meanings depending on what tone you use. Whereas in English words are spelled based on phonics and regional accents and intonation like Chinese tones are used as an expression. Idioms The Chinese language loves Idioms! This is maybe because of its long history and rich cu

No matter where we live in the world there’s one thing we all endure on our way to work… commutes. Although Beijing has convenient and cheap transportation links it can get extremely crowded during rush hour. Thankfully shared bikes have made commutes easier in Chinese cities. The two most popular shared bike apps (ofo and mobike) offer virtually free rides to app users at 0.5 mao per 30 minutes of riding, that’s less than $1. If you ride less than 30 minutes you don’t pay! Before setting off on your adventure, just swipe the QR code on your phone and watch as the bike unlocks itself. Best of all unlike typical bike sharing initiatives around the world , these can be found virtually anywhere in the city and do not need to be returned to their original location. Regrettably, this has led to it’s own set of problems, as people will discard bikes anywhere, sometimes even in indescribable piles. But this hasn’t stopped their popularity, some people have even

When people start to learn a new language , the first few things learners would do is probably to find a good name for themselves in that language. In Chinese, names are of extreme importance to a person. ‘Don’t worry about being born with the wrong destiny, but being given the wrong name’, in China people believe this.  People in China believe a good name will bring good fortune to a man/woman. For learners of Mandarin Chinese and taking Chinese language classes, your teacher must have already picked a good name for you. Therefore learning about this can be even more essential to you. So, children are named with qualities their parents hope they will possess to give them a good life in the future. Unlike in the west where we name our children after our elders to show respect, in China, this is considered a very big taboo. One thing that plays the most important role in name giving in China is a child’s the date of birth and the eight characters of a horoscope. This is based

In spite of the fact that they share the greater part of a composition writing framework, these are in truth unique languages. On the off chance that you just comprehend one, you can't as a matter, of course, comprehend the other, however, you might have the capacity to understand the other one in a written frame. These facts both point towards a similar pattern, the utilization of Mandarin is developing at an incredibly quick rate. Right off the bat, this is on account of Mandarin is the language of direction in the education framework crosswise over China. Mandarin chinese learning  with professional mandarin chinese courses from Lingo Bus that specializes in kids education. The official language is Mandarin Chinese, based on the tongue of the ethnic group the Han, originally from the North. This language depends on a Mandarin variety talked during the Manchu dynasty in Beijing. Afterward, this language was received as the official language for the People's Republ

Although learning  Chinese culture  is interesting, learning a second language as difficult as Mandarin can sometimes get you down to the point of giving up, especially when you turn learning Chinese into a  boring  routine. As the popular saying goes, “do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life” encourages us to stick to dreams and chase after a career we love. It can be applied in language learning! It is easy to understand why children don’t like learning Mandarin. It’s too hard, and sometimes can be really boring. So the most important thing you should bear in mind when helping your kids is to make sure to make the class more fun to take! Here are some tips for incorporating Chinese into your family’s routine in unique ways: Character stories Memorizing Chinese characters is difficult, I always held this thought until my teacher turned them into pictures or stories. It’s very simple to do, there are already many books out there that have done

I still can remember when I began learning Chinese, every day we would spend the first 10 minutes of the class being tested on the four tones of Chinese pronunciation. My teacher would read a word or character and we would have to guess what tone she was using. When your Mandarin Chinese language tutor says it’s time to practice tones: Then the tables would turn and we would have to read words out loud and have our tones corrected. I complained about how useless this was, and how we should be using our time more effectively learning grammar points or new words. Like a typical inexperienced student, I couldn’t have been more wrong! I failed to realize then how important tones are, and I regret not having paid more attention. Here are the elementary knowledge about the four tones:   First tone: a flat high pitch tone, g. 妈 , ma1, mum.  Like a singer practicing ‘Fa’. ·                Second tone: a rising tone, start from a low to a high pitch, e.g. 麻 , ma2, feel

Keep in your mind that It is very essential to learn tones if you are willing to speak and learn with Mandarin Chinese Teacher . Mandarin Chinese contains four tones which are as under:- ·         First Tone The first tone is very high and flat tone. Your voice remains flat during speaking; there will be no rise or slope. ·         Second Tone It is a rising tone. In second tone, the voice rises from low to middle pitch. If you ask someone to repeat something then you say “huh” or what? ·         Third Tone Third tone is called as dipping tone. In third tone, the pitch will go from middle to low and to high. ·         Forth Tone                  The forth tone is almost a lowering tone in Mandarin Chinese.