The Hanyu You Want

Dà gē shì Lǎowài Style.

A lǎowài is a foreigner and ‘dà gē’ literally translated means ‘big brother’ but perhaps more colloquially reads as ‘this guy’. Jesse Appell: Laowai Style (2012) Photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash

Chinese school is brutal at the moment. So much homework. I’ve been working all evening and I’ve still got loads more to do. I am writing a story in Chinese about the insufferable Ma Dawei and his ambitions to get a larger flat so that his new girlfriend can visit more often. After that, there…

Thirty Chinese Characters

It’s okay, it’s not compulsory to read this post. I just need somewhere to record the 30 characters that my laoshi expects me to be able to read and write by now. 1 Chinese point for doing homework.

Have you eaten?

I’m claiming three Chinese points for one class plus two homework sessions, one of which was a huge amount of study this evening. I’m only stopping now because I’m too tired to go on. Here’s some evidence of what I’ve been doing: Photo by Sharon Chen on Unsplash Nǐ chī le ma? Have you eaten? Hěn…

Annoying customers who say ni hao.

Something cool happened on Thursday. I was in town, near Leicester Square tube station, so I thought of going to Chinatown which is just nearby to buy some Chinese magazines and newspapers, to help my reading. I walked around quite a bit and then eventually found a tiny Chinese newspaper shop. I went in and…

Chinese table

My dining table is under there somewhere.

Making sense of hanzi

Q: Gloria, sometimes it seems from the context that you must be writing in Chinese, but all I can see is little boxes. Why? A: Your web browser is substituting little boxes in place of the Chinese characters. It does this because your version of Windows has not been configured to display Asian fonts. Here…