Author Archive | Alan Park

5 Basic Chinese Sentence Structures to Ease You into Grammar

One of the comforts of Chinese grammar is the straightforward and logical sentence patterns. And thankfully, many of them are based on the formula you already know. Ah, the ever-so-basic but ever-so-reliable SVO pattern. Here are five really simple Chinese …

200+ Essential Chinese Words and Phrases Used in Daily Life (with Audio and Free PDF)

Focus on the most common Chinese words, and you’ll be able to get a solid foundation in the language. You’ll also navigate conversations faster and get better at handling different situations. This post will take you through 212 of the …

57 Best Chinese Movies of All Time [Fresh for 2024]

Chinese movies are some of the world’s best cinema. Whether you prefer martial arts action movies, sweet and funny rom-coms, offbeat comedies or documentaries, we’ve included every genre of Chinese movies on our list, so there’s something for everyone. Read …

10 Famous Chinese Actors You Oughta Know, Plus Their Most Iconic Movies

With hit movies like “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “In the Mood for Love,” Chinese actors have earned fans from all over the world. In fact, many of them are household names already, with a track …

17 Awesome Chinese Blogs for Chinese Learners of All Levels

It’s hard to learn Chinese by yourself sometimes, but blogs can make online learning feel a lot more fun and personal. They tend to share lots of great resources that you can incorporate in your study time, as well as …

The Chinese Grammar Structures List for Beginners: 13 Patterns to Get You Started

Basic Chinese sentence structure follows the Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) pattern. For example, we say 我爱你 (wǒ ài nǐ) — I love you in Chinese with the same sentence structure we would in English. Although basic Chinese grammar is often described as …

14 Ways to Say Hello in Chinese Like Native Speakers Do

Do you know that awkward moment that every Chinese learner experiences? When you realize that “nǐ hǎo” is actually not how native speakers say hello? If you didn’t know that, then this post is for you: Now you’ll be …

What Is Pinyin? The Complete Beginner’s Guide

I’ll let you in on a secret. Did you know you can learn to speak fluent Chinese without ever learning a single Chinese character? It’s all thanks to (hàn yǔ pīn yīn) — Hanyu pinyin, or simply — pinyin. In …

34 Interesting Chinese Idioms (Chengyu) to Improve Your Mandarin Fluency

Nothing beats the impact of a Chinese idiom delivered with precision. They say brevity is the soul of wit, after all, and those four-character phrases sure are concise. So while it isn’t strictly necessary to learn idioms as you learn …

14 Best Ways to Say Goodbye in Chinese for Any Occasion

While 再见 (zài jiàn) is the classic translation of “goodbye” in Chinese, it’s not the only way to bid others farewell. Just as there are multiple ways to say “hello” in Chinese, you can sound more advanced by using …