Author Archive | Sheena Dizon

How Many Chinese Characters Are There? Full Explanation and Guide for Fluency

Some official lists include anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000+ entries. Even some dictionaries contain up to 20,000 items. That’s a lot of Chinese characters. But wait! The answer to “How many Chinese characters are there?” is very different from the …

Merry Christmas and More! 10 Warm Chinese Christmas Greetings and Traditions

The smell of the holidays is in the air, whether you’re ready for it or not! People are decorating for Christmas, prepping for cozy parties and preparing gifts for the ones they love. And not just in the United States …

Learn Chinese with Songs: 15 Mandopop Hits for Fun Listening Practice

Music is the language of the soul. It can also be a language learning tool! Yep—if you do it right, music can be a powerful way to advance your language skills. So, maybe you want to understand Chinese covers …

Chinese Particles: What They Are and How to Use the Most Important Ones

If I asked you to name the parts of speech, could you name all of them? Nouns. Verbs. Adjectives. Adverbs. Pronouns. Prepositions. Conjunctions. Determiners. Interjections. Those are the nine parts of speech that we learned about in school. So imagine …

11 Ways to Say “And” in Chinese [With Audio and Quiz]

One of the easiest ways to make your language skills sound more advanced is by connecting your thoughts using conjunctions like “and.” This is true in English and Chinese. Because Chinese is a contextual language, there’s an “and” for every …

The Complete Guide to Months in Chinese (and the Lunar Calendar)

If you’re a beginner in Chinese, you’ll want to learn how to say the months in Mandarin. You’ll should also know how to translate dates and related phrases so you can talk about appointments and or describe when something …

Days of the Week in Chinese: The Standard, Modern and Colloquial Forms, Plus Sample Dialogues

It’s hard to have a conversation in Chinese without knowing how to describe something as simple as the date. Did you know there are actually three ways you could say “Saturday” and six ways you can say “Sunday” in Mandarin?…

58 Words and Phrases to Talk About Money in Chinese with Ease

Money makes the world go round, doesn’t it? Okay, money isn’t everything, but it does play a huge part in our lives. (qián) is money in Chinese, but do you know other vocabulary and phrases to talk about financial exchanges?…

Chinese Feelings: How to Express Your Emotions Like a Native Speaker

As humans, we talk about our emotions all the time. Whether it’s feelings towards other people, behaviors or inanimate objects, we like to let others know how we feel. In this post, you’ll learn the Chinese feelings vocabulary you need …

30+ Must-know Chinese Honorifics for Being Polite Like a Pro

I never really liked being referred to as “ma’am.” It always makes me feel old. Although it sure beats hearing people shout “lady” to get my attention. Just like in English, Chinese people also refer to each other with Chinese …