Category Archives: Featured Topics
My 30 Favourite English Words
A random selection here of words I’m really fond of in English. I will write up a Chinese list later. My 30 Favourite English Words In no particular order. 1. cliché [陈词滥调] ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: French, past participle (used as a noun) of clicher ‘to stereotype.’ 2. irony [no exact Chinese equivalent exists [...]
Most Common 同音词 (Word-Homophones) in Mandarin
The following is a list I’ve compiled of the most common word-homophones* in Chinese. This may be useful for your general study, since there are so many homophones in Mandarin. *I say “word-homophones” deliberately, since I’m referring specifically to 同音词 (homophones made up of multi-character words), not 同音字 (“character-homophones”, when two characters have the same [...]
The Challenges of Protecting the Environment: An English-Chinese Practice Passage
The following is an original text written by me about environmental issues. It can be used as a consecutive interpreting practice, or as study material for IELTS writing or NAATI interpreting training. Enjoy! The Challenges of Protecting the Environment 环境保护的挑战 Carl Gene Fordham 傅君恺 Firstly, it must be said that tackling environmental issues should [...]
A Detailed Guide to One-Character Verbs in Mandarin
The following is a comprehensive outline of 90 per cent of the advanced one-character verbs you’ll encounter in written and spoken Mandarin. Criteria for inclusion: 1. The verb must be able to function by itself as one-character or with a complement. Compounds will not be included. 2. The verb must either have both an original [...]
12 Basic Cohesive Devices in Formal English Writing (with Chinese translation)
I wrote this blog entry mainly for my Chinese students who have trouble with some basic cohesive devices in English – e.g. firstly/at first, lastly/at last, finally/ultimately, etc. However the word and sentence translations here I’m sure will also be helpful for Chinese learners. This is not supposed to be a comprehensive list of formal [...]
Top 11 Mandarin Speech Particles
Criteria: common enough to be known by most native speakers, but special enough to only be used in specific situations. 1. 哼 hēng – “humph!” – cute, feminine, expresses disagreement in a pouting (撒娇) tone – 哼，有什么了不起！— Humph! What’s so special about that? 2. 咳哟 hāiyō – “heave-ho!”* – 咳哟，这货物怎么这么沉呢？— Heave-ho! How can these goods [...]
Top 20 One-Character Adjectives in Mandarin
Here’s my favourite one-character adjectives in Mandarin. Big thanks to Bo and Jee for their help with explanations and translations. 1. 牛 niú. Original meaning: cow. New meaning: awesome. Derives from the common online slang expression 牛逼 niúbī (“cow’s vagina”). 2. 土 tǔ. Original meaning: dirt. New meaning: unsophisticated, especially of rednecks, hicks, bogans, etc. [...]
Clichés, Stereotypes and Euphemisms
Let me start off by saying that clichés, stereotypes and euphemisms have always seemed to me to be quintessentially “Western” concepts; it’s for that reason that I’ve been using them as foundations for lesson plans in my ESL teaching. These words, I believe, evolved after centuries of critical theory in linguistics, sociology and other fields, [...]
33 Proverbs that Translate Well Between English and Mandarin
Following on from 23 Actually Useful Proverbs (谚语), I have come up with a list of proverbs that have some kind of equivalence between Chinese and English. I look forward to reading your comments, additions and criticisms! 1. There’s no use crying over spilt milk. 覆水难收 fù shuǐ nán shōu (“Spilt water is hard to [...]
74 Switch-Around Words in Mandarin
One unique phenomenon that learners of Chinese occasionally face is the accidental “swap-around” of double-syllable words when talking (and sometimes writing too). Because the vast majority of words in Mandarin are formed using two different characters, our brains will sometimes remember the word well enough but have trouble remembering which character goes before the other. [...]
Recent Comments