AllSet Learning, the Shanghai-based language learning consultancy founded by long-time China blogger John Pasden, has just released what is surely a boon for any mandarin learners who aspire to achieve better Chinese grammar — the Chinese Grammar Wiki.
Learning Chinese Posts
Chinese Grammar Wiki: Learning Chinese grammar just got easier
Mark Rowswell explains why foreigners hate Dashan
I find it unlikely that there could be a foreigner in China that doesn’t know the name Dashan, and there’s certainly no Canadians unaware of the mystical Big Mountain of Chinese. 大山 comparisons, jokes and CCTV9 Chinese lessons have been a formative staple over the course of my time in China.
This past November the following question was posted on Quora: Why do so many Chinese learners seem to hate Dashan (Mark Rowswell)? He seems like a nice guy. Does he secretly eat children or something?. I’m sure we all have our own answers to that question, but none are likely to come close to the insight and self-reflection that the big Canuck himself answered with yesterday.
Mark Rowswell, the man behind the Mandarin, broke it down into 5 reasons:
Lady Laowai: Women foreigners who have inspirational Chinese
Recently the guys over at the Skritter blog (Skritter‘s an excellent tool for studying Chinese, by the way) did a blog on Famous Foreigners Who Can Speak Chinese Really Well. The 10 people they listed are a great inspiration to all of us who are studying Chinese. If they can do it so can we!
I thought it was terrific, but I had one little problem with their list. The 10 Famous Foreigners were all men! Not one woman had made it onto the list. It makes it a little hard for us girls to relate – where are our role models? To be honest, being a woman who blogs on China already makes me feel like I’ve joined a bit of a men’s club, although I see more and more great stuff from women bloggers coming out all the time.
I know there are a lot of female expats living here in China who do have excellent Chinese, but they tend not to be famous for one reason or another. Is it because Chinese culture is male-centric? Is it because the women are shy and don’t take the opportunities to become famous? Are men better at learning Chinese than women? What’s going on here?
The Huntsman Fluency Imbroglio
Are you fluent in Chinese? This is a question that laowai often field from curious friends and relatives back home, the vast majority of whom being unable to judge for themselves. The question also arises when would-be job seekers formulate their resumes- while showing fluency in Chinese will look impressive, what happens when an interviewer [...]
Prostitutes and Full Immersion Learning
The best thing about learning the language of a country you are living in is full immersion learning. Everyone is a potential teacher, and everything around you is your learning materials.
I really learned this lesson during a recent trip to Beijing. It was a weekend, and all the hostels were sold out so we were stuck staying at a low-end business hotel. You know, a sketchy place with smoke scented rugs; scuffed, cheap wood side tables; and a pile of prostitute cards at the door. Yes, that’s right, prostitute cards.
Mandarin Monday: Popup Chinese’s Brendan O’Kane lays down some learning know-how
Our Mandarin Monday interview for this week is none other than well-known blogger, podcast host and translator, Brendan O’Kane.
One of the original founders of Paper Republic, Brendan is a host of the Mandarin Chinese language learning podcast Popup Chinese, and teaches a course in Chinese-English literary translation at IES Abroad Beijing.
He also (and far too infrequently!) blogs at bokane.org (English) and 在北京找不着北 (Chinese). He lives in Beijing with his wife and two cats.
Mandarin Monday: Sinosplice’s John Pasden offers up some Chinese advice
For this week’s Mandarin Monday, we’ve hit up the juggernaut of Chinese learning, John Pasden.
John surely doesn’t need much introduction for anyone studying Chinese. In China for more than a decade, John’s been mastering the language for most of that time, including securing a masters in applied linguistics in Shanghai. He pens the popular Sinosplice blog, oversees academic content and serves as host at ChinesePod and founded AllSet Learning, a Shanghai-based consulting company that offers highly customized learning solutions for frustrated learners of Mandarin.
Mandarin Monday: ChineseHacks’ David Flynn doles out some learning insight
Wha?! Mandarin Monday on a Wednesday? What the hell is going on. Yeah, I screwed up and totally forgot. Hopefully a bit of mid-week mandarin is just as good though.
For the third installment in our weekly Mandarin Monday series that discusses Chinese learning we’ve hit up David Flynn. Dave is originally from the UK, he’s been living in Taiwan and learning Mandarin Chinese for the last five years. He founded and runs ChineseHacks.com a blog dedicated to effectively learning Chinese; and co-founded MandarinPoster.com, a handy learning tool for any student of Chinese.
Mandarin Monday: Sinoglot’s Kellen Parker shares some tips on learning
What follows is the second in our weekly Mandarin Monday series, that discusses Chinese learning. The series will deliver advice through interviews with long-time Mandarin learners, sharing resources and discussing learning techniques.
This week we speak to Kellen Parker, co-founder of Sinoglot, an organisation of Chinese linguistics researchers. Kellen is an American linguistics researcher who’s spent the last few years in Shanghai as a grad student, and currently resides in Seoul where he’s researching Mandarin use among Korea’s overseas Chinese population.
Mandarin Monday: ChinesePod’s John Biesnecker dishes up some language advice
This is the first in a new series of posts, called Mandarin Monday, that will discuss Chinese learning. The series will deliver advice through interviews with long-time Mandarin learners, sharing resources and discussing learning techniques.
Our first guest in the series is John Biesnecker. John is an American software developer who has been in China since 2003, and has been working on his Mandarin since 2001. He, his wife, and his son live in Shanghai, where he works at ChinesePod.
