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:
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.
Understanding Chinese, easier from locals or expats?
In a recent post, the Atlantic’s James Fallows talks about a song and video by a group of Harvard Chinese language students. The song, “Hāfó/Harvard Welcomes You! 哈佛歡迎你!”, has the American students singing in Chinese, praising their studies and teachers in Chinese Bb – Elementary Modern Chinese.
Fallows draws a good comparison between the style of song and 北京欢迎你, the song that super-saturated every inch of China in 2008 (on youku/youtube). Here’s the song, judge for yourself:
The back and forth of time in Chinese
If, like myself, you’ve ever had trouble visualizing the concept of time in Chinese with its “behind day” and “ahead day” paradoxically meaning “the day after tomorrow” and “the day before yesterday” respectively; be sure to check out…
‘Electric Voices and Stinky Tofu’ on your bookshelf
I first heard of MandMX.com back about a year and a half ago when they featured Lost Laowai in a comic of theirs. So when Magnus, the “M” of MandMX, contacted me to let me know they’d compiled their large collection of bilingual, China-themed comics into a new book, I was excited to get my hands on it.
Dubbed with the quirky moniker “Electric Voices and Stinky Tofu“, The book is an illustrated journey of ah-ha moments for any Westerner who’s spent time in China. Magnus, and his wife MingXing, have cartooned nearly every “China moment” I could think of — inking out what we all know from living here — China’s one wacky place.
I chatted with Magnus recently about the book and living in China. Here’s what he had to say:
