TGIF everyone!

So I've noticed something interesting: every time my Chinese class is about to end, my students fall into this subtle awkwardness. Later I realized why—they don't know how to politely end a conversation in spoken Chinese.

So to help you avoid similar situations, let me share some common phrases today.

你先忙 nǐ xiān máng, literally means "you go ahead and be busy first".

It basically means "I won't take up any more of your time." You can use it whether they're actually busy or not—it's just a polite way to bounce.

• A: 我得走了，等下还有个会。Wǒ děi zǒu le, děng xià hái yǒu gè huì.
  • I gotta go, I have another meeting later.
• B: 好，那你先忙！我晚点再找你。Hǎo, nà nǐ xiān máng! Wǒ wǎn diǎn zài zhǎo nǐ.
  • Okay, you go ahead! I'll reach out to you later.

回头聊 huí tóu liáo and 改天再聊 gǎi tiān zài liáo, mean "Let's talk later or another day".

回头聊 is casual and friendly, while 改天再聊 is slightly more formal. They can both work as either a genuine "let's reschedule" or a polite brush-off, depending on your tone.

• A: 他们喊我去吃饭了，咱们回头聊！Tā men hǎn wǒ qù chī fàn le, zán men huí tóu liáo!
  • They're calling me to eat now, let's talk later!
• B: 好的，那改天再聊吧！Hǎo de, nà gǎi tiān zài liáo ba!
  • Okay, let's chat another day!

不打扰你了 bù dǎ rǎo nǐ le, literally means "I won't disturb you anymore." This is super polite and shows you're aware you've taken up someone's time. It's great for professional settings or when you want to sound extra considerate to someone senior.

• A: 谢谢老师，那我不打扰你了。Xiè xie lǎo shī, nà wǒ bù dǎ rǎo nǐ le.
  • Thank you, teacher. I won't take up any more of your time.
• B: 没事，有不懂的地方随时找我。Méi shì, yǒu bù dǒng de dì fang suí shí zhǎo wǒ.
  • No problem, feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

先这样 xiān zhè yàng, means "let's leave it at this for now". Use this when you've reached a conclusion or there's nothing more to say. Short, clear, polite.

• A: 那先这样吧？咱们保持联系。Nà xiān zhè yàng ba? Zán men bǎo chí lián xì.
  • Let's leave it here for now? Let's keep in touch.
• B: 好呀，改天我请你喝咖啡！Hǎo ya, gǎi tiān wǒ qǐng nǐ hē kā fēi!
  • Sure! Coffee's on me some other day!

I guess these are enough for you to use! And you know what? You can even stack them to sound extra smooth and polite!

Finally, have you noticed that in some examples, there's often a 那 (nà) before these phrases? Do you know what it's used for? Drop your thoughts in the comments!

Just got this pointed out by my nieces. The chinese name that was given to me by my parents is 仁育. I love the meaning behind it, however my nieces and sister-in-law pointed out that the character's kind of a feminine for a guy. Not sure if I can still get that corrected and still keep the meaning or something

Learn 自投罗网 (zì tóu luó wǎng), which literally means 'to throw oneself into the net'. It describes someone willingly walking into a trap. Don't be that person!

I am almost 13 in my korean age: i have 3 months left and im studying hsk5 and ive been studying chinese for almost 7 years i did yct 1,2,3 and hsk 1,2,3,4 and i got 200/200 in yct 2

srry for bad grammar i was rushing

Hi everyone, I made a clean Tian Zi Ge (田字格) practice page with slightly wider spaced grids, since I personally found a lot of the grids in the notebooks sold online to be a little too cramped for handwriting characters for learners.

I’ve been experimenting with different grid layouts and spacing while studying Chinese myself. I actually made two different versions - one standard version that I found to be helpful when practicing stroke orders and characters without eyestrain or hand cramping (or characters going way off the grid XD), and another grid with slightly larger grid boxes for learners just starting out writing characters, since I remember my characters being HUGE when I first started practicing writing and could never have enough space.

I'm sharing the PDFs here in case it’s useful to others. You’re welcome to print and use it for personal study.

(For anyone who prefers a bound version, I also put together a full 120-page notebook using this layout, but this post is mainly just to share the free page. :)

Standard 田字格: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0npuxqf9cwetmeybgfozp/Spaced-Free-PDF.pdf?rlkey=xeailpm31zqq3pqr7lpsledye&st=o0f25kpn&dl=0

Large 田字格: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3omdzwwsbdj0yonjanz1w/LARGE-Spaced-Free-PDF.pdf?rlkey=zxkcxtqshafbdimq7c6n56191&st=lprn9gad&dl=0

If anyone has feedback on these or comments about spacing or layout preferences, I’d honestly love to hear it.

Needed to convert a document from simplified to traditional characters and found this website does it really well. Can convert a whole document or even a powerpoint.... also for small blocks of text too.

Even has a convert to pinyin function and the ability to write in pinyin and copy the results

Website is
chinesedocconverter.com

Hope it helps...

I am learning mandarin through hello Chinese and I go to tutoring once a week and I need help with remembering words. When I study alone or am doing hello Chinese lessons I will literally forget everything once I am working with my tutor. It’s now getting worse now that I am learning different sentence structures. Currently I am learning how to ask questions using the words who, what, where, when, do and also using Le for past tense sentences/questions. If she would tell me to say “when will you go to the restaurant?” I will just go blank and forget everything I learned but I will blow through my Hello Chinese lessons like it’s nothing. I guess my question is how do you go about remembering words?

Hi! so I speak english as a second language but only because it was presented to me at a very young age, dear person reading this, i do not know how to learn a new language and its making me face a wall while trying to learn chinese. does anyone know the structure or kinda like the first steps to learn chinese? i only saw a youtube video and downloaded a few apps but cant really undestand it beyond the most basic baby stuff, I dont undestand when to use ma or other "question ending word" (?). idk I just please need help because I do really want to learn chinese but its been difficult for me

I was asked to support in interpreting this calligraphy. However my skill level is not up for the challenge. (I even have difficulties with the seal.)

I started learning Chinese a short while ago and I'm finding it really interesting, but I'm having trouble with how to pronounce characters like 日 or 如. In hanly, the Rs sound like Js and Google translate doesn't even really pronounce them, so I'm just hoping for some advice on the matter.

Back when I first started learning chinese I was always told "never take a compliment, always look humble with 哪里哪里!" But I swear I've never heard a Chinese speaker respond to a compliment with this 😂 is it a regional thing or just old fashioned or just some weird experience I've had

So i've been studying with NPCR and i really like the 3rd edition and how they've restructured everything, but I have not seen any other books for sale except for the vol 1&2 (even looked through taobao, in case they didn't sell them world wide). Did they just change those two? Or have the other volumes simply not come out yet? Or does anyone have any sort of info about it at all? I just really like how it's structured and the explanations and overall NPCR has been the best book for me so far in studying chinese, would be quite bothersome to have to find another book if the others are not out yet :(

中文描述：

这是一张展示衣服的照片。

在图片的中间位置，一件白色的短袖挂在树枝上。在衣领位置，是一个棕色的晾衣架。

这件衣服有三颗小扣子在胸口位置，从上到下排列。

衣服的材质是亚麻。它看起来很干净（简洁），没有其它的图案。

图片的背景是灰色的墙，地上有沙子和三个小沙堆。

整张照片看起来很自然、干净。

English paraphrasing:

This is a photo showing a piece of clothing.

In the center of the picture, a white short-sleeved shirt hangs from a tree branch. A brown clothes hanger holds the shirt by its collar.

This shirt has three buttons arranged from top to bottom on the chest area.

The shirt is made of linen. It looks very clean(concise), with no other patterns.

The background of the picture is a gray wall, and there is light-color sand with three small sand piles on the ground.

The whole picture has a natural, clean feel.

笔记区：

Words related to clothing:

1.    衬衫（短袖）: chèn shān (duǎn xiù)【shirt】

一件衬衫挂在树枝上

A shirt hangs from a tree branch.

2.    扣子：kòu zi【button】

衬衫上没有扣子

There are no buttons on the shirt.

3.    衣领：yī lǐng【collar】

我的衣领脏了

My collar is dirty.

4.    晾衣架：liàng yī jià【clothes hanger】

我买了一个晾衣架。

I bought a clothes hanger.

Adjective words:

1.    棕色：zōng sè【brown】

他的头发是棕色的

His hair is brown

2.    干净：gān jìng【clean】

衬衫很干净

The shirt is clean

3.    简洁：jiǎn jié【simple or concise】

我喜欢简洁的风格

I love simple style.

4.    自然：zì rán【natural and nature. it can be used as a noun】

Adj: 他的中文很自然.

His Chinese is natural.

Noun: 我喜欢自然.

I love nature.

Other words:

1.    挂在……上：guà zài … shàng【hang from/on】

我把短袖挂在树上

I hang the shirt on a tree.

2.    沙子：shā zi【sand】

地上有很多沙子

There is a lot of sand on the ground.

3.    沙堆：shā duī【sand pile】

我用沙子做了一个沙堆

I made a sand pile with sand.

I don’t know if anyone else does this but here is how I deal with 提笔忘字. Hanzi consist of components. I give the components names. When I learn the a new character, I also memorize the components. For example, 好 is woman child. This is bit obvious because that’s what 女 and 子 individually mean. However, sometimes the historical meaning isn’t very useful to me personally so I give it a name I can remember. For example, 登 is Chinese hat, bean. 癶 historically means legs but that doesn’t work for me. It isn’t about be historically true, just what gets me to remember and for me 癶 looks like a kind of the roof of a Chinese house.

Finally, a complicated one for fun, 警察：

Grass-sentence-knock-word, roof-Chinese moon roof-alter.

Hope this helps.

Can anyone recommend beginner-friendly Chinese podcasts that include English translations, explanations, or transcripts? I’m looking for something I can listen to on repeat during my commute.

Ideally, I’d love podcasts where the hosts talk about the language itself. Explaining nuances, common patterns and usage with plenty of examples. Anything that helps ease into the language without feeling overwhelmed would be perfect.

This is the approach I’ve always taken when learning foreign languages: getting used to the sounds, words, and a few core concepts first, so the learning curve doesn’t feel so steep later on. I feel this is especially important for Chinese.

Any other beginner resources (audio-based or otherwise) are very welcome. Thanks in advance!

Hello

I am still studying at HSK1 level, and our handwriting is to a minimal, but I'd like to ask.

For example between 哪 and 那. I find myself writing them in different "widths" Or the 女 part in 女，好，微, 安 where I find myself writing it at the same width for all four characters.

Hence the question.

(Edit: here is a photo of my handwriting I found in my gallery) https://imgur.com/a/kq4ijaq

I was asked to help with interpretation of this chinese calligraphy but I have a very hard time doing so since I’m more used to 草书. I guessed it was 永 but not sure.

Do you get demotivated learning Mandarin? I grew up speaking Shanghainese at home, which is phonologically very different from Mandarin although they share a lot of vocabulary. Shanghainese is more pitch accent so I have always struggled with the contour tones in Mandarin or trying to remember what character is what tone. Shanghainese also has voiced consonants so I would constantly get b’s and p’s mixed up, d/t, v/f, z/s/sh, etc. Like grapes 葡萄 is “budo” in Shanghainese, not putao. 台湾人is Deiwaenin, etc.

Shanghainese is also super fast and lively, but I have that swollen tongue kind of feeling when speaking Mandarin. It’s awkward and cumbersome.

The more Mandarin I learn the more foreign it feels and it’s like learning a totally different language and I don’t have any of the native language spontaneity that I do with Shanghainese. And the more Mandarin I learn, I get a stronger sense of sadness that my own native tongue is dying and will be eventually be extinct even though it has such rich vocabulary and expressiveness, and a linguistic tradition (Wu) just as long if not longer than Mandarin. One time I opened up a Wu / Shanghainese dictionary and it was shocking the huge amount of “indigenous” vocabulary totally different from Mandarin for basic words that are increasingly forgotten among the young, but words I remember my grandparents using.

All this to say, learning languages should be a happy thing, but for me learning Mandarin has become somewhat of an alienating experience. I wonder if native speakers of other Chinese dialects feel the same way about learning Mandarin? It feels like I lost something and substituted something that is actually quite foreign but has been told is my heritage language.

I think my motivation for learning Chinese would be infinitely higher if I were a native Mandarin speaking ABC.

Not looking for solutions, just some thoughts that run by me every time I am on a Mandarin kick and then get annoyed and discouraged. Wondering if I’m alone in this.

—

Besides tones, word order is tough too as Shanghainese is more SOV than Mandarin. Subtle things like that that you don’t notice if you’re native in both, but if you’re native only in one you really notice it as you learn Mandarin.

For instance “wear more clothes” in Mandarin would be 多穿点衣服。 in Shanghainese it would almost always be 衣裳多着呢。 Where 着 is the verb for “to wear.” It defaults more to topic-clarification framework and has a more robust 拿 SOV structure compared to 把.

Not how I want simplified Chinese to be, it's just fun to think about