The following tweet by John Pasden, of Sinosplice, caught my attention a week or so ago: If it’s not immediately apparent what it means then try saying “3Q” out loud, which in Chinese would be “三Q”. The pronunciation really isn’t … Continue reading
A treasure knife does not age. This is a great idiom that is almost always used to describe old people who’ve still got it. What better example could there be than good old 史恩·康納萊 (shǐ ēn · kāng nà lái). … Continue reading
Hey guys, I’m back! This week’s idiom is a really useful one for describing things which may seem easier than they actually are, such as say, learning Chinese for example. 談何容易（谈何容易） Pinyin: tán hé róng yì English: easier said than … Continue reading
Here is a fun slang saying in Chinese that is the equivalent of the English saying ‘on your bike’, which means ‘get out of here’, or ‘no chance’. Don’t worry, the image is a crash test dummy from this Youtube … Continue reading
Whether it’s food, clothes, music or any area where people differ this is a great idiom to use, the Taiwan education department even use medicine in their dictionary example. 因人而異（因人而异） Pinyin: yīn rén ér yì English: to vary from person … Continue reading
Welcome back to no-nonsense idioms, let’s get right into it: 一無所有（一无所有） Pinyin: yī wú suǒ yǒu English: to have nothing left at all Usage Traditional 他除了身上的衣服一無所有 Simplified 他除了身上的衣服一无所有 Pinyin tā chúle shēnshàng de yīfú yīwúsuǒyǒu English He’s got nothing left … Continue reading
Okay! The first in a new series that I’m trying out, “no nonsense idioms”, and it’s just that – an idiom, the Pinyin, the translation and an example sentence. We’ll still be running the regular idioms posts with a more … Continue reading
For those times when a text book is the last thing you want to look at, but you still want to get some Chinese practice in, try one of these web comics. They’re quick and easy to read, ranging from … Continue reading
There’s been a resurgence of retro gaming recently with lots of game publishers releasing updates of 8 and 16bit classics through Wiiware and Xbox Live Arcade. I even dusted off the Wii that I bought back in 2006 during a … Continue reading
Today I saw this truck selling pizza from a wood fired oven and had to find an excuse to post the image, so here we have it, a list of a words that all mean pizza. This truck turned up … Continue reading
