I remember reading somewhere that the reason Chinese is so difficult to learn is the lack of reinforcement – having now been learning Chinese for 5 years I can attest to this. With English, and other semi-phonetic languages, you are … Continue reading
Here’s an extremely useful, yet extremely easy saying to understand. This is perfect for when you want to emphasise that something is impossible by comparing it to something that is easier, yet equally impossible. It is exactly the same as … Continue reading
With any luck you won’t have to use this word around here, but after reading this post you’ll know how to express yourself the next time you are stuck in a less-than-stimulating experience. 無聊（无聊） Pinyin: wú liáo English: boring The … Continue reading
Here’s a quick post about a slang word that came into wide usage a few years ago to describe something as being “popular”: 夯 Pinyin: hāng English: popular; in demand; well received etc. The image above shows the word in … Continue reading
The word for ‘difficult’ in Chinese is an interesting one, by itself it’s conveys a simple concept, but as a compound word it’s meaning becomes much more varied and it is truely a versatile character. 難（难） Pinyin: nán English: difficult; … Continue reading
Bargaining is standard practice in a lot of Chinese and Taiwanese markets so it’s a skill you’ll have to learn if you are to visit these places (check out our post on Haggling in Chinese for some useful phrases). When … Continue reading
I was recently browsing through the new book, The Art of Community, written by Linux guru Jono Bacon (which is incidentally available as a free PDF download), when I noticed a section discussing ‘burnout’. Screenshot from the movie Office Space, … Continue reading
The following guest post by Max Roberts shows a list of vocabulary related to the recent Japanese earthquake and resulting nuclear incident. If you’d like to submit a post to Chinese Hacks then please contact us or use the contribute … Continue reading
Today we’re going to be looking at Chinese keywords and vocabulary relating to installing a new custom operating system on an Android phone, but before we do let’s first go over what exactly that means using English so you can … Continue reading
Hopefully Microsoft can do a better job with Skype than Ebay did, especially after the less than warm welcome the new version of Skype for Mac received. The following news bite is taken from a recent article on BBC News. … Continue reading
