Learning Chinese is becoming more important

Learning Chinese is becoming more important due the ever growing economy of China. As its importance grows, more and more schools adopt Mandarin as part of their curriculum. Last year Rumson Fair-Haven Regional High School launched a Mandarin class with just a handful of students but has now increased by popular demand.


For further information read this article: http://www.app.com/article/20100527/LIFE/5270318/1006/LIFE/Mandarin-Chinese-class-breaking-down-language-barriers

Dangers of Chinese Takeaway

A survey has shown that eating Chinese takeaway is more likely to give you food poisoning that a dodgy kebab or blow me away vindaloo curry house. More than 55% of Chinese takeaway’s inspected failed a basic hygiene test, while 54% of kebab shops and 48% of curry houses failed to clean properly.

Hold a thought; isn’t 10% of them failing enough let alone in the 40-50% range? I’m surprised they are still in business!

The problem largly stems fron cultural differences and different practices and standards in foreign countries. Many Chinese and Indian staff failed to understand the instructions to maintain hygene standards as instructed by their council.

On the other end of the spectrum, McDonalds and KFC are the cleanest restaurants you can find, with just 4% of McDonalds and 1% of KFC failing the test.

In December the Tai Pan Chinese Restaurant in Manchester was fined £70,000 for serving rice contaminated by cockroaches.

In the UK over 850,000 people fall victim of food poisoning from nasty unhygienic restaurants.

All in all, writing this article has made me hungry and I’m about to go out and buy some crispy shredded beef, my favourite!

Or maybe it's best to stick to your own kitchen? Simple Chinese Cooking

iPad copy already hits Chinese stores

Apple currently has no launch date for the iPad in China in fear that the market will be unprofitable. A copy of the iPad which is called the iRobot has already been seen in one of Shanghai’s top computing outlets. They are selling the iRobot as the iPad’s identical twin.


The iRobot is on shelves in the Shanghai store, surrounded by other “Apple” products including three iPhones (?).

The iRobot is selling for $400 where as the cheapest iPad is $500. Although the iRobot has attributes of a typical fake product including cheap plastic and non-Apple features such as memory card slots and USB ports.

Piracy and cheap alternatives an ongoing problem for large Western firms struggling to compete in the China market. However, with high quality and a superior product Apple should be able to enter the market successfully just as it did with the iPhone.

I haven’t got an iPad or iRobot yet, but for an extra $100 I think it’s worth the extra spend for a high quality product. Now if only they were both a little cheaper?

Check out this video to have a look at the iRobot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YgVFWNh078

For more information visit: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64R1HH20100528

Learn Chinese – Make no mistake

There are tricks to learning Chinese. There are some commonly made mistakes by learners of Chinese, one of the mistakes is the word order when asking questions. English doesn’t translate perfectly into Chinese, the grammar and word order is different.


In English when we make a question we’d usually put there “where” or “what” first. Such as “what would you like to eat?” But in Chinese you need to put that question word at the end, so you need to say “you would like to eat what?” “你想吃什么?” If you said “什么你想吃” That would be completely wrong and you would get some strange looks.

So remember with questions, the word order changes. Another example might be if you were in China and had your hotel address and were asking “where is my hotel?” you would like to say “my hotel is where?” which is “我的酒店是在哪里？” and not “哪里我的酒店?” Oh just reading it makes me cringe! Lol

李华

Recommended reading:

Easy Peasy Chinese is fun book to help learn some of the concepts in learning Mandarin. It also has some interesting incites into Chinese culture and is pretty cheap too! Chinese isn't easy peasy, but this book makes it fun.

Mandarin and Taiwanese Speaking Contest

170 foreigners took part in the first round of the Mandarin and Taiwanese speaking contest on 8th May in Taipei. The contest is held each year by Radio Taiwan International for non-native Mandarin and Taiwanese speakers living in Taiwan.


This year’s topic was on “Save the Earth” to help raise awareness of global warming. Participants has to speak for three minutes about their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint.

The final round will be held on 22nd May, for more information visit http://www.rti.org.tw/

Learn Chinese Reading a Diary

At Chinese school this week we learned a number of characters from 饲料 (fodder) to 敬意 （surprised）.The characters can be found in the following text which we had to recite. It’s a diary with three entries. It’s about a child’s father buys two rabbits, and several weeks later the female rabbit gives birth to four rabbits!


Check out my video where I read Chinese. A transcript and translation is below so you can follow. Hope you enjoy.

利华



日记三则

10月2日 星期四 有雾

爸爸买了一对兔子。小兔子红眼睛，长耳朵，雪白的毛，真可爱。爸爸好似我，兔子一天吃五百克饲料，要分三次喂，还要喂些水。我一定要把他们喂好。

11月3日 星期一 晴

今天，爸爸说：“母兔块生小兔了。”我惊异地问：“真的吗？”爸爸说：“真的。•我真希望早点儿看见兔子生出来啊。

11月7日 星期五 阴

小兔生下来了，一共四只，可爱极了。小兔小兔你们快快长大吧。

English Translation


Three diary entries

October 2nd Thursday Foggy

Dad bought a pair of rabbits. The small rabbits have red eyes, long ears and snowy white fur. Dad ttold me, a rabbit eats five grams of fodder three times a day, and also has water. I will defiantly feed them well.

November 3rd Monday Bright day

Today father said "the female rabbit will soon have a baby rabbit.” Surprised I asked: “Really?” Father said “Really.” I really wish I can see the baby rabbits born sooner.

November 7th Friday Cloudy

The baby rabbits have been born, four in total, they’re so cute. Little rabbits little rabbits grow up quickly.

Visit Beijing

Beijing, Pekking, 北京- The capital of China for over 850 years is probably one of the most travelled cities in China with over 150 million visitors each year. Beijing or 北京 stands for ‘northern capital’ has to be one of my favourite cities in China. While Shanghai is an amazing city, I personally find that Beijing is so much richer in Chinese culture and has more to offer from a tourist perspective.

In Beijing you’ll find plenty to see from the Forbidden City （故宫）, the Summer Palace （颐和园）and the hutongs (胡同).

Tiananmen Square (天安门) is just off of the Forbidden Palace and is the largest public square in the world. Honestly it’s huge and takes roughly twenty minutes to walk from one end to the other.

From JingShan park(景山公园) you can get a spectacular view of the rooftops of the Forbidden City. Make your way across to Temple of Heaven (天坛) early in the morning to see the locals performing their morning thai chi and make your way to the Silk Market in the afternoon which is famous for its knock-off goods (how I love the Silk Market!)

Lastly a trip to Beijing isn’t complete without a trip to quan ju de（全聚得）the home of Peking duck (mmmmm). If you love Peking duck then you have to go to quan ju de to try the original recipe.

I’ll write more about each of these places later. If you want to know more about visiting China post a reply and I’ll get back to you.

Me at the Temple of Heaven


Recommended reading:

The Rough Guide to Beijing 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)