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[Grammar]
Chinese phrase translation: 滚雪球 (gǔn xuěqiú) snowball
“滚雪球”means a game kids play when it snow which is snowballing.
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: Appearance with 看起来kanqilai
One of the most common ways to express "it looks like" is to use 看起来 (kànqǐlái). This is what we would use if we wanted to express something like "it seems it's hot outside."
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[Grammar]
Chinese phrase translation: 跟屁虫(gēn pì chóng) one’s shadow
“跟屁虫”is a metaphorical expression. In this noun, “跟”means follow and “屁”whose meaning is bottom refers to the back of somebody.
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[Grammar]
Chinese phrase translation: 侃大山 (kǎndàshān) gossip
“侃大山”is a Beijing dialect. As a spoken language, it means chatting, making a joke, or speaking meaningless words.
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar:Basic comparisons with 不比bu bi
Often Chinese speakers will say something (or someone!) is not as good/strong/smart as something else. This is one the grammar patterns they use.
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar:Causative verbs
Causative verbs are verbs that cause people to do things, surprisingly enough. In English, these are verbs like "make", "have" and "get", as in "get Billy to eat dinner." The "get" is the causati
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[Grammar]
Chinese phrase translation: 替罪羊(tìzuìyáng) scapegoat
“替罪羊”refers to a scapegoat or a fall guy.
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: Mistakenly think that 以为
We often have mistaken beliefs about various topics. With this article, we learn how to express them in Chinese!
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: Must modal 得dei
Learning how to use 得 to mean "must" must be done by those wishing to master Chinese!
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: It seems with 好像haoxiang
To express "seems," the word 好像 (hǎoxiàng) can beTo express "seems," the word 好像 (hǎoxiàng) can be used. used in Chinese grammart.
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: Using 向xiang
向 (xiàng) is a preposition that means "towards", and is used often when expressing or referring to a certain point in Chinese grammar.
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[Grammar]
Chinese furniture:Southern Official's Armchair
The ‘southern official' armchair’ (nanguan mao yi) is characterized by armrests and crestrail that turn down into the vertical posts. Chinese craftsman term this right angle joint a ‘pipe join
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: Using 对dui
When using 对 (duì) as a preposition, it is used to indicate "to" or "towards" a object or target. As with all prepositions, some care should be taken when using this particle, as usage of 对 do
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: Purpose with 为了weile
为了 (wèile) is most often used to indicate the purpose of an action, or the person that will benefit from some act of kindness. In the "purpose" sense, it corresponds pretty well to "in order t
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: the self-evident with 嘛ma
The particle 嘛 (ma) is a sentence-final particle identical in pronunciation to the simple "yes/no question" particle 吗 (ma) you learned back in the day, but with a rather different function in
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: For with 为wei
When you work for a company, or do other sorts of physical (and even mental) activities for another party, you're likely to use the Chinese preposition 为 (wèi), which is often translated into E
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: Change of state with 了le
了 (le) has a lot of uses. You probably first learned 了 as a particle that tells you an action is completed, which is also known as 了1. This article is not about that use of 了; it's about indi
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: Aspect particle 着zhe
The particle 着 (zhe) is one way of indicating the continuous aspect in Mandarin Chinese (another common way is using the adverb 在 in front of verbs) in Chinese grammar.
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: Sequencing past events with houlai后来
", 后来" (, hòulái) is used to sequence past events in the same way that "Afterward" is in English. Something very important to note is that 后来 can only be used with two events
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[Grammar]
Chinese grammar: ever since with yilai以来
There are a few ways to express "ever since" in Chinese. In English, we would say something like "ever since I came to Shanghai, my Chinese has improved a lot."