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NEW! Free Chinese language study guide available for download in pdf format. This useful guide covers topics such as learning strategies, learning styles, maintaining motivation, overcoming barriers, memorizing vocabulary, and other issues in the study of Mandarin. Now freely available online with hard copies available at our  Chinese language school in Beijing. Tell all your friends! [...]

Wubi and Pinyin – Which Chinese Character Input Method?

Writing Chinese characters by hand is a confusing task of memorizing strokes and characters, but the use of computers has made it slightly easier- perhaps an unfortunate blessing since I’ve heard time and time again from local coworkers how their grasp of writing out Chinese characters has regressed because they only now need to recognize [...]

How to be a tough guy in Chinese

The following phrases are commonly used in casual spoken Chinese. They can help you to express your frustration, dissatisfaction, or ensure that people will not mess with you. Either that, or these phrases may earn you a free beating. Use at your own discretion. The 找 (zhǎo)pattern: looking for… 找 (zhǎo) is most commonly used [...]

Read Bilingual News, Learn Chinese

Check out sl.iciba.com to read current news with English on the top and Chinese on the bottom. Although there is no pinyin, you can see the meaning of Chinese words in their context. In the definition window you can see definitions and bilingual example sentences, although many of the example sentences seem quite obscure. You [...]