Hey everyone, today we are going to be discussing the social structure of China. Beijing Beijing is also a city of contrasts.  The political, educational and cultural center of China, the history of Beijing can be traced back over 3,000 years.  With such historical relics as the Forbidden City, the Ming Tombs, and the Great Wall in close proximity, Beijing is a place one can get in touch with the China of old.  However, with the recent economic progress and the frenzy of new construction and infrastructure for the 2008 Olympics, Beijing is now a changed city. Family Life Introduction: Families in China are generally still quite traditional, and the family is a focal point of life. Most holidays center around family... Show more

Last week we discussed the basics of Chinese cuisine, well this week we are back to talk about our favorite subject some more, food! This week we will be discussing dishes we strongly recomend, and some other dishes that we recomend for the brave! Top Chinese Foods to Try 小 籠包 (xiǎolóngbāo) - Probably the most famous Shanghai dish: these small steamed dumplings are steamed in a basket and stuffed with meat and a tasty broth inside. The connoisseur bites a little hole into them first, sips the broth, then dips them in dark vinegar (醋 cu) to season the meat inside. 油条 (yóutiáo) lit. oil stick - Long, deep-fried donut. A very popular breakfast in China. Typically consumed in the morning with soy milk (dou jiang 豆浆), the... Show more

The focus of this lesson was to teach about Chinese cuisine Basics of Chinese Cuisine Many people are surprised on their arrival in China to find that what they thought was Chinese food is nowhere to be found. Another challenge is that the names of Chinese dishes, even in Chinese, can be very cryptic, making ordering a challenge, even if you find a menu with English translations. Chinese dish names are generally completely irrelevant to the ingredients. Rice is generally a staple of the south, with noodles featuring in as well. Northern China features dishes made with wheat flour, such as noodles, dumplings, steamed buns, and thin pancakes. Where meat is often the focal point of many western meals, it is... Show more

The following are 5 essential phrases guaranteed to be the best thing you ever learned in Chinese! 谢谢 (xièxie) 　“Thanks.” The Chinese aren’t big on ‘please’, but they love thank you so much that they’ll often hit you with a barrage of it, ‘xiexiexiexiexiexiexiexie’. 听 不懂 (tīngbùdǒng) “I don’t understand what you are saying.” This phrase is going to be your best friend, go-to and solace. 你好 (nǐhǎo) “hello” If you don’t know it yet, we don’t know where you’ve been. 不 知道 (bù zhīdào) “I don’t know.” You may hear this phrase more than use it, however learn from the Chinese how to bu zhidao every situation you wish to evade, play dumb about, or avoid. 不好意思 (bùhǎoyìsi) “Sorry.”  Buhaoyisi literally means ‘bad feeling’, and... Show more

There are only six vowels used in pinyin, but they are combined to produce a lot of different sounds. we have a pinyin chart with clickable mp3 records of each of the sounds, to aid you in perfecting the pronunciation in the full lesson on ChineseClass101.com. One of the more difficult Chinese vowel is the 'u' vowel sound. This 'u' sound is quite a nasal sound. It is said to be similar to the French 'u' and is made by pronouncing an 'i' when rounding the mouth. Chinese has four different tones they are, five including the neutral tone: The first tone is high and steady: 'mā' The second tone is a rising tone: 'má' and has intonation similar that that used in English to indicate a question, i.e. 'huh?' The ... Show more

The focus of this lesson is to learn about Chinese pronunciation. Each Chinese character can be said to be a syllable. These syllables can be a stand-alone word, or they can be grouped together to make compound words. Each syllable, or character, in Chinese is made up of an initial and a final sound. These intials and finals can be combined to make up around 400 unique word sounds in Chinese. Chinese uses a phonetic system called 'pinyin' to aid learners of Chinese in pronunciation. This pinyin uses Romanized letters to represent the sounds of Chinese. There are 21 initials in Chinese. This is the sound the word starts with. There are about 38 combinations of final sounds. Some of the letters used to represent the sounds of... Show more

Today's All About Chinese lesson focuses on the origins of written Chinese--the only writing system that has been in use continuously for over 3,000 years. All characters are made up of smaller 'picture' elements within the character. Some of these smaller pictures within the character give a hint as to meaning and pronunciation (though not always). The first Chinese characters were simple objects like "human", "hand", "foot", "mountain", "sun", "moon" and "tree". Then logical combinations of the simple characters followed. These simple characters also sometimes serve as the root of a more complex character, and are called "radicals". Most linguists believe that writing was invented in China during the latter half of the 2nd... Show more

Chinese Verbs Chinese verbs are not inflected... meaning that they don't change form. Only one form of each verb exists; there is no conjugation.  It doesn't matter who is talking, when they are talking about, or who they are talking to, the verb is the same. Word Order Since there is no conjugation of verbs in Chinese, Word order is often your only clue to figuring out who is doing what. The good news is, in normal Chinese declarative sentences, word order is the same as that we use in normal English declarative sentences, being:subject - verb - object Negation of Verbs Negation occurs before the verb and any prepositional phrase, just add a negation word, 不 'bu4', in front of the verb. Expressing Tense Chinese... Show more

In today's All About Chinese we take years of Chinese learning experience and China life experience and boil it down to bring you the top 5 reasons to learn Chinese. There are numerous different reasons to learn Chinese, below some of the more important reasons are listed. Chinese is the language of nearly one-quarter of the world's population. Speakers of Chinese are spread throughout the globe. Unlike most languages, Chinese has a unique writing system, which provides visual comprehensibility and is considered by some to be an art form. Chinese grammar is easy! When you learn Chinese you also learn how the Chinese think. The structure of Chinese is not only logical, but also pragmatic, and very related to the... Show more

Dear Chinese Students, Today we're pleased to announce the launch of ChineseClass101.com. This is a joint project between Popup Chinese and the folks at Innovative Language Learning. If you're familiar with the Innovative Language approach to teaching, you'll know the strength of their materials has always been tight, step-by-step progressive lessons for beginners. At Popup Chinese, we've historically geared our materials towards more advanced students, so when we had the chance to cooperate with the Innovative team and work together to build something that could take advantage of the powerful system they've already built we leapt at the chance, and began work designing a focused and stepwise program for Mandarin instruction. ... Show more