I wanted to do a proper post about learning Hanyu Pinyin and the Chinese tones.

I found this video which is remarkably helpful distinguishing the intials, finals and tones. Though it looks like it was made for children, It hink it is useful for anyone learning the language.




I will write a post when I get my new laptop with tables of the intials, the finals and the tones. With tips on how they are pronounced and equivalents in English. Hopefully this will give a little more deatail to what this video shows with how the syllables can be put together.

Just a quick message to those of you who do drop by here fairly often. A massive thank you for all helping me out with my Mandarin and I wanted to let you know that I haven't stopped and I certainly haven't quit writing here or learning Mandarin.

This Chinese proverb means to crave something, to desire it and this proverb although could be taken to mean to literally salivate. I prefer the meaning to have a strong desire or craving. 'to drool over'.

垂涎三尺
chuí xián sān chǐ
To drool over

The picture depicts my desire to get to China, and the celebration that will ensue. One of my goals is to spend Chinese New Year in China at least once.

This Chinese proverb comes with a fine story, about a wise man. It comes to mean a blessing in disguise. When smething bad happens, we must look for the good that follows. Equally when something great happens, we must be ready for something bad to happen as a consequence. Things are comparitive; the good comes with the bad.

This Chinese proverb describes someone taking advantage of a confused situation. It is similiar in use to 趁火打劫 (to loot a burning house.)

China seems to like to be the best at everything, even if it doesnt always turn out the way they had intended. (See South China Shopping Mall for example) Also see 'The Onions' satirical and funny take on a certain recent rather large parade.

Here are two Chinese building projects that are fantastic but a little crazy:

"You visit the first external ramp of the museum with your own private car, like a SAFARI, you park your car on the roof and visit by foot the internal ramp going down," said Francesco Gatti of 3Gatti, the architecture studio which won the commission.

Firstly, my Heisig book came today. Excited!!!! (due to being busy I start learning tomorrow.)

The main reason for this post is that I have been asked by several people recently, to include Heisig's suggested 1500 Traditional characters as I had eluded to them in a previous post.

Heisig proposes a method of learning where you only learn the meaning of the character and a way to remember how to write it through a story of its primitives and their meanings. Not the pronounciation in tones or the pinyin.

I include links to buy both the traditional characters (listed below) and the simplifed characters I talked about last week.

I apologise for not organising them as neatly as the last post. But I hope those that had asked for them, will be happy.

This Chinese proverb serves as a warning to us. It talks about how some people are never satisfied with what they have. It is also important to realise that happiness is found in moments not things.

This proverb is used to describe how someone might follow a fad, and as soon as it falls out of fashion change to something new.

This Chinese proverb describes the feeling of a paradox. Where something seems correct but leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition.

似是而非
sì shì ér fēi
Apparently right, Actually wrong

This Chinese proverb describes perfectly what I hope the Heisig method of learning Mandarin will do to my learning process. Intensify it.

This proverb is actually more often used in a negative way though. How one may aggravate or cause a situation to intensify through their actions.

I ordered Heisig's the 'Remembering the Simplified Hanzi' last week as you may know if you read my post about my excitement. Whilst learning with this method I am still going to be carrying on learning sentences from books and carrying on with Rosetta Stone (although I have been finding my progress in it rather slow recently.)

I won't be doing much preparation before I start this method of learning the Hanzi. Though, I did hunt out the list of all of the 1500 Hanzi characters published in his first book to see what I would be trying to overcome. (Thanks to John @ Chinese Quest for helping me find them. Also check out his great post about the Heisig method and its criticisms)

If you want to download the excel file with all the hanzi, hanyu pinyin, stroke numbers and lesson numbers for the first Heisig book (this is the ANKI file for simplified hanzi in excel essentially) I include the link here for you.

Heisig & Richardon say that these characters (shown below) are the most frequently used 1000 hanzi plus some additional Chinese characters that make sense to learn with the primitives learnt along the way.

(If you would like to download the sample chapter from their book Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1: and give this method a go yourself you can do so here. I have breifly looked over it, but havent commited to learning them yet. I will start when the book gets here.)

Below, I list the hanzi in order they are taught in Heisig & Richardson's 'Remembering Simplified Hanzi'. It really serves its purpose for me because I wanted to print them out and stick them up in my room. But also illustrates quite how many characters I aim to learn and how dizzy 1500 hanzi can make the uninitiated.

This Chinese proverb has come to mean all good things must first go through many trials and tribulations. It means that things that are good* are worth a struggle, and working towards. It is used especially in regards to love, and serves a reminder that perseverance through problems is a requirement of true love.

*(whilst good is only a comparative statement contrasted by something being made bad, it serves its purpose here.)

This is the next edition of what I now hope to become a regular part of my blog. Guest posts from Mandarin learning friends, explaining why they decided to learn Mandarin. How they have gone about the learning process and where they are now in their journey, learning Mandarin. Today's guest post is from Bill Glover founder of #MandarinMonday who has been a great help and inspiration to me in keeping Discovering Mandarin moving forwards.

In Chinese we call it… 猫头鹰 [māo tóu yīng] literally, cat headed eagle

In Chinese we call it… 电脑 [diàn nǎo] literally, electronic brain

In Chinese we call it… 手机 [shǒu jī] literally, hand device

In Chinese we call it… 黄油 [huáng yóu] literally, yellow oil

This Chinese proverb is about standing out, being so different from everything around you. This proverb is used to describe prominent people with good looks and impressive abilities among a crowd of people with lesser abilities.

This Chinese proverb relates to how one can be narrow sighted and even complacent. Nowadays it is used more widely to describe someone who is ignorant of the things around them.

This Chinese proverb comes from the Chinese creation myth about Pan Gu creating the world. It is used to describe something advancing with giant strides.

This Chinese proverb refers to how you might miscommunicate with people by aiming the communication level too high. It can mean that the method of communication you are using to talk to someone is too sophisticated and therefore will not work. This proverb implies that someone speaks or writes without considering his audience. Generally speaking, it means the speaker or writer has over-estimated his listeners or readers. In these cases, the proverb mocks the audience rather than the speaker.

This proverb can also be taken to mean 'to talk philosophy to a fool.'