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Practical Chinese, written down

中文学习笔记Zhōngwén xuéxí bǐjì

Short articles on the things students actually get stuck on — tones, everyday expressions, ordering food, staying motivated. No filler, no listicles.

  • Beginners
  • Everyday Chinese
  • Learning tips
  • Pronunciation
  • Speaking
  • Travel
3 min readLatest

The four tones, explained without the jargon

Mandarin has four tones plus a neutral one. Here is what each does to your voice, the three tone-change rules that matter, and why 你好 isn't pronounced the way it's written.

  • Pronunciation
  • Beginners
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2 min read

Ordering food in China: eight sentences that cover most meals

You don't need a big vocabulary to eat well in China. You need about eight sentences, and the confidence to say them at normal volume.

  • Travel
  • Everyday Chinese
  • Beginners
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3 min read

Why you understand more Chinese than you can say

The gap between recognising a word and producing it is normal, measurable, and fixable. What it isn't is a sign that you're bad at languages.

  • Learning tips
  • Speaking
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你好

Nǐ hǎo

— and everything that comes after it