In this edition: declining marriage rates in China, interview with the winner of the world’s largest Chinese competition, English skills of Chinese people, 996 work culture, banning TikTok (or not) and the canceled Prime Minister’s press conference. Why Chinese Girls Don’t Want to Get Married Anymore? In recent years, China has witnessed a concerning decline in marriage rates, leading to a consequential drop in childbirths. This trend poses significant challenges to the country’s future economic landscape. Eileen and Sharon delve into the underlying reasons behind Chinese girls’ increasingly ..read more

Can ChatGPT correct my badly written Chinese texts better than a Chinese teacher? Lately I’ve been producing short Chinese texts in a learning app called maayot almost on a daily a basis. The app provides corrections by a Chinese teacher as well. This is just one example: Teacher correction – screenshot from the maayot app Teacher correction – screenshot from the maayot app Teacher correction – screenshot from the maayot app I wondered if ChatGPT can do corrections equally well or maybe even better. After all, the AI language model can elaborate on why it corrected certain mistakes, if you ..read more

Maayot is a fairly new app that helps to improve your Chinese reading, writing and speaking by providing a daily story and exercises. It is nicely designed and powered by a dedicated team in Hongkong. I tested it for one month. Here’s the summary of my experience learning Chinese with maayot. Over the past years, I wrote on a number of Chinese reader apps (DuShu, Readibu, Easy Chinese News, Weixin DuShu and more), but I so far hadn’t checked out more than maayot’s free account. This time I ‘went Pro’ and got access to everything. In this blog, I’ll quickly introduce the app and its main featur ..read more

Since ChatGPT knows everything, I asked the AI-tool for its best learning advice for Chinese learners. Not just random learning advice, but broken down into learning tips for beginners, intermediate and advanced learners. The results can be taken seriously. Find out which learning advice ChatGPT has in store for your current language level. ChatGPT’s Chinese learning tips for beginners I asked ChatGPT for 5 tips focused on people starting out to learn the Chinese language. Let’s have a look what the AI-oracle came up with: Master the tones: Chinese is a tonal language, which means that the me ..read more

The new year has begun and I’m back making my Chinese vocabulary notes. In this edition: the showdown between Thomas Afu and Laolei, caving in China and the state of Chinese masculinity. 阿福不想让你看到的视频 – The Video Thomas Derksen Doesn’t Want You To See I’ve been following both Thomas Afu and Laolei for years. Who would have thought that Afu would sue his fellow countryman and loudest criticizer? In this 70-minutes masterpiece, Laolei gives his account of the matter in his typical digressing yet structured manner. Level indication: HSK 5 (with English-Chinese subtitles) 所以我就在这儿瞎说了一下呢 Suǒyǐ w ..read more

Film is not only a superb medium for immersing yourself in a language, but also for better understanding the history of a country. This also applies to Chinese and the cultural revolution that took place in China between 1966 and 1976. In this blog, I recommend 10 must-see films about (or made during) the Chinese cultural revolution, complete with indication of subtitles and difficulty level. Breaking with Old Ideas – 谁说我不在乎 (1975) Subtitles: – Difficulty: Upper intermediate (standard Chinese) IMDB Score: 7.2/10 Douban Score: 8.1/10 This might be an unusual pick, since this is not only a mo ..read more

You’re starting to learn Chinese? While smart learners think about their learning plan, very few ever consider their preferred learning style. Why not discover yours in the next 5 minutes? 1. The natural listener Do you prefer lectures over reading books and articles? You do a good job at following verbal directions? You don’t really need the visual backup to support your learning? If you are a so-called auditory learner, you learn particularly well by listening. In essence, auditory learners retain information best when it is presented through sound and speech. If you identify with this type ..read more

This summer I visited China and instead of using Pleco, I’ve been using Hanping Chinese Pro for a change, as well as Hanping Camera and Popup. Here’s my review of all three Hanping apps for Android. Some time ago, I compared the most downloaded Chinese dictionary app Pleco and Hanping Lite. The latter is the free version of the Hanping dictionary app. I didn’t beat around the bush that for me the better option was Pleco. Mark, the developer of Hanping, told me though, that for the past 6 years, he’s been putting most of his effort in optimizing Hanping Chinese Pro, as documented on the Hanping ..read more

You want to improve your Mandarin skills? For some of the greatest online resources for Chinese you don’t have to look far: they can be found on YouTube. But where to start? This is my updated top 10 of YouTube channels for learning Chinese. 10. Eazy Mandarin with Li Can Followers: 12,4K Since: 2019 Nr. of videos: 100 – 200 Language level: Intermediate / Upper intermediate / advanced Chinese teacher Li Can is a passionate educator who likes to reflect on complex matters and shares his thoughts. You can find a number of audiobooks on his channel, as well as a playlist with learning advice fo ..read more

In this edition: Chinese young people don’t want to marry anymore, the little mermaid and Chinese beauty standards, cycling in good old Wuhan, relaxation in Hongkong, high housing prices in China’s major cities and last but not least international (Chinese) marriage. Young people, why don’t you marry anymore? Mainland Chinese journalist 王志安 discusses that recently, there have been a lot of videos on the Chinese internet defending that you’re better off unmarried. According to data released by the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of registered marriages nationwide in 2022 was 6.83 ..read more