How to Write in Pinyin 24/7

Here is a pinyin font for your computer...

Pinyin Input

Enjoy!

When is the Discussion Group Meeting This Semester?

Talk amongst yourselves... :-)

Kangxi Radical 94, 犬 (犭)

犬 quǎn means dog and depicts a person with something on his shoulder.

















The Standing Version of this radical looks like this, 犭, and really is a standing dog (minus the tail)...

Spongebob Procrastinates in Chinese

For your viewing pleasure...

Want to see the same episode in English? Click here.

For beginners, it's hard to watch Spongebob in Chinese without picking up certain basic vocabulary like pencil, pants, etc. :-)

Inauguration Vocabulary and Another Cool Phrase

Happy Inauguration Eve! 我非常兴奋阿！ If you are as excited about the inauguration as I am then you will probably need some additional Chinese vocabulary for talking to your friends about the ceremony and about our new president.
President -
总统 (zǒng tǒng)
...so American President is, of course, 美国总统.
Vice-President -
副总统(fù zǒng tǒng)
Inauguration (Ceremony) -
就职典礼 (jiùzhídiǎnlǐ)


Barack Obama -
巴拉克·奥巴马 (bālākè·àobāmǎ)
奥 means profound.
巴 (which appears twice in his name) means hope.
Biden - 拜登'(bài dēng)
First Lady - 第一夫人(dìyī fūrén)
Michelle Obama - 米歇尔·奥巴马 (Mǐxiē ěr·àobāmǎ)
White House - 白宫(Báigōng)
Bush Jr. - 小布什(xiǎobùshí)
Suitcases/Luggage - 行李(xíngli) :-P

And for something almost entirely unrelated, here is the cool phrase of the day...

你想左了。 You're not thinking about it the right way/You've got the wrong idea.

Toilet Themed Restaurant

Someone posted about this...ummm...disturbing? restaurant on a Chinesepod group.

Cool Phrase of the Day

见机行事 - Play it by ear

In this case, think of 机 as meaning system. To play it by ear is to see what the system or pattern is and then proceed(行事). I think this sums up how I am going about learning Chinese. :-)

Is it my imagination or does 机 show up everywhere? 飞机， 手机，， 危机， 等等

A Photo/Video Exploration of 烦(煩)

So, I forgot to actually show each component for 煩 separately in the video to explain the whole thing but the point was to make a video reminder of the two components that make up this character, 火 and 页 (fire and page). It's a pretty simple character but I had to start somewhere, right? This is my first time using Windows Movie Maker so please...be kind. :-P

Postscript: My windows language translator thingy aka "Chinese (simplified) Microsoft pinyin IME" will only give me the traditional form of 煩 and not 烦 (I've copied this simplified version in from Nciku). Not sure the reason for this as I'm pretty sure most characters in its database are simplified as they are supposed to be.

Hmph.

A Challenge (一点儿很酷得课文！）

What does this text from an ancient Chinese scroll say?

迪士尼 (Disney)

Check out this fun page on Youtube by WeiFangX in China who has posted a number of videoclips from Disney movies in Chinese, some Cantonese some Mandarin...but probably most or all of them have subtitles. She has such a cute background image on her page.

Here is one of my favorites, from Mulan 2 (which I've never seen before)...
花木兰２ - Lesson Number One (Mandarin Chinese)

Insanity in Mandarin?

Video Notes from Nciku

Nciku, my favorite Chinese dictionary, is adding video animations to their definitions. For some words, you can already click on the video link and see a demonstration of the meaning of that word. They seem to be particularly targeting their new video definitions at explaining the difference between two or more words that might otherwise seem similar if not the same. I've also found some other Chinese software and such online but won't post just anything I come across, just the best...or the good stuff anyway. :-)