Learn Trad Chinese

You hear chirping outside your Taipei apartment window. A flash of white and olive swoops past. Your host family starts chatting excitedly about the 白頭翁 (bái tóu wēng) visiting their balcony. Wait, what’s a white-headed old man doing on a balcony? Welcome to the wonderfully descriptive world of Chinese bird names, where every feathered friend […]

Maps are just stories about earth wearing different outfits—mountains, rivers, plains, and the occasional dramatic volcano. In Mandarin, geography terms build from intuitive roots: 山 for mountains, 河 for rivers, 海 for seas, 原 for plateaus and plains. Learn the patterns in Traditional Chinese (with pinyin right after), then plug them into real-world sentences so

Passports are paperwork; identity is conversation. In Mandarin, you’ll introduce where you’re from with a country name, mark nationality with 「～人」, and talk about what you speak with 「～文／～語」. Keep the patterns tight, the tones honest, and you can glide from “I’m American” to “I’m learning Taiwanese Hokkien” in two clean sentences. Core Patterns You’ll

Time talk powers real life: trains, meetings, coffee runs, “be there in five.” Mandarin keeps it clean—點 for hours, 分 for minutes, 半 for :30, 刻 for quarters—with a choice between 12-hour talk (plus 早上／下午／晚上) and the 24-hour clock you’ll see on tickets and apps. Learn the core patterns in Traditional Chinese, see pinyin right

Chinese numbers are deceptively simple. You start with ten simple characters, but the system for counting large figures is fundamentally different from the one used in the West. If you apply English logic to millions and billions, you will fail spectacularly. This article is your essential guide to not only counting from one to ten,

Weather small talk is a universal friendship cheat code. In Mandarin, the four seasons are clean, memorable, and endlessly useful for planning, chatting, and surviving ice-cold offices in July. Learn the core words in Traditional Chinese (with pinyin right after), add a few weather lines, and you can talk like a local from plum-rain spring

Months in Mandarin are deliciously straightforward: numbers 1–12 plus 月（yuè, “month”）and you’re done. No tricky names to memorize, no spelling traps. Get the rhythm, add dates and weekdays, and calendars start behaving. The Twelve Months At A Glance 一月yī yuèJanuary 二月èr yuèFebruary 三月sān yuèMarch 四月sì yuèApril 五月wǔ yuèMay 六月liù yuèJune 七月qī yuèJuly 八月bā yuèAugust 九月jiǔ

Weeks run on simple numbers in Mandarin. Say 星期（xīngqí, “week”）plus 1–6 for Monday–Saturday, and 星期日／星期天 for Sunday. Keep it numeric, keep it steady, and scheduling suddenly feels easy. The Seven Days At A Glance 星期一xīng qí yīMonday 星期二xīng qí èrTuesday 星期三xīng qí sānWednesday 星期四xīng qí sìThursday 星期五xīng qí wǔFriday 星期六xīng qí liùSaturday 星期日（也說 星期天）xīng qí

Music turns repetition into memory. The right songs give you slow syllables, clear tones, and everyday words that stick after one train ride and three choruses. This guide curates Mandarin hits (Traditional titles + pinyin + quick why-it-helps) from gentle classics to rap-speed challenges—so you can build listening, vocab, and pronunciation the fun way. How