chinese essays examples

Tag: Essays

Essay: 《不死鸟》the immortal bird by sanmao.

• Post author By Kendra
• Post date March 25, 2023
• 4 Comments on Essay: 《不死鸟》The Immortal Bird by Sanmao

In this tear-jerker essay, famous Taiwanese authoress Sanmao ponders on the value of her own life. It was written as she grieved the drowning of her beloved Spanish husband in 1979, and is all the more tragic in light of her suicide 12 years later.

• Tags Essays

Essay:《爱》Love by Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang)

• Post date June 12, 2020
• 5 Comments on Essay:《爱》Love by Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang)

A tragic, dreamlike little essay from writer  Zhang Ailing  (张爱玲, English name Eileen Chang) about love and destiny. This is one of her more well-known works of micro-prose, written in 1944. HSK 5-6.

Essay:《打人》Hitting Someone by Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang)

• Post date June 10, 2020
• 1 Comment on Essay:《打人》Hitting Someone by Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang)

An essay from Chinese lit diva Zhang Ailing about a scene of police brutality she witnessed in Shanghai in the 1940s. HSK 6 and up.

Essay: 《感谢困难》Thanking Life’s Challenges by Lin Qingxuan

• Post date May 19, 2020
• 5 Comments on Essay: 《感谢困难》Thanking Life’s Challenges by Lin Qingxuan

You can skip your Instagram yoga gratitude break today, here’s another one from Taiwanese Buddhist essayist Lin Qingxuan (林清玄). HSK 4-5.

Essay: 《蝴蝶的种子》Seed of a Butterfly by Lin Qingxuan

• Post date May 7, 2020
• 2 Comments on Essay: 《蝴蝶的种子》Seed of a Butterfly by Lin Qingxuan

Taiwanese Buddhist essayist Lin Qingxuan marvels at the wonders of nature, time, space, and reincarnation. This piece is all about awe of the natural world, and you’ll learn some Discovery Channel vocab, like “pupa”, “mate”, “breed”, “spawn”, and lots of animal names.

• Tags Essays , Science

Letter: Ba Jin’s Correspondence with “Young Friends Searching for Ideals” – Part II

• Post date May 5, 2020
• 3 Comments on Letter: Ba Jin’s Correspondence with “Young Friends Searching for Ideals” – Part II

In Part II of this two-part series, we’ll read acclaimed author Ba Jin’s reply to the 10 elementary school students who wrote him a letter asking him for moral guidance in 1987. I’m not a super weepy person, but I legit cried reading this. This is a noble, elevating piece of writing, and reading it, I’m reminded that in all societies, there are those who struggle with the materialism that engulfs us.

Essay:《帮忙》 Helping Out

• Post date May 4, 2020
• 3 Comments on Essay:《帮忙》 Helping Out

In this one-paragraph read (HSK 2-3), Little Brother wants to help dad get ready to leave the house, but his contribution falls flat.

Essay: 《丑石》The Ugly Rock by Jia Pingwa

• Post date April 29, 2020
• No Comments on Essay: 《丑石》The Ugly Rock by Jia Pingwa

Jia Pingwa (贾平凹) is one of China’s modern literary greats, and in this short story, it shows. I don’t know how this guy crammed so many insights on the human condition into a few paragraphs about a rock, but he undeniably did.

Letter: Ba Jin’s Correspondence with “Young Friends Searching for Ideals” – Part I

• Post date April 27, 2020
• No Comments on Letter: Ba Jin’s Correspondence with “Young Friends Searching for Ideals” – Part I

In the first of a two-part post, we’ll look at a letter sent in 1987 from a group of elementary school students to the anarchist writer Ba Jin (most famous for his 1931 novel The Family) as they struggle to cope with China’s changing social values. In Part II, I’ll translate Ba Jin’s reply.

Essay: Desk-chairs of the Future

• Post date May 28, 2014
• 15 Comments on Essay: Desk-chairs of the Future

This kid was asked to imagine the perfect desk-chair of the future – what it would look like, and what it would do – and boy, does he ever. The chair turns into all kinds of utopian machinery. It flies, it helps you sleep, and it carries your books to school. Sentence structure is pretty […]

Essay: Catching Frogs

• Post date May 7, 2014
• 52 Comments on Essay: Catching Frogs

Though this post is beginner-level, it’s also very condensed. I’d say you’ll have to stop and remind yourself what something means every few words or so.

Essay: My First Telephone Call

• Post date June 11, 2013
• 24 Comments on Essay: My First Telephone Call

Though the conclusion of this essay might fall a bit flat for all of us who are very used to having a telephone, this is an interesting glimpse into what a monumental rite of passage it is for children in rural areas to have one or use one for the first time.

Essay: Papa, Please Don’t Smoke!

• Post date June 3, 2013
• 17 Comments on Essay: Papa, Please Don’t Smoke!

In this essay, a child desperately (and very angrily) pleads their father not to smoke. Though this is classified as “Intermediate”, beginners should definitely try this read, leaning heavily on the hover word-list. The difficult parts are the mid-level turns of phrase, which are all explained below.

Guest Post: The exam of life

• Post date May 6, 2013
• 26 Comments on Guest Post: The exam of life

Well well well, lookie here. A guest post! Today we’ll be reading Rebecca Chua’s (Chinese name: 蔡幸彤) translation of an essay from her textbook. The post is about the rewards of honesty. I remember my own textbook being full of these types of essays, so thank you, Rebecca, for the traditional read.

My Gluttonous Elder Brother

• Post date January 8, 2013
• 10 Comments on My Gluttonous Elder Brother

I set out to do a beginner post since I haven’t done one in a while, but no joy, I think I have to classify this as intermediate. Beginners are welcome to try this out, as most of the words are simple and the subject matter is a bit immature (so of course it totally […]

News: Snowstorm has caused 15 deaths and 2000 flight delays or cancellations

• Post date January 2, 2013
• 8 Comments on News: Snowstorm has caused 15 deaths and 2000 flight delays or cancellations

In the spirit of the holiday season, which is winding to a blissfully overweight close, I give you an article about something you may or may not have just struggled through if you flew home for the holidays (which I did).

Our Family’s Jump Rope Contest

• Post date October 2, 2012
• 17 Comments on Our Family’s Jump Rope Contest

A single-paragraph essay about the results of a family jump rope competition.

After I Got My New Years’ Money

• Post date September 10, 2012
• 20 Comments on After I Got My New Years’ Money

For those of you new to Chinese culture, one thing a Chinese child most looks forward to all year is the time during Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) when they get to go ask their neighbors and other adults for red envelopes containing some money – it’s a bit like trick-or-treating for cash. This essay […]

Essay: A Foolish Affair from my Childhood

• Post date August 29, 2012
• 20 Comments on Essay: A Foolish Affair from my Childhood

This essay is about a kid who takes his father’s advice a little too literally (with amusing results).

Dear Diary: Mama Please Believe Me

• Post date May 3, 2012
• 18 Comments on Dear Diary: Mama Please Believe Me

And now a break from all the intermediate and advanced exercises I’ve been posting lately. This one is a straightforward beginner Chinese diary-style essay about a student whose mother is displeased with his (or her, it’s never clarified) homework.

Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning mandarin, 36 samples of chinese handwriting from students and native speakers.

Unlike most other languages, handwriting in Chinese can be regarded as a separate skill. Learning to write by hand is not easy; learning to write well is even harder. In an earlier article, I discussed handwriting in details, including how to improve it as a student.

How to improve your handwriting in Chinese

I have collected more than thirty examples of handwriting in Chinese, most of them from students of different ages from various countries across the world. I also gather some examples from native speakers to show as a reference.

The examples below are presented roughly in the order of time spent learning the language, with beginners at the start and native speakers at the very end. Counting study time in years can be very misleading , but since there is no better way of sorting the samples, I chose to do that anyway.

The purpose of this article is not to make a systematic study of student handwriting, although that would be interesting. Apart from time spent learning, another important factor is what the student’s writing looks like in her native language. I have seen enough student handwriting to feel confident when I say that there’s a lot of positive transfer going on, so someone who writes neatly in their native language are likely to write neatly in Chinese too. Beginners of this kind might write neatly but with incorrect strokes and so on, but penmanship still carries over to learning Chinese.

Speaking of penmanship, it should be mentioned that there is probably a strong selection bias at work here. While not all who submitted their handwriting write well, I think it’s safe to assume that people who like handwriting are more likely to have submitted photos of their handwriting when I asked for it. In other words, the average student probably writes worse than the below photos show.

Chinese handwriting from 36 people, using exactly the same tex

Escape: A text adventure game for Chinese learners

Simplified Chinese:

你被关在一个小房间里。你并不记得发生了什么，也不知道为什么被关在这里。你以前从房门的窗口那儿得到食物，但是你用力敲门或者大叫都没有用。你决定一定要逃跑，要不然情况可能会变更不好。

Traditional Chinese:

你被關在一個小房間裡。你並不記得發生了什麼，也不知道為什麼被關在這裡。你以前從房門的窗口那兒得到食物，但是你用力敲門或者大叫都沒有用。你決定一定要逃跑，要不然情況可能會變更不好。

A big thank you to everyone who contributed!

Chinese handwriting after a year of studying (or less)

The first submission comes from the US, and also include  some information about the student. I collected some submissions years ago, so “since the beginning of 2016” actually means less than a year of studying!

August from Suriname submitted the below sample. He’s 71 and has studied Chinese for one year.

Thomas Walker on Twitter writes: “Here is my effort. Been studying Chinese for about 8 months. Your site has been a massive help, keep up the good work!”

Chinese handwriting after studying between one and five years

A student from the US sent in the below photo of his handwriting, saying that he’s 51 years old and has been learning Chinese for a little more than one year.

This is from a 22-year-old Belgian student. She has been studying Chinese for little more than a year:

The next submission is from a 27-year-old Bulgarian student who has studied Chinese for three semesters in Wuhan:

From @fenma on Twtitter : “two years, self, no class, no visit, HSK3”:

A student from France submitted the following sample, saying “I’m around HSK3, with two years living in China where I self practiced writing despite everybody telling me it’s useless (it’s not; it was super useful every single day, whether teaching my Chinese pupils or writing some unknown OCR resistant character in the street in Pleco). I would practice every day with a cheap calligraphy marker (to force myself to write slowly and purposefully; the difference with using a pen/pencil is like night and day, for learning purposes) in a 10RMB kids hanzi practice book bought in Carrefour and I could totally feel the difference very quickly. I used a pen and wrote as fast as I could to give you something a bit more realistic.”

Next is a sample from a Peruvian student. She’s 24 and has studied Chinese for roughly three years:

The last sample in this category comes from 35-year-old Norwegian, who has studied four years of Chinese, mostly self-studying:

Chinese handwriting after having studied for five to ten years

Dr. Chuck on Twitter writes: “I haven’t tried learning how to speak it yet, but I’ve studied the traditional writing for fun in my spare time over the past 5 years. My closet is a graveyard of graph paper!”

Joey on Twitter writes: “I’ve been studying for a little over 5 years now. Hope this helps!”

MissFitti on Twitter writes: “I have been learning Mandarin for my BA and MA in Italy and I am now teaching it at Secondary in England. 5 years at uni in total, and lived in china for 1 year and 6 months :)”

A student from Scotland sent me the below sample of his handwriting. He says  he’s been working in China for over five years, and have studied Chinese, but had very little teaching on how to write characters. Just like the rest of us, he mainly uses phones and computer for writing Chinese:

A student from the US submitted the below photo with this comment: “I have been studying, and I use the word studying loosely, Chinese for about 5-6 years.  […] My reading skills far outweigh my listing, speaking, and as you can see from my attached text, writing skills. […] Thanks for all you do. I truly appreciate you.”

Brandon Rivington on Twitter writes: “I tried to make it as natural as possible. I’ve been studying Chinese for about 7 years. I look forward to reading the article!”

The next sample comes from a 36-year-old student from Spain, who has learnt Chinese for about nine years:

And another submission from Spain, from someone who is two years younger, but has also studied for about nine years:

A Polish student submitted the below photo of his handwriting and said: “I’m 24 years old and I’ve been learning Chinese for about 9 years. 3 years ago I passed HSK5 and I’m planning to pass HSK6 the next year.”

Chinese handwriting after studying for ten years or more

Anna K. on Twitter writes: “Studied Chinese 10+ years, taught it one year. Thanks for your excellent blog and work!”

Here’s a submission from Melbourne, Australia (information included). She has been learning for 12 years.

TranslationRaven writes on Twitter: “Studied Chinese for 12 years in school, didn’t read or write for 8 years after that. Returned to Asia and got my teaching diploma in Chinese after those 8 years. Not sure how I’d categorize myself, haha”

Miriam from Germany submitted the below sample:

David Hull 胡大衛 on Twitter writes: “Always been very self-conscious about my sloppy handwriting. Picked up Chinese late- in my mid 20s. Studied in PRC and US. I haven’t been writing by hand for years (except on the blackboard). I’m an asst Prof of Chinese now. Started in the army program at the Defense Language Institute in ’96 (we didn’t do much writing at all). I didn’t have a chance to formally study again until ’01, and by then it was almost all typed.”

The last sample in this category comes from the US. She has 26 years of formal and informal studying behind her:

Chinese handwriting from native speakers

Now, let’s move on to native speakers. For people who find some of these difficult to read, please check this article for some advice on how to proceed: Learning to read handwritten Chinese

Learning to read handwritten Chinese

A student, who grew up speaking Chinese with her mother and took a few years of Chinese in school, but then forgot most about it, sent in the following sample. She also writes that “this may be the most I’ve ever written by hand, I do everything digitally now, I practice my writing skills by writing to my mother on my cellphone.”

Vicky Lee on Twitter writes: “I am a little bit shamed to write the Chinese like this? It is only recognizable but far from being beautiful.”

Female native speaker, 30 years old:

This is from a 22-year-old native speaker (male):

A native speaker from China, submitted this through Facebook Age ~50. “You are very appreciated to promote Chinese culture.”

A native speaker who grew up in Malaysia, now in her fifties:

And another native speaker from Beijing (male, around 50):

Here’s another native speaker who teaches English near Shanghai (age unknown):

Native speaker, female, age around 50:

Native speaker, age unknown:

And an extra submission, provided after the article was published, so actually number 37: “Age 28, live in China mainland, written by Lamy Safari”, originally posted here .

Conclusion: Chinese handwriting in the 21st century

I’m not sure if any conclusion can be drawn from the samples shown above; that wasn’t really the intention. If you have some thoughts you want to share after checking them out, please leave a comment!

How good your handwriting is depends on many things, including how good your penmanship is in your native language. Time spent practising and how much you care are two other important factors. If you don’t think your handwriting is very good because you haven’t practised enough, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. In this electronic era, writing neatly by hand is not an essential skill for most students.

For those of you who want to improve your handwriting, I conclude here by linking to the previous article :

https://www.hackingchinese.com/how-to-improve-your-chinese-handwriting/

16 comments

The actor 黄轩 posts poems handwritten by his fans on 微博 the blog is called 瞬间MomentX, I find handwritten notes or artistic shop signs very difficult to read

This is fascinating! Thank you so much for this compilation. There’s something very touching about seeing hand-written notes, it’s hard to explain.

Most of the learners’ notes are easy to read, but on the other hand some of the natives’ notes are hard to decipher for the non-native eye. It can’t only be a question of speed, surely…

Thomas Walker is by far the best, in my opinion.

I totally agree. I would be interested to learn his methods. Pen thickness seems to be a major factor. Depending on the day, I can write well with a 0.4mm pen, other days, I need a 0.7mm one.

Thomas Walker’s is awesome – but the Australian teacher lady is really impressive, too (and she’s not working on handwriting grid paper.) Her English handwriting looks exactly like a teacher – she’s obviously used to being very tidy in her writing.

Maybe their chinese handwriting is correlated to their english handwriting. They seem to have similar style.

Yes, that’s a good point. I realised too late that I should have asked people to write the same passage in English as well.

Native here. Yes, our Chinese handwriting and English handwriting (that is, for those of us who can write English) pretty much correlates to each other in style

Age 28, live in China mainland, written by Lamy Safari:

https://igonejack.blogspot.com/2020/01/sample-of-chinese-handwriting.html

Thank you for your submission! I added your writing to the article and I will also mention it on social media, including a link to your page.

Hi, I’m studying in the UK and I have a few people I know from China. I’ve seen what they write a couple of times … it’s some kind of horror. I mean that it is very difficult, I do not envy them. Recently, I read an essay about stereotypes, and still, I will say that they are so true. People who have studied Chinese, tell me how long you have been learning this beautiful language, how long you have been learning to write in Chinese because as far as I understand, one wrong dash and you are writing about something completely different. This is tin, the most difficult language.

Learning to read and write Chinese characters certainly takes a long time, probably longer than learning any other written language. However, we don’t have to exaggerate the difficulty. A misplaced stroke will almost never influence the comprehensibility of what you write. There are specific cases where certain characters differ only in one stroke (position, length, relationship to other strokes), but these aren’t very common, and in context, it’s practically never an issue. That doesn’t make the writing system easy to learn, but it’s not impossible!

As a native Chinese/Cantonese speaker, I can conclude that people who learn Chinese writes better than natives haha

The range of handwriting among the two groups certainly overlaps! I think this is because penmanship is a completely different skill from other aspects of writing (such as composition). I have had beginner student of Chinese who write very good-looking characters from day one, although of course they still struggle with things that require knowledge of characters, such as how long certain strokes should be, which strokes should touch or cross certain other strokes and so on.

These all say the exact same thing, and it doesn’t make sense, or seems like a crazy person wrote it. If you’re going to scam people, put more effort into it.

I’m afraid I don’t understand your comment. They’re all the same because I asked people to write a specific passage; the first subheading even says “Chinese handwriting from 36 people, using exactly the same tex”, so what did you expect? The whole point is to use the same text so people can compare how different people write the same thing. Also, what scam?

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How to Write a Chinese Essay

Dec 16, 2020 | Guest Blogs & Media

The more essays you write, the better you get at communicating with Chinese. To write a good essay, you first have to reach a high language mastery level.

Do you admire the students who write seamless Chinese essay? If you do, then you should know that you too can achieve this level of proficiency. In the meantime, don’t be afraid to pay for your essay if you cannot write it on your own. Online academic writers are a resource each student should take advantage of.

Here are tips to help you get better at writing essays in Chinese.

Learn New Chinese Words

The key to communicating in a new language is learning as many words as you can. Take it upon yourself to learn at least one Chinese word a day. Chinese words are to essay writing what bricks are to a building. The more words you have, the better you get at constructing meaningful sentences.

Case in point, if you’re going to write a Chinese sentence that constitutes ten words, but you don’t know the right way to spell three of those words, your sentence might end up not making sense.

During your Chinese learning experience, words are your arsenal and don’t forget to master the meaning of each word you learn.

Read Chinese Literature

Reading is the most effective way of learning a new language. Remember not to read for the sake of it; find out the meaning of each new word you encounter. When you are an avid reader of Chinese literature, nothing can stop you from writing fluent Chinese.

In the beginning, it might seem like you’re not making any progress, but after a while, you will notice how drastically your writing will change. Receiving information in Chinese helps your brain get accustomed to the language’s sentence patterns, and you can translate this to your essays.

Be extensive in your reading to ensure you get as much as possible out of each article. Remember that it’s not about how fast you finish an article, but rather, how much you gain from the exercise.

Translate Articles from your Native Language to Chinese

Have you ever thought about translating your favorite read to Chinese? This exercise might be tedious, but you will learn a lot from it. The art of translation allows you to seamlessly shift from one language’s sentence pattern into the other. The more you do this, the easier it will be for your brain to convert English sentences into Chinese phrases that people can comprehend.

You can always show your Chinese professor your translations for positive criticism. The more you get corrected, the better you will get at translation. Who knows, you might actually like being a translator once you graduate.

Final Thoughts

by Adrian Lomezzo

Adrian  Lomezzo is a freelance writer. Firstly, he has been developing as a content manager and working with different websites, and the main goal of his was to develop the content making it in the first place. Secondly,  Adrian  had a big desire to help students and adults in self-development in this field and teach them to improve their skills. As a lover of traveling, he did not want to be in one place, and became a writer who could be closer to everyone, and share precious information from the corners of the world.

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The Guide to Writing Your First Mandarin Essay

When you want to be able to make writing your first Mandarin essay nice and easy, it pays to put plenty of thought and effort into the preparation. As the old saying goes ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’ To give you plenty of food for thought we’ve put together everything you need to know to get things moving. All you need to do is work through the following steps, and you’ll be submitting your essay in no time at all.

Check you understand the basics

There are so many things you have to think about when writing an essay, particularly when it’s not in your native language. But as with any cognitively demanding task, the process for getting started is always the same. Check you understand the following basics and you’ll be heading in the right direction:

• Do you know what the question means?
• Have you made a note of the final submission date?
• Make sure you read some past examples to get a feel for what’s expected of you
• Do you understand the question that has been set?
• Do you know who you can talk to if you need advice along the way?
• Are there any restrictions on the dialect you should be aware of?

Once you can write the answers to the above down on a single side of the paper, you are ready to tackle the main part of the problem: putting pen to paper.

Set aside time to write

The chances are that you’re not going to be able to pen the entire essay in a single sitting, and that’s okay. It’s nothing to be ashamed of or to worry about, and it’s natural that you need to work across multiple days when writing your first essay.

If you want to be able to make great progress, the most important thing is sticking to a routine. You need to have consistency in your application, and you need to be able to know when you are at your most productive. It’s no good staying up late one night and then carrying on early the next morning. You’d be far better off writing for the same amount of time but on two successive afternoons. Think about how your studies fit in with the rest of your daily life, and then choose the time that seems most appropriate. If you box it off and decide it’s only for writing, you’ll be in a great routine before you even know it.

Clear space so you can focus

As well as having time to write each day, you need a place to write too. The world is full of distractions (most of them are digital and social) so that means you’re going to want to keep yourself to yourself, and your phone in a different room. It might seem a little boring or uncomfortable at first, but you need to practice the habit of deep work. It’s what will allow you to create the most in the shortest time — ideal if you want to have plenty of time leftover to spend doing the other things that matter to you.

Have a daily word count in mind

Telling yourself that you want to write an essay today is one thing, but if you’re really going to push yourself to stick to your goal then you need to get quantitative. If you have a word count in mind that you need to hit, then it will prevent you from giving up and throwing in the towel the minute you start having to think and concentrate more than feels normal. Just like working out in the gym, it’s the temporary moments of extra effort that really drive the big differences. It’s when you’ll see the biggest improvement in your writing ability, and the lessons you teach yourself will stay with you for years to come. Ideal if you want to become a fluent Mandarin writer, as well as an engaging face-to-face speaker.

Read widely to provide context

When you’re immersed in an essay it can be all too easy to become blinkered and fail to pay attention to everything else that’s going on around you. Of course, you want to be focused on the task at hand, but you don’t want to be single-minded to the point of ignoring other great learning resources that are just a click away.

Reading widely is one of the best ways to improve your essay writing because it exposes you to techniques and approaches used by the best of the best. You’re not expected to be able to instantly write like a native speaker after an hour of reading. But what you will be able to do with consistent application is build up confidence and familiarity with written Mandarin. Over time this will reflect on the quality and depth of your writing as you gradually improve and take onboard lessons you’ve learned.

Take a break before you proofread

Last but not least, you need to remember that essay writing is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s all about taking the time to get things written before you hand them in, not racing through to try and finish on time. If you want to get the most out of your writing you need to take a day off between finishing your draft and proofing it. That way your brain will have had plenty of time to reflect on the work you’ve produced, and you’ll be able to spot many more little mistakes and places for improvement than you would if you proofed right away.

Final Thoughts

Writing Mandarin is a challenging task that will test your language skills and make you think hard about how to apply what you’ve learned so far. It might be slow going to begin with, but that’s great as it means you’re pushing your limits and building on your existing skills. If you want to be able to master Mandarin, you need to persevere and stay the course. Once you do, you’ll start to improve a lot faster than you expect.

By Diana Adjadj | A Super Chineasian

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Improve Chinese Essay Writing- A Complete How to Guide

• Last updated: June 6, 2019
• Learn Chinese

Writing can reflect a writer’s power of thought and language organization skills. It is critical to master Chinese writing  if you want to take your Chinese to the next level. How to write good Chinese essays? The following six steps will improve Chinese essay writing:

Before You Learn to Improve Chinese Essay Writing

Before you can write a good essay in Chinese, you must first be accustomed with Chinese characters. Unlike English letters, Chinese characters are hieroglyphs, and the individual strokes are different from each other. It is important to be comfortable with writing Chinese characters in order to write essays well in Chinese. Make sure to use Chinese essay writing format properly. After that, you will be ready to improve Chinese essay writing.

Increase Your Chinese Words Vocabulary

With approximately 100,000 words in the Chinese language, you will need to learn several thousand words just to know the most common words used. It is essential to learn as many Chinese words as possible if you wish to be a good writer. How can you enlarge your vocabulary? Try to accumulate words by reading daily and monthly. Memory is also very necessary for expanding vocabulary. We should form a good habit of exercising and reciting as more as we can so that to enlarge vocabulary. Remember to use what you have learned when you write in Chinese so that you will continually be progressing in your language-learning efforts.

Acquire Grammar,Sentence Patterns and Function Words

In order to hone your Chinese writing skills , you must learn the grammar and sentence patterns. Grammar involves words, phrases, and the structure of the sentences you form. There are two different categories of Chinese words: functional and lexical. Chinese phrases can be categorized as subject-predicate phrases (SP), verb-object phrases (VO), and co-ordinate phrases (CO). Regarding sentence structure, each Chinese sentence includes predicate, object, subject, and adverbial attributes. In addition, function words play an important role in Chinese semantic understanding, so try to master the Chinese conjunction, such as conjunction、Adverbs、Preposition as much as you can. If you wish to become proficient at writing in Chinese, you must study all of the aspects of grammar mentioned in this section.

Keep a Diary Regularly to Note Down Chinese Words,Chinese Letters

Another thing that will aid you in becoming a better writer is keeping a journal in Chinese. Even if you are not interested in expanding your writing skills, you will find that it is beneficial for many day-to-day tasks, such as completing work reports or composing an email. Journaling on a regular basis will help you form the habit of writing, which will make it feel less like a chore. You may enjoy expressing yourself in various ways by writing; for instance, you might write poetry in your journal. On a more practical side of things, you might prefer to simply use your journal as a way to purposely build your vocabulary .

Persistence in Reading Everyday

In addition to expanding your view of the world and yourself, reading can help you improve your writing. Reading allows you to learn by example; if you read Chinese daily, you will find that it is easier to write in Chinese because you have a greater scope of what you can do with the vocabulary that you’ve learned. Choose one favorite Chinese reading , Read it for an hour or 2,000 words or so in length each day.

Whenever you come across words or phrases in your reading that you don’t understand, take the time to check them in your dictionary and solidify your understanding of them. In your notebook, write the new word or phrase and create an example sentence using that new addition to your vocabulary. If you are unsure how to use it in a sentence, you can simply copy the sample sentence in your dictionary.

Reviewing the new vocabulary word is a good way to improve your memory of it; do this often to become familiar with these new words. The content of reading can be very broad. It can be from novels, or newspapers, and it can be about subjects like economics or psychology. Remember you should read about things you are interested in. After a certain period of accumulation by reading, you will greatly improve your Chinese writing.

Do Essay Writing Exercise on a Variety of Subjects

As the saying goes, “practice makes perfect.” In order to improve your China Essay Writing , you should engage in a variety of writing exercises. For beginners, you should start with basic topics such as your favorite hobby, future plans, favorite vacation spot, or any other topic that you can write about without difficulty.

For example :《我的一天》( Wǒ de yì tiān, my whole day’s life  ),《我喜欢的食物》( Wǒ xǐhuan de shíwù, my favorite food  ),《一次难忘的旅行》( yí cì nánwàng de lǚxíng, an unforgettable trip  ) etc.

Generally the writing topics can be classified into these categories: a recount of an incident,a description of something/someone, a letter, formulate your own opinion on an issue based on some quote or picture etc.

Takeaway to Improve Chinese Essay Writing

Keep an excel spreadsheet of 口语(Kǒuyǔ, spoken Chinese) –书面语(Shūmiànyǔ, written Chinese) pairs and quotes of sentences that you like. You should also be marking up books and articles that you read looking for new ways of expressing ideas. Using Chinese-Chinese dictionaries is really good for learning how to describe things in Chinese.

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Qin Chen focuses on teaching Chinese and language acquisition. She is willing to introduce more about Chinese learning ways and skills. Now, she is working as Mandarin teacher at All Mandarin .

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How to Write a Good Chinese Essay

Posted by Lilian Li 17816

For any kind of language, the essay is the most difficult thing to do in the exam. Generally speaking, writing articles is just to tell a story, after you make the story clear, the article also is finished. But it also different with speaking. A good article is like a art, is worth for people to appreciate, to taste. But how to accomplish such a good art? I think the most important thing is the three points: attitude, subject matter, emotional.

A good beginning is half done. For writing, material selection and design are not the start. The most important thing still is to adjust their mentality as well. When you decided to write, then dedicated yourself to write, not half-hearted, and your thinking nature won't be upset. Once the train of thought was interrupted, your speed will be slow and the point will be word count. So how can you write down a interesting article with a good quality? All in all, attitude is can decide the success or failure of the articles.

Subject is the biggest problem in our writing. It is from life, but not all people can observe life, experience life. The only point is to write the true things, maybe not so tortuous plots, but can write a really life. Moreover, when you get the subject, there are some tips for students to pay attention:

1. Make the topic request clear: The article should around the topic, pay attention to the demand of genre and number of words, some restrictive conditions and avoid distracting, digression.

2. Determine the center, choose the right material. To conform to the fact that a typical, novel, so it’s easy to attract the attention of people.

3. Make a good outline, determine the general, write enough words.

4. Sentence writing smooth, there is no wrong character, no wrong grammar in article.

Emotion, it is very important. If we compared an article to be a human. So emotion is his soul. Man is not vegetation, when they meet something, there must be personal thoughts and feelings. Sometimes it also tend to have their own original ideas. If you can put your own thoughts, feelings and insights into the article, then this article will be very individual.

Chinese essay is not just meaning some simple Chinese characters and make a simple sentences, it needs the Chinese grammar and sentence structure, if you don't familiar with Chinese grammar, you can learn our Chinese grammar course .

At last, adhere to write diary at ordinary times, it can practicing writing. Try to read some good articles, good words and good paragraphs with a good beginning and end. Learn to accumulate and draw lessons from them.

If you are interested in our Chinese grammar course, you can try our one online free trial , you will enjoy it.

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Grammar , Vocabulary

Useful Chinese Essay Phrases  

  July 8, 2020

By   Ellen

Nowadays, many international students have decided to study abroad, and China has become a highly popular destination. In universities, essay writing is a basic skill and the “Academic Writing” lectures are always attracting many students to attend.

Here we have summarized some “all-purpose” phrases and sentences which hopefully you would find useful.

Chinese Essay Phrases Used in Abstracts

The abstract should explain the purpose, method, results, and conclusion of your research, also highlighting the new ideas that you proposed; and do remember to keep your language concise while writing. The purpose of the abstract is to conclude and summarize the main contents of your essay so that the reader could have a brief understanding without having to read the entire paper. Chinese abstracts are usually around 200 characters.

Research Background, Significance, and Current Situation

Extremely useful/badly needed/affecting people’s lives (1-2 sentences)

Proposing the Object of Study 

Played a very important role (1-2 sentences)

Purpose of the Study or Study Aim

The role of A in B, perhaps remains to be seen (1 sentence)

Research Methods and Results

Through what means/technique/experiment we achieved what result (several sentences)

Research Results

The phenomenon of A in B, shows what the function of B is, theoretical and applied value (1-2 sentences)

via Pixabay

Chinese Essay Phrases: Main Body

The main body includes the introduction and the main text. The introduction section could use similar phrases that we have just listed, focusing on research objects and purposes. The main text should include research methods, research results, and discussion. Writers should keep their sentences to the point and avoid rambling, also avoid using too much subjective perspective discourses, which shouldn’t be used as arguments as well.

Theoretical Basis, Approaches, and Methods

To express opinions, to emphasis, transitional expressions, chinese essay phrases: conclusion.

At the ending section of the paper, the writer should provide an objective summary, list out the future research objectives and directions, and perhaps look into the future. Keep optimistic even if your experiment results were negative.

Research Impact and Value

There you go. We hope this article helps you write amazing essays. Best of luck!

Ellen is a language specialist from China. She grew up in the US and received a master’s degree from the St Andrews University of UK. The multicultural experiences attributes to her understanding of the differences and similarities between the English and Chinese language. She currently works as an editor specialized in Language learning books.

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The TWOC Gaokao Essay Guide

• June 15, 2017

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Our tips for the most mind-boggling prompts from this year’s essay tests.

As anyone with standardized-testing experience knows, one of the most frustrating sections in any exam is the essay-writing segment. Unlike a multiple-choice questions, there’s as it’s impossible to just guess the right answer based on your favorite letter from A to D.

The gaokao is no different in this respect and, with the exam period finally over , we take a look at some of the essay prompts offered in various regions and what we think they mean.

[ Editor’s note: The examiners’ approach varies widely from city to city. For example, Beijing offers two essay topics along with a detailed summary of different requirements. Shanghai simply offers a single topic, and a suggested word count. Our own suggested safe answers are merely that—suggestions—based on what previous years’ examinees have answered and online commentary by test prep experts. ]

Shanghai Gaokao Language Exam

Fortunetelling. Life is full of variables. Some are very happy to have their fortune told, others are not. Please write an essay that discusses your thoughts.

Requirements: Come up with your own title and write at least 800 words.

Safe answer: Take a stance on whether people should listen to predictions and forecasts, both on micro and macro levels.

Beijing Gaokao Language Exam  

Write at least 700 words on one of the following two topics:

1) Regarding Bonds

This essay topic is more flexible, down to earth, can be related to family, society and ethnicity, ideas of a nation. There is much that can be written on this topic.

Bonds connect people and things. Public feeling requires the agglomeration of bonds, power requires bonds to act together. In today’s world, globalization, cultural exchange, historical inheritance, social stability, and harmonious campuses all require bonds. Please write an argumentative essay on the theme of “Regarding Bonds.”

Requirements: Take a clear position, make abundant use of evidence, arrive at reasonable argument.

2) My Country, I Take Photos for You

Our republic will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2049. Pretend that you will be tasked with taking pictures that demonstrate the great achievements in the revival of the Chinese civilization. What kind of images will you choose? Please be creative, and write a narrative essay on the theme of “My Country, I Take Photos for You.”

Requirements: Be plausible, have narrative and descriptive elements, can write about major themes or describe a small scene as metaphor for a larger theme.

Safe Answer: Regarding Bonds, emphasize the benefits of strong familial bonds, how this makes efficient members of society, and why this makes China great

Safe Answer: “My Country, I Take Photos for You” offers examples of China’s achievements, so discuss these. There are some moments that should not be illustrated and discussed, as they do not shine a positive light on China, even if they play an important role in the country’s history.

Tianjin Gaokao Language Exam

Please write an essay according to the following requirements:

We grow up surrounded by elders and think that we understand them. However, each elder is like a thick book. Once reopened, we discover their life truths, traditions, and the imprints of the generation. In turn, we find out more about ourselves, recognize their growth and maturity in our childhood, and realize our similarities and differences.

At the age of 18, we have grown up. When we reread [our elders] today, it is as adults that we converse with them and recognize their souls in rational encounter. Please combine analysis of your life experiences and write an essay around the theme of “Rereading the Book on Elders.”

Requirements: 1) Write from your own perspective, with your own title; 2) No style restrictions (except poems and songs), write in a distinctive style; 3) At least 800 words; 4) No plagiarism.

Safe Answer: Explain why listening and respecting elders is important, and how they have positively affected your growth. Examples of lessons learned and positive influences are a must.

Guangdong Gaokao Language Exam

Read the following passage and write the essay according to the requirements:

According to a survey of foreign students studying in China, the key words that they closely watching are: One Belt, One Road; pandas; square dancing; Chinese cuisine; the Great Wall; bike-sharing; Peking opera; air pollution; beautiful villages; food safety; high-speed rail; and mobile payments

Please choose two to three of the above key words that represent what you know about China, and write an essay to help young foreigners understand China. You are required to pick key words that are naturally connected. Pick an angle, write with a distinct style, choose your own title, and do not plagiarize. Must write more than 800 words.

Safe Answer: Please write a promotional piece to attract young foreigners to China by using key phrases that they know and would find appealing.

Sichuan Gaokao Language Paper

This year marks the 40th anniversary since gaokao was restored. In these years, gaokao has helped the country select its brightest minds, promote educational reform and social progress, and has had many other great achievements. These 40 years, the gaokao has inspired dreams, embodied the memories and emotions of many generations of students, and has seen countless families shed tears and sweat as well as their laughter and celebration.

Think back, the 1977 gaokao singled a turning point for a generation. Now today, you are together with millions of candidates, ready to take on the exam.

With either “My Views on Gaokao” or “My Gaokao” as your sub-heading, please write an essay. You are required to choose an angle and direction, write in a distinct style, and choose your own title. Do not plagiarize or write less than 800 words.

Safe Answer: Let us know how much you love the gaokao system, how it has shaped the great minds in the country, and why you were super excited for this exam period.

Try the gaokao English exam here .

Ethan Yun is a contributing writer at The World of Chinese.

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StoryLearning

Learn A Language Through Stories

How to Write in Chinese – A Beginner’s Guide

You probably think learning how to write in Chinese is impossible.

And I get it.

I’m a native English speaker, and I know how complex Chinese characters seem.

But you’re about to learn that it's not impossible .

I’ve teamed up with Kyle Balmer from Sensible Chinese to show you how you can learn the basic building blocks of the Chinese written language, and build your Chinese vocabulary quickly.

First, you’ll learn the basics of how the Chinese written language is constructed. Then, you’ll get a step-by-step guide for how to write Chinese characters sensibly and systematically .

Wondering how it can be so easy?

Then let’s get into it.

Don't have time to read this now?  Click here to download a free PDF of the article

By the way, if you want to learn Chinese fast and have fun, my top recommendation is  Chinese Uncovered  which teaches you through StoryLearning®. 

With  Chinese Uncovered  you’ll use my unique StoryLearning® method to learn Chinese through story… not rules.

It’s as fun as it is effective.

If you’re ready to get started,  click here for a 7-day FREE trial.

How To Write In Chinese

Chinese is a complex language with many dialects and varieties.

Before we dive into learning to write Chinese characters, let’s just take a second to be clear exactly what we’ll be talking about.

First, you’ll be learning about Mandarin Chinese , the “standard” dialect. There are 5 main groups of dialects and perhaps 200 individual dialects in China & Taiwan. Mandarin Chinese is the “standard” used in Beijing and spoken or understood, by 2/3 of the population.

Second, there are two types of Chinese characters: Traditional and Simplified . In this article, we’ll be talking about Simplified Chinese characters, which are used in the majority of Mainland China.

There is an ongoing politicised debate about the two kinds of characters, and those asking themselves: “Should I learn traditional or simplified Chinese characters?” can face a difficult choice.

• For more on difference between Simplified and Traditional characters read this article
• To learn more about “the debate” read this excellent Wikipedia article
• If you want to switch Simplified characters into Traditional, you might like the fantastic New Tong Wen Tang browser plugin

First Steps in Learning Chinese Characters

When learning a European language, you have certain reference points that give you a head start.

If you're learning French and see the word l'hotel , for example, you can take a pretty good guess what it means! You have a shared alphabet and shared word roots to fall back on.

In Chinese this is not the case.

When you're just starting out, every sound, character, and word seems new and unique. Learning to read Chinese characters can feel like learning a whole set of completely illogical, unconnected “squiggles”!

The most commonly-taught method for learning to read and write these “squiggles” is rote learning .

Just write them again and again and practise until they stick in your brain and your hand remembers how to write them! This is an outdated approach, much like reciting multiplication tables until they “stick”.

I learnt this way.

Most Chinese learners learnt this way.

It's painful…and sadly discourages a lot of learners.

However, there is a better way.

Even without any common reference points between Chinese and English, the secret is to use the basic building blocks of Chinese, and use those building blocks as reference points from which to grow your knowledge of written Chinese.

This article will:

• Outline the different levels of structure inherent in Chinese characters
• Show you how to build your own reference points from scratch
• Demonstrate how to build up gradually without feeling overwhelmed

The Structure Of Written Chinese

The basic structure of written Chinese is as follows:

I like to think of Chinese like Lego . .. it's very “square”!

The individual bricks are the components (a.k.a  radicals ).

We start to snap these components together to get something larger – the characters.

We can then snap characters together in order to make Chinese words.

Here's the really cool part about Chinese: Each of these pieces, at every level, has meaning.

The component, the character, the word… they all have meaning.

This is different to a European language, where the “pieces” used to make up words are letters.

Letters by themselves don't normally have meaning and when we start to clip letters together we are shaping a sound rather than connecting little pieces of meaning. This is a powerful difference that comes into play later when we are learning vocabulary.

Let's look at the diagram again.

Here we start with the component 子. This has the meaning of “child/infant”.

The character 好 (“good”) is the next level. Look on the right of the character and you'll see 子. We would say that 子 is a component of 好.

Now look at the full word 你好 (“Hello”). Notice that the 子 is still there.

• The character 好 is built of the components 女 and 子.
• The character 你 is built from 人 + 尔.
• The word 你好 in turn is constructed out of 你 + 好.

Here's the complete breakdown of that word in an easy-to-read diagram:

Now look at this photo of this in real life !

Don't worry if you can't understand it. Just look for some shapes that you have seen before.

The font is a little funky, so here are the typed characters: 好孩子

What components have you seen before?

Did you spot them?

This is a big deal.

Here's why…

Why Character Components Are So Important

One of the big “scare stories” around Chinese is that there are 50,000 characters to learn.

Now, this is true. But learning them isn't half as bad as you think.

Firstly, only a few thousand characters are in general everyday use so that number is a lot more manageable.

Second, and more importantly, those 50,000 characters are all made up of the same 214 components .

And you already know one of them: 子 (it's one of those 214 components).

The fact that you can now recognise the 子 in the image above is a huge step forward.

You can already recognise one of the 214 pieces all characters are made up of.

Even better is the fact that of these 214 components it's only the 50-100 most common you'll be running into again and again.

This makes Chinese characters a lot less scary.

Once you get a handle on these basic components, you'll quickly recognise all the smaller pieces and your eyes will stop glazing over!  

This doesn't mean you'll necessarily know the meaning or how to pronounce the words yet (we'll get onto this shortly) but suddenly Chinese doesn't seem quite so alien any more.

Memorising The Components Of Chinese Characters

Memorising the pieces is not as important as simply realising that ALL of Chinese is constructed from these 214 pieces.

When I realised this, Chinese became a lot more manageable and I hope I've saved you some heartache by revealing this early in your learning process!

Here are some useful online resources for learning the components of Chinese characters:

• An extensive article about the   214 components of Chinese characters  with a free printable PDF poster.
• Downloadable posters of all the components, characters and words.
• If you like flashcards, there's a great Anki deck here and a Memrise course here .
• Wikipedia also has a sweet sortable list here .

TAKEAWAY : Every single Chinese character is composed of just 214 “pieces”. Only 50-100 of these are commonly used. Learn these pieces first to learn how to write in Chinese quickly.

Moving From Components To Chinese Characters

Once you've got a grasp of the basic building blocks of Chinese it's time to start building some characters!

We used the character 好 (“good”) in the above example. 好 is a character composed of the components 女 (“woman”) and 子 (“child”).

Unlike the letters of the alphabet in English, these components have meaning .

(They also have pronunciation, but for the sake of simplicity we'll leave that aside for now!)

• 女 means “woman” and 子 means “child”.
• When they are put together, 女 and 子 become 好 …and the meaning is “good”.
• Therefore “woman” + “child” = “good” in Chinese 🙂

When learning how to write in Chinese characters you can take advantage of the fact that components have their own meanings.

In this case, it is relatively easy to make a mnemonic (memory aid) that links the idea of a woman with her baby as “good”.

Because Chinese is so structured, these kind of mnemonics are an incredibly powerful tool for memorisation.

Some characters, including 好, can also be easily represented graphically. ShaoLan's book Chineasy does a fantastic job of this.

Here's the image of 好 for instance – you can see the mother and child.

Visual graphics like these can really help in learning Chinese characters.

Unfortunately, only around 5% of the characters in Chinese are directly “visual” in this way. These characters tend to get the most attention because they look great when illustrated.

However, as you move beyond the concrete in the more abstract it becomes harder and harder to visually represent ideas.

Thankfully, the ancient Chinese had an ingenious solution, a solution that actually makes the language a lot more logical and simple than merely adding endless visual pictures.

Watch Me Write Chinese Characters

In the video below, which is part of a series on learning to write in Chinese , I talk about the process of actually writing out the characters. Not thousands of times like Chinese schoolchildren. But just as a way to reinforce my learning and attack learning Chinese characters from different angles.

My Chinese handwriting leaves a lot to be desired. But it's more about a process of reinforcing my language learning via muscle memory than perfecting my handwriting.

You'll also hear me discuss some related issues such as stroke order and typing in Chinese.

The Pronunciation Of Chinese Characters

The solution was the incredibly unsexy sounding… (wait for it…) “phono-semantic compound character”.

It's an awful name, so I'm going to call them “sound-meaning characters” for now!

This concept is the key to unlocking 95% of the Chinese characters.

A sound-meaning character has a component that tells us two things:

• the meaning
• a clue to how the character is pronounced

So, in simple terms:

95% of Chinese characters have a clue to the meaning of the character AND its pronunciation. 

到 means “to arrive”.

This character is made of two components. On the left is 至 and on the right is 刀.

These are two of the 214 components that make up all characters. 至 means “to arrive” and 刀 means “knife”.

Any idea which one gives us the meaning? Yup – it's 至, “to arrive”! (That was an easy one 🙂 )

But how about the 刀? This is where it gets interesting.

到 is pronounced dào.

刀, “knife” is pronounced dāo.

The reason the 刀 is placed next to 至 in the character 到 is just to tell us how to pronounce the character! How cool is that?

Now, did you notice the little lines above the words: dào and dāo?

Those are the tone markers, and in this case they are both slightly different. These two characters have different tones so they are not exactly the same pronunciation.

However, the sound-meaning compound has got us 90% of the way to being able to pronounce the character, all because some awesome ancient Chinese scribe thought there should be a shortcut to help us remember the pronunciation!

Let's look at a few more examples of how 刀 is used in different words to give you an idea of the pronunciation.

Even if sometimes:

• the sound-meaning character gives us the exact sound and meaning
• or it gets us in the ballpark
• or worse it is way off because the character has changed over the last 5,000 years!

Nevertheless, there's a clue about the pronunciation in 95% of all Chinese characters, which is a huge help for learning how to speak Chinese.

TAKEAWAY : Look at the component parts as  a way to unlock the meaning and pronunciations of 95% of Chinese characters. In terms of “hacking” the language, this is the key to learning how to write in Chinese quickly.

From Chinese Characters To Chinese Words

First we went from components to characters.

Next, we are going from characters to words.

Although there are a lot of one-character words in Chinese, they tend to either be classically-rooted words like “king” and “horse” or grammatical particles and pronouns.

The vast majority of Chinese words contain two characters.

The step from characters to words is where, dare I say it, Chinese script gets easy!

Come on, you didn't think it would always be hard did you? 🙂

Unlike European languages Chinese's difficulty is very front-loaded.

When you first learn to write Chinese, you'll discover a foreign pronunciation system, a foreign tonal system and a very  foreign writing system.

As an English speaker, you can normally have a good shot at pronouncing and reading words in other European languages, thanks to the shared alphabet.

Chinese, on the other hand, sucker-punches you on day one… but gets a little more gentle as you go along.

One you've realised these things:

• there aren't that many components to deal with
• all characters are made up of these basic components
• words are actually characters bolted together

…then it's a matter of just memorising a whole bunch of stuff!

That's not to say there isn't a lot of work involved, only to say that it's not particularly difficult. Time-consuming, yes. Difficult, no.

This is quite different from European languages, which start off easy, but quickly escalate in difficulty as you encounter complicated grammar, tenses, case endings, technical vocabulary and so on.

Making words from Chinese characters you already know is easy and really fun . This is where you get to start snapping the lego blocks together and build that Pirate Island!

The Logic Of Chinese Writing

Here are some wonderful examples of the simplicity and logic of Chinese using the character 车 which roughly translates as “vehicle”.

• Water + Vehicle = Waterwheel = 水 +车
• Wind + Vehicle = Windmill = 风＋车
• Electric + Vehicle = Tram/Trolley = 电＋车
• Fire + Vehicle = Train = 火＋车
• Gas + Vehicle = Car = 汽＋车
• Horse + Vehicle = Horse and cart/Trap and Pony = 马＋车
• Up + Vehicle = Get into/onto a vehicle =上＋车
• Down + Vehicle = Get out/off a vehicle =下＋车
• Vehicle + Warehouse = Garage = 车＋库
• To Stop + Vehicle = to park = 停＋车

Chinese is extremely logical and consistent.

This is a set of building blocks that has evolved over 5,000 years in a relatively linear progression. And you can't exactly say the same about the English language!

Just think of the English words for the Chinese equivalences above:

Train, windmill, millwheel/waterwheel, tram/trolley, car/automobile, horse and cart/trap and pony.

Unlike Chinese where these concepts are all linked by 车 there's very little consistency in our vehicle/wheel related vocabulary, and no way to link these sets of related concepts via the word itself.

English is a diverse and rich language, but that comes with its drawbacks – a case-by-case spelling system that drives learners mad.

Chinese, on the other hand, is precise and logical, once you get over the initial “alienness”.

Making The Complex Simple

This logical way of constructing vocabulary is not limited to everyday words like “car” and “train”. It extends throughout the language.

To take an extreme example let's look at Jurassic Park .

The other day I watched Jurassic Park with my Chinese girlfriend. (OK, re -watched. It's a classic!)

Part of the fun for me (annoyance for her) was asking her the Chinese for various dinosaur species.

Take a second to look through these examples. You'll love the simplicity!

• T Rex 暴龙 = tyrant + dragon
• Tricerotops 三角恐龙 three + horn + dinosaur
• Diplodocus 梁龙 roof-beam + dragon
• Velociraptor 伶盗龙 clever + thief + dragon (or swift stealer dragon)
• Stegosaurus 剑龙 (double-edged) sword + dragon
• Dilophosaurus 双脊龙 double+spined+dragon

Don't try to memorise these characters, just appreciate the underlying logic of how the complex concepts are constructed .

(Unless, of course, you are a palaeontologist…or as the Chinese would say a Ancient + Life + Animal + Scientist!).

I couldn't spell half of these dinosaur names in English for this article. But once I knew how the construction of the Chinese word, typing in the right characters was simple.

Once you know a handful of characters, you can start to put together complete words, and knowing how to write in Chinese suddenly becomes a lot easier.

In a lot of cases you can take educated guesses at concepts and get them right by combining known characters into unknown words.

For more on this, check my series of Chinese character images that I publish on this page . They focus on Chinese words constructed from common characters, and help you understand more of the “building block” logic of Chinese.

TAKEAWAY : Chinese words are constructed extremely logically from the underlying characters. This means that once you've learned a handful of characters vocabulary acquisition speeds up exponentially.

How To Learn Written Chinese Fast

Before diving into learning characters, make sure you have a decent grounding in Chinese pronunciation via the pinyin system. 

The reason for this is that taking on pronunciation, tones and characters from day one is really tough.

Don't get me wrong, you can do it. Especially if you're highly motivated. But for most people there's a better way.

Learn a bit of spoken Chinese first. 

With some spoken language under your belt, and an understanding of pronunciation and tones, starting to learn how to write in Chinese will seem a whole lot easier.

When you're ready, here's how to use all the information from this article and deal with written Chinese in a sensible way.

I've got a systematic approach to written Chinese which you can find in detail on Sensible Chinese .

Right now, I'm going to get you started with the basics.

The Sensible Character System

The four stages for learning Chinese characters are:

Sounds technical huh? Don't worry, it's not really.

This part of the process is about choosing what you put into your character learning system.

If you're working on the wrong material then you're wasting your efforts. Instead choose to learn Chinese characters that you are like to want to use in the future.

My list in order of priority contains:

• daily life: characters/words I've encountered through daily life
• textbooks: characters/words I've learnt from textbooks
• frequency lists: characters/words I've found in frequency lists of the most common characters and words

2. Processing

This is the “learning” part of the system.

You take a new word or character and break it down into its component parts. You can then use these components to create memory aids.

Hanzicraft.com or Pleco's built-in character decomposition tool are fantastic for breaking down new characters. These will be helpful until you learn to recognise the character components by sight. These tools will also show you if there are sound-meaning component clues in the character.

Use the individual components of a character to build a “story” around the character. Personal, sexy and violent stories tend to stick in the mind best! 🙂 I also like to add colours into my stories to represent the tones (1st tone Green, 2nd tone Blue etc.)

After the “input” and the “process”… it's time to review it all!

The simplest review system is paper flashcards which you periodically use to refresh your memory.

A more efficient method can be found in software or apps that use a Spaced Repetition System, like Anki or   Pleco .

An important point: Review is not learning .

It's tempting to rely on software like Anki to drill in the vocabulary through brute-force repetition. But don't skip the first two parts – processing the character and creating a mnemonic are key parts of the process.

It isn't enough to just learn and review your words… you also need to put them into use !

Thankfully, technology has made this easier than ever. Finding a language exchange partner or a lesson with a cost-effective teacher is super simple nowadays, so there's no excuse for not putting your new vocabulary into action!

The resources I personally use are:

• Spoken – iTalki
• Written – Lang-8
• Short form written – WeChat / HelloTalk

Importantly, whilst you are using your current vocabulary in these forms of communication, you'll be picking up new content all the time, which you can add back into your system.

The four steps above are a cycle that you will continue to rotate through – all the corrections and new words you receive during usage should become material to add to the system.

To recap, the four steps of systematically learning Chinese characters are:

By building these steps into your regular study schedule you can steadily work through the thousands of Chinese characters and words you'll need to achieve literacy.

This is a long-haul process! So having a basic system in place is very important for consistency.

You can find out a lot more about The Sensible Chinese Character Learning System and how to write in Chinese here .

Top Chinese Learning Links And Resources

• Chinese Language Learning Resource List – a curated list of tools and content available online and in print to help your Chinese learning, all categorised by usage type.
• Sensible Character Learning System – the full system outlined in a series of blog articles for those who want more detail and tips on how to refine their character learning.
• 111 Mandarin Chinese resources you wish you knew – Olly’s huge list of the best resources on the web for learning Chinese

I hope you enjoyed this epic guide to learning how to write in Chinese!

Please share this post with any friends who are learning Chinese, then leave us a comment below!

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Mandarin Chinese Essay

Like any other language, Mandarin Chinese is also quite challenging and interesting to learn at the same time. Certain, much depends on the way you approach learning as well as teaching techniques applied by the instructor.

I has interested in Ms. Wang’s amazing and unconventional techniques to mastering Mandarin Chinese and this is one of the core reasons I agreed on attending this course in future. In fact, being in the 8 th grade at Pierre Van Cortlandt School has become a real adventure for me to enjoy because all lessons dedicated to studies languages do not involve ordinary techniques as I used to apply.

Instead of boring drill and practice, I have realized that singing pop songs and rhyming words is much more effective and exciting. Integrating music and technologies into Mandarin Chinese lessons greatly encourages learning more about the language and developing personal skills, abilities, and approaches to learning.

Besides, composing your own chants is also a great idea because it is quite creating and engaging and because it allows to memorize new sentences and vocabularies much faster. It is just like a song that you are humming and that you can get out of your head. This is why I am extremely keen on learning this course in future and apply the obtained skills to other subjects.

In my opinion, desire, interest, and realization of purpose for learning are the main underpinnings to start learning any discipline (Tovani, 2004, p. 11). Yet, the approaches that have been chosen for learning matter as well because they create a favorable climate for gaining experiences and mastering literate skills.

Learning Perspectives In Terms Of Literacy

Main students’ strengths and challenging areas in learning mandarin chinese.

While learning languages, there is a great number of vocabulary, semantics, grammatical structures that should be learnt. What is more interesting is that learning another language often implies comparison with the languages you have mastered and, therefore, the new information is always processed and acquired with particular reference to personal background and experience.

In addition, learning language is also learning more about new culture and traditions. In this respect, songs and music are exactly the ways to convey the essence of Chinese culture and ethnicity.

Besides, students seem to be fully engaged into this activity because their interest is focused not only on listening and learning new words, but also on singing and learning the new words of a popular song.

Indeed, this factor is to an extent decisive in receiving the highest results in learning Mandarin Chinese because students often lack understanding of a particular language because of the established cultural vacuum.

In fact, songs also enhance the communication between a student and a teacher that leads to building strong relations and creating a more favorable environment for learning and acquiring new knowledge.

Moreover, singing songs and producing personal rhymes advance sound-pronunciation relationships that are fundamental for successful training. With regard to the above, Zaraysky (2009) states that “if you memorize songs in a foreign language, you learn the cadence and melody of language” (p. 46).

Indeed, knowing songs is a good warming up activity because it enhances your interest about culture and you are exciting about learning more melodies. Therefore, mastery of music generates greater mastery at learning languages.

Teacher’s Evaluation of Student Performance

Assessment is an inherent component of a learning process and teacher’s task here is to be consistent in marketing students’ achievement pursuant to the material as well as approaches to learning this material being introduced.

In order to effectively assess the learning outcomes, Ms. Wang resorts to using specific verses, texts, or passages for students to read, understand, and pronounce in accordance with the rules learnt while splitting the songs into intonation and semantic patterns.

Such an approach to evaluating is congruent with the teaching techniques applied by a teacher and, therefore, students have easily understood the scope of the assignment.

Second approach Ms. Wang adheres to is an individualistic method of providing students with feedback on oral and writing comprehension.

It is important to use this method while assessing students’ progress because not all students can achieve similar level of progress while listening to the music and creating intonation patterns due to the different types of memory.

In order words, a teacher should identify students’ gaps to be fulfilled and focus on the strengths that each student has.

Visual Aids: Contribution and Approaches

In order to amply the effectiveness of the oral presentation, visual aids introduction is an inherent contribution to learning foreign language. In particular, using pictures, diagrams, and charts aids students to comprehend the material, increase their cultural awareness, enable interaction and communication and provide a relevant context for the language use.

In this respect, Ms. Wang makes use of Smart Board to grab students’ attention and demonstrate peculiarities of the language structure.

An interactive Smart Board encourages students greatly and help them activate their visual memory skills. Students seem to be very much interesting in using digital pens and studying specific information on their own board.

Besides, such technology provides students with more opportunities to research independently and learn new facts about Chinese culture. Finally, the software also integrate a true collaborative learning atmosphere into the classroom making lessons more engaging and captivating.

All interactive games introduced by Ms. Wang are based on the interaction between a student and a computer and between a student and a teacher. Applying to modern technologies, student can gain experience and skills in studying with the help of software, which is especially effective in the era of online technologies.

Importantly, such an approach also involves handwriting so that the teacher is able to see how well a student memorizes spelling of certain words and what problems they has in the majority of cases.

Specific Wonderings Related To Visual And Oral Literacy As Well As The Reading Process

Importance of visual and oral literacy development, best approaches for developing students’ visual and oral literacy in mandarin chinese class.

I believe it is quite smart and wise on the teacher’s part to engage technology and music into studying foreign languages because it greatly contributes to advancing students’ oral and writing literacy. To be more exact, teacher tries not only to evaluate the way new vocabulary is comprehended, but the way students are involved in the course of learning.

Ms. Wang asks students to introduce the songs that have been composed by themselves and research on the peculiarities of pronouncing particular words and sentences, and passages. Using beat and rhythm, it is important for her to teach students to pronounce words in accordance with the established beat.

Diversity of intonation patterns, as a rule, provides students with a wider range of options to practice their pronunciation and learn new techniques of memorizing the material.

Aside from music and intonation, Ms. Wang also initiates students in using technologies and applications to deepen our knowledge of learning foreign languages.

Electronic dictionaries enabling to listen to indigenous pronunciation, a number of pictures and situations attached to a particular vocabulary encourage students to learn faster and gain experience in speaking Mandarin Chinese.

Accessing Students’ Visual and Oral Literacy Skills while Studying Mandarin Chinese

Oral reporting can be a valuable contribution for student to organize, research, and delivering information to the audience. Besides, the visual aids that students provide for oral presentations also assist in promoting visual representation successfully.

Besides, using oral reports is a great activities can teachers can apply to while relating literacy skills to any subject area (Altieri, 2010, 154). Hence, students may be required to study the word etymology, or research on specific application of a word in different semantic and historical contexts.

In fact, teacher may assess not only the quality of the delivered information but the quality of presenting information to the audience. This mix will enable teacher to evaluate oral literacy from different perspectives.

In order to evaluate the writing literacy, teacher may ask student to resort to an inquiry-based approach to evaluate their critical thinking, decision-making, and problem solving skills. In this respect, the main task of the teacher lies in assessing the way students understand the actual process of inquiry.

When it comes to researching language, teacher should evaluate the quality of presented findings as well as techniques students use to present the material.

Course Readings

According to Lynn Bustle (2004), “it is almost ironic that, at a time when young people are becoming credible consumers of mass media and popular culture, curricular standards and pedagogical practices move further from real-life engagements with media to more traditional approaches to teaching and learning” (p. 417).

Interpreting this, it is crucial for students to know more about modes of the visual representation being a powerful tool for shaping their words. What is more important that the application of multiple sign system encourages event the least motivated students to re-evaluate their literate level of competences.

Referring to my particular cases, I am planning to further examine the integration of real-life experience into compiling visual aids, engagement into computer games and music while studying Mandarin Chinese. Such an approach will help me define the most effective ways to advance Mandarin literacy learning.

The concept of perception and visualization is another crucial moment that should be conceived by students if they want to effectively master the language. Anglin, Vaez, and Cunningham (2004) state, “pictures will be interpreted differently depending on the attitude taken by the eye of the beholder” (p. 866).

With respect to this, I consider it purposeful to move on with learning perception theories to understand how visualization and comprehension are connected as it can greatly enhance the learning outcomes for students studying Mandarin Chinese.

Besides visual representation of the material also helps to understand the connection between visual cognition and learning procedures, which are the foundational values for teachers and the main underpinnings for assessing students progress and development.

Collecting Information Techniques

Keeping an observation log and collecting students’ works and quiz.

In order to gather all relevant data and analyze theoretical frameworks within empirical context, I am planning to keep an observation log while studying the case. To be more exact, I will record in detail students’ classroom activities, including social interactions, games, their visual representations, as well as their attitude to the learning course in general.

The examination will be aimed at defining the correlation between the teaching approach and students’ language performance. In addition, in-depth records and notes taken will enable me understand the actual shifts occurred to students as well as additional method to be implemented to improve students’ performance.

Analysis of students’ works, quizzes, and final paper will provide me with necessary evidence about students’ progress as well as gaps that need to be fulfilled. Besides, the practical information will contribute to the existing findings and will help me explore the essence of perception theories, as presented above.

A careful consideration all working papers will also enable to track the quality of handwriting and made up statistics of the most frequently occurred grammatical, stylistic, and lexical mistakes.

Interviewing

Interviewing generates more accuracy in improving and advancing the teaching techniques. In this regard, I will resort to interviewing the teachers with the help of the questions.

In the course of the interview, I was surprised to find interesting concepts, ideas, and insights that I can further use to motivate students t learn more, to define their interests as well as problems that should be overcome.

I also found that Mr. Wang was more inclined to use a combination of visual and oral representation to strike the balance between training visual and oral perception of students. As far as I understood,

Students will also be interviewed for achieving objectivity of the research findings. The questions will also be aimed at defining the problems as well future perspectives for development. While posing questions to students, I have outlined several important assumptions.

First of all, students are more likely to memorize information when singing songs and humming particular rhythmic patterns because it is an excellent way to practice and improve pronunciation.

Second, the majority of students were exciting while using Smart Board to obtain information about the origins of works as well as semantic trees attributed to a particular morpheme.

Finally, students also testified that applying to visual and oral representation considerably simplifies the process of learning the material because it initiated them more deeply into the cultural aspects of Mandarin Chinese.

Challenges and Resources

Evidently, research findings based on the examination of students’ progress in one particular class cannot be objective and accurate enough because they refer to one class only and cannot be applied to other learning courses.

Therefore, I would like to find another class on learning the Mandarin Chinese language to outline similar perspective, compare different teaching methods, exam the main strengths and weakness of the selected class.

Nevertheless, the information I have gathered still greatly contributes to better understanding learning techniques that can be implemented and considered to developing more advanced approaches and building new teaching concepts.

As a future perspective, I will try to contact other school districts to find out available classes on Mandarin Chinese for me to research and define other perspectives for learning, teaching, and evaluating.

In whole, the potential resources for the project involve my classroom teachers, professors, students, parents, and school administrates who encourage me to investigate possible problems and strengths of the techniques used by Ms. Wang.

Despite the narrowness of the research, I have still to introduce innovative approaches to learning and I believe they are worth integrating them in other classes for studying languages.

In conclusion, I should admit that Ms. Wang’s unconventional approaches seems to be much more effective than ordinary drill and practice techniques because they are incredibly motivating and incentive providing. Indeed, students and me inclusively were deeply involved in listening to popular songs and humming known motives.

Such a technique contributes greatly to developing strong visual and aural memory with the help of integrated technologies and interactive computer games.

Beside language and literacy skills, the teacher has also managed to establish favorable communicational environment in the classroom and has encouraged students to effective socialize for sharing knowledge and experience.

The conducted interviews and gathered students’ papers also reinforced by belief about the effectiveness of the introduced approaches and, therefore, I am planning to further apply to those while teaching my students and while learning languages myself.

While examining these techniques with particular reference to the theories of visual representations, I was a bit disappointed because I had not met those approaches before addressing this classroom case study.

Besides, most of students engaged into this learning process have considerably facilitated their literate competency without challenging scaffolding because all lessons were more associated with games and adventures.

This exciting tripe fascinated me as well because I have found out much empirical data for correlating them with existing conceptual frameworks.

Reference List

Altieri, J. L. (2010). Literacy Math: Creative Connections in the Elementary Classroom. US: International Reading Association

Anglin, G. J., Vaez, H., and Cunningham, K. L. (2004). Visual Representations and Learning: The Role of Static and Animated Graphics. Visualization and Learning. 33, pp. 865-917.

Bustle, L. S. (2004). The Role of Visual Representation in the Assessment of Learning. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. pp. 416-423.

Tovani, C. (2004). Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?: Content Comprehension, grades, 6-12 . US: Stenhouse Publishing.

Zaraysky, S. (2009). Language is Music: 64 Fun and Easy Tips to Learn Foreign Languages Fast . US: Create Your World Books.

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IvyPanda. (2019, May 6). Mandarin Chinese. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mandarin-chinese-essay/

"Mandarin Chinese." IvyPanda , 6 May 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/mandarin-chinese-essay/.

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IvyPanda . "Mandarin Chinese." May 6, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/mandarin-chinese-essay/.

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IB Chinese A (Lit) EE examples

Filter exemplars, 嚴歌苓的《陸犯焉識》如何通過敘述視角、敘述線索和敘述結構揭示中國知識分子的精神歸宿.

Introduce Yourself in Chinese with Self-Introduction Speech Examples

How to introduce yourself in chinese.

It is not difficult to introduce yourself in Chinese language as they are fixed answers which you memorise about yourself. However, it is not that easy to be able to understand all the variations of questions asked. Therefore, in this article, you will also learn about various ways of questioning and response, so you know they mean the same thing and handle the Chinese self-introduction with ease.

For a start, I have prepared three articles below with audio on self-introduction speech examples, changing the variation of replies in Chinese for beginners when you introduce yourself in Mandarin. The questions and answers will revolve around: –

① Chinese Greetings and Pronouns ② Your Name and Surname ③ Your Age ④ Your Country and Nationality ⑤ Your Hobby and Interest ⑥ Your Relationship and Marital Status

It is always a good practice to read and listen in Mandarin to guess the meaning of the articles before looking at the English translation.

Chinese Self-Introduction Essay and Speech Samples

你们好！ 我叫芮。 其实，芮是我的姓氏。我是华人。我来自新加坡。不过，我现在居住安特卫普，比利时的一个美丽城市。我有一个英俊的比利时男友。我会说英语、华语、广东话、法语和荷兰语。现在，我和你们一样，都在学习语言。我每天要去学校上荷兰语课。

平时，在业余时间，我写博客和上网查询资料。在周末，我喜欢和我的男朋友一起骑自行车，拍照，购物和吃饭。 我最喜欢去餐馆吃中餐。我的最爱是旅行。我去过很多国家。

那你呢？请你自我介绍，告诉我平时你喜欢做些什么？请留言。

Hāi! Dú zhě men,

Nǐ men hǎo!  Wǒ jiào Ruì. Qí shí, Ruì shì wǒ de xìng shì. Wǒ shì huá rén. Wǒ lái zì xīn jiā pō. Bù guò, wǒ xiàn zài jū zhù ān tè wèi pǔ, bǐ lì shí de yī gè měi lì chéng shì. Wǒ yǒu yīgè yīng jùn de bǐ lì shí nán yǒu. Wǒ huì shuō yīng yǔ, huá yǔ, guǎng dōng huà, fǎ yǔ hé hé lán yǔ.  Xiàn zài, wǒ hé nǐ men yī yàng, dōu zài xué xí yǔ yán. Wǒ měi tiān yào qù xué xiào shàng hé lán yǔ kè.

Píng shí, zài yè yú shí jiān, wǒ xiě bó kè hé shàng wǎng chá xún zī liào. Zài zhōu mò, wǒ xǐ huān hé wǒ de nán péng yǒu yī qǐ qí zì xíng chē, pāi zhào, gòu wù hé chī fàn. Wǒ zuì xǐ huān qù cān guǎn chī zhōng cān. Wǒ de zuì ài shì lǚ xíng. Wǒ qù guò hěn duō guó jiā.

Nà nǐ ne? Qǐng nǐ zì wǒ jiè shào, gào sù wǒ píng shí nǐ xǐ huān zuò xiē shén me? Qǐng liú yán.

Hi Readers, 

How are you? I am called Rui. In fact, Rui is my surname. I am a Chinese. I come from Singapore. However, I am now living in Antwerp, a beautiful city in Belgium. I have a handsome Belgian boyfriend. I can speak English, Mandarin, Cantonese, French, and Dutch.

Now, I am like you, learning a language too. Every day, I go to school for my Dutch class. Usually, during my spare time, I blog and surf the internet for information. During the weekend, I like to cycle with my boyfriend, take photographs, shopping and eating. I also like going to restaurants to eat Chinese food. My favourite is travelling. I have been to many countries.

How about you? Please introduce yourself. Tell me what do you usually like to do? Please leave a message.

我的名字是彼得。 我今年27岁。 我从美国来的。 我还单身，也没有女朋友。 我会说英语和一点点西班牙语。我也在学习汉语。可是，我的中文说的不太好，还可以在进步。

我想去中国旅行。我对中国的文化和语言很感兴趣。我希望找一位中国女友。我可以向她学习中文。我也能教她英语。我很好动。平时，我喜欢做运动, 例如跑步和游泳。

Hāi! Nín hǎo!

Wǒ de míng zì shì Bǐ Dé. Wǒ jīn nián 27 suì. Wǒ cóng měi guó lái de. Wǒ hái dān shēn, yě méi yǒu nǚ péng yǒu. Wǒ huì shuō yīng yǔ hé yī diǎn diǎn xī bān yá yǔ. Wǒ yě zài xué xí hàn yǔ. Kěs hì, wǒ de zhōng wén shuō de bù tài hǎo, hái kěyǐ zài jìn bù.

Wǒ xiǎng qù zhōng guó lǚ xíng. Wǒ duì zhōng guó de wén huà hé yǔ yán hěn gǎn xìng qù. Wǒ xī wàng zhǎo yī wèi zhōng guó nǚ yǒu. Wǒ kě yǐ xiàng tā xué xí zhōng wén. Wǒ yě néng jiào tā yīngyǔ. Wǒ hěn hào dòng. Píng shí, wǒ xǐ huān zuò yùn dòng, lì rú pǎo bù hé yóu yǒng.

My name is Peter. I am 27 years old this year. I come from the United States. I am still single and also do not have a girlfriend. I speak English and some Spanish. Now, I am also learning Chinese. However, I do not speak Mandarin so well. It can still be improved.

I wish to travel to China. I am very interested in Chinese culture and language. I hope to find a Chinese girlfriend. I can learn Chinese from her. I can teach her English. I am very active. Usually, I like to exercise such as jogging and swimming.

我是爱丽丝。大家都叫我丝丝。我是加拿大人。十年前，我从加拿大搬迁到台湾工作。我学了五年的中文，现在能说一口流利的华语。我现年四十岁。 我已婚，嫁给了一位台湾人。我有两个孩子，一个儿子和一个女儿。

我的嗜好是烹饪、阅读、听音乐和教书。我是一名教师。 我会说流利的英语、华语、 法语和一点点葡萄牙语。我不太喜欢做运动。不过，我很喜欢旅行，到处走走。

Hāi! Nǐ hǎo! 

Wǒ shì Ài Lì Sī. Dà jiā dōu jiào wǒ Sī Sī. Wǒ shì jiā ná dà rén. Shí nián qián, wǒ cóng jiā ná dà bān qiān dào tái wān gōng zuò. Wǒ xué le wǔ nián de zhōng wén, xiàn zài néng shuō yī kǒu liú lì de huá yǔ. Wǒ xiàn nián sì shí suì. Wǒ yǐ hūn, jià gěi le yī wèi tái wān rén. Wǒ yǒu liǎng gè há izi, yīgè er zi hé yī gè nǚ’ér.

Wǒ de shì hào shì pēng rèn, yuè dú, tīng yīn yuè hé jiāo shū. Wǒ shì yī míng jiào shī. Wǒ huì shuō liú lì de yīng yǔ, huá yǔ, fǎ yǔ hé yī diǎn diǎn pú táo yá yǔ. Wǒ bù tài xǐ huān zuò yùn dòng. Bù guò, wǒ hěn xǐ huān lǚ xíng, dào chù zǒu zǒu.

Hello, my name is Alice. Everyone call me Si Si. I’m a Canadian. Ten years ago, I relocated from Canada to work in Taiwan. I have studied Chinese for five years. Now, I speak Mandarin fluently. This year, I am 40 years old. I am married to a Taiwanese. I have two children, a son and a daughter.

My hobby is cooking, reading, listening to music and teaching. I am a teacher. I speak fluent English, Mandarin, French and a little bit of Portuguese. I do not like so much to do sports. However, I enjoy travelling and walk around.

① Chinese Greetings and Pronouns

How to say “hello” in chinese.

For the Chinese, it is common to greet in person with  嗨！你好! It has a similar connotation as “Hello, how are you?” but not a question asked like 你好吗？ to get a response. The Chinese greeting means “ You are fine! ” Since the tone of the sentence is an exclamation mark, the other party is not expected to give a reply to 你好!

The pronouns used in the three self-introduction speech in Chinese is: –

• 读者们  |    dú zhě men |  Readers
• 你们 | nǐ men | You (Plural)
• 您 |   nín | You (Formal address of someone of a higher authority, a stranger or out of courtesy)
• 你 |   nǐ | You (Singular. Informal way and most commonly used to address among friends and people)

Whenever you see the word 们 | mén , with a pronoun, it always refers to a plural form of a pronoun. You can virtually place the Chinese plural word 们 behind any nouns, but usually for humans and animals.

② What is Your Name? Introduce Yourself in Chinese

The first sentence that most people learn is likely “What is your name?”. In a more formal setting, you can be asked to introduce yourself instead of someone asking you to say your name. Both sentences can be applied at the same time too.

How to Say “What is Your Name” in Chinese?

What is your name? Please introduce yourself OR Please self-introduced.

你叫什么名字? 请介绍一下你自己。 ( 或者 | or)  请自我介绍。

Nǐ jiào shén me míng zì? Qǐng jiè shào yī xià nǐ zì jǐ. (huò zhě) Qǐng zì wǒ jiè shào.

How to Say “What is Your Surname?” in Chinese? – Formal

Here, you can see the formal pronoun 您 | you being used asking for only the surname (family name) instead of the person’s name. The person asking for only the family name wants to address the other party as Mr, Mrs or Miss + Surname.

One example is a shop assistant serving his customer. The Chinese find it more respectful to call a person by the surname when they do not know him well or when the status is higher. However, the person replying back do not need to use 您 and may use  你 instead.

I presume that if you are a foreigner especially a Caucasian, the Chinese would not ask you this question. Next time, you can also ask  您贵姓？ to Chinese people if you meet them for the first time.

What is your surname? (Polite)

您贵姓？ Nín guì xìng?

My surname is Li. How about you?

我姓李。那你呢？ Wǒ xìng Lǐ. Nà nǐ ne?

Hi, Mr Lee. My surname is Rui. Pleased to meet you! / It is an honour to meet you!

李先生，您好。我姓芮。幸会，幸会！ Lǐ xiān shēng, nǐn hǎo. Wǒ xìng Ruì. Xìng huì, xìng huì!

How to Say “Who Are You” in Chinese?

Asking someone “Who are you?” is an abrupt and less friendly way when asking for a self-introduction. However, it has to depend on the tone used and the situation. 你是谁? can have an implied meaning of curiosity, uncertainty, suspicion or fear.

Example – You went to your friend’s house to look for her. She was not at home. The mother opened the house and saw you. She asked，“ 你是谁呀? ” Then, you have to introduce yourself in Mandarin.

Who are you?

你是谁（呀)? Nǐ shì shéi (ya)?

How to Say “My Name is … ” in Chinese?

There are three ways that you can introduce yourself with “My name is ___”.

a) I am called Rui. b) My name is Peter. c) I am Alice. Everyone calls me Si Si (nickname). You can call me Alicia or Si Si.

a) 我叫芮。 b) 我的名字是彼得。 c) 我是爱丽丝。大家都叫我丝丝。你可以叫我爱丽丝或者是丝丝。

a) Wǒ jiào Ruì. b) Wǒ de míng zì shì Bǐ dé. c) Wǒ shì Ài Lì Sī. Dà jiā dōu jiào wǒ sī sī. Nǐ kě yǐ jiào wǒ Ài Lì Sī huò zhě shì Sī Sī.

③ How Old Are You?

The first two questions are common ways to ask someone their age. You can refer to the Chinese numbers of your age.

How to Say “What is Your Age” in Chinese?

What is your age?

a) 你今年几岁了？(或者 | or)  今年你几岁了？ b) 你今年多少岁了？

a) Nǐ jīn nián jǐ suì le? (huò zhě) Jīn nián nǐ jǐ suì le? b) Nǐ jīn nián duō shǎo suì le?

How to Say “How Old are You” in Chinese?

To ask someone’s age, “How OLD” in Chinese, is not a direct translation of the English word “old”. The literal translation of “How old” would be “ 多老 “. “老” means aged, senior. Please do not ask someone “ 你多老? ” because the Chinese will never ask a person’s age this way. It is quite offensive to use the Chinese word 老 | lǎo when talking to someone.

Instead, we use the phrase “how big – 多大 ” to ask someone’s age. Note that the phrase “ 多大 ” can have an ambiguous meaning. It can directly refer to the size of the object that you are discussing and not about age. The preferred sentence is still 你今年几岁了？ when meeting someone for the first time.

How old are you?

a) 你多大年纪？ b) 你多大年龄? c) 你多大了?

a) Nǐ duō dà nián jì?  b) Nǐ duō dà nián líng? c) Nǐ duō dà le?

How to Say “How old are you” in a Formal Way?

However, it is considered abrupt and rude to ask a senior, elderly or someone respectable on their age with the sentence construction above. In a formal situation or writing, we ask people on their age with 您今年贵庚? It is more polite asking when you hold high regard for someone.

How old are you? (Formal)

您今年贵庚? Nín jīn nián guì gēng?

How to Say “Your Age” in Chinese?

It is easy to say your age in Chinese. There are not many variations. You only have to know the Chinese numbers so you can tell your age to others.

I am 35 years old this year.

我今年35岁。 Wǒ jīn nián sān shí wǔ suì.

Pardon! My Age is Confidential!

Women are more reserved and sensitive when it comes to divulging their age especially Chinese women. Looks matter to many of them and they care about how people look at them.

Many of them also spend a lot of money, time and effort to maintain their youth. They hope to give a lasting impression of looking young forever.

Therefore, if you do not know a Chinese woman long enough, refrain from asking her age as you never know how she feels about telling it to you. Maybe she is fine with the question. Or, perhaps she does not like it and would not say it frankly.

Sorry, my age is a secret. Woman‘s age is always confidential.

不好意思，我的年龄是秘密。 女人的年龄是保密的。 Bù hǎo yì si, wǒ de nián líng shì mì mì. Nǚrén de nián líng shì bǎo mì de.

④ Where Are You From?

When someone asks you “where are you from”, you can tell them either your country of origin or your nationality. It is not necessary to say both unless you have a different nationality than that of the country that you live.

How to Say ” Where are you from” in Chinese?

Where are you from? 

你从哪里来？(或者 | or) 你来自哪里？ Nǐ cóng nǎ lǐ lái? (huò zhě) Nǐ lái zì nǎ lǐ?

How to Say “Which country are you from” in Chinese?

Which country are you from?

你来自什么国家?  (或者 | or) 你从什么国家来的？ Nǐ lái zì shén me guó jiā? (huò zhě) Nǐ cóng shén me guó jiā lái de?

How to Say “What is Your Nationality” in Chinese?

How to say Nationality  国籍 | Guó jí in Chinese? Most of the time, you use the ｛name of the country + 人 ｜people｝to derive the nationality.

Which country are you from? OR Who are you?

a) 你是什么国家的人? (或者 | or) 你是什么人？ b) 你是哪里人?

a) Nǐ lái zì shén me guó jiā?  (huò zhě) Nǐ cóng shén me guó jiā lái de? b) Nǐ shì nǎ lǐ rén?

How to Say “Do You Come from (Country)” or “Are You (Nationality)” in Chinese?

Do you come from America? Are you an American?

你从美国来的吗？你是美国人吗？ Nǐ cóng měi guó lái de ma? Nǐ shì měi guó rén ma?

How to Say “Your Country and Nationality” in Chinese?

I am American, from California.

我是美国人，来自加州。 Wǒ shì měi guó rén, lái zì jiā zhōu.

I come from Germany (or) I am from Germany (Berlin).

我从德国来  (或者 | or) 我来自德国(柏林)。 Wǒ cóng dé guó lái (huò zhě) wǒ lái zì dé guó (bó lín).

I come from Italy but I am a Turk.

我来自意大利，但我是土耳其人。 Wǒ lái zì yì dà lì, dàn wǒ shì tǔ’ěr qí rén.

I am not Dutch. I am French.

我不是荷兰人。我是法国人。 Wǒ bù shì hé lán rén. Wǒ shì fà guó rén.

I do not come from England. I am Australian.

我不是从英国来的。我是澳大利亚人。 Wǒ bù shì cóng yīng guó lái de. Wǒ shì ào dà lì yǎ rén.

⑤ What Do You Like to Do? Hobby and Interest

The questions below are all referring to the same things. That is your hobbies and interests. Sometimes, the word 平时 ｜ píng shí is added and means ‘usually’. I will prepare a list of activities about hobbies and interests in the near future so you can make references to what you like to do.

How to Say “What Do You Like to Do” in Chinese?

What do you like to do?

你喜欢做(些)什么？ Nǐ xǐ huān zuò (xiē) shén me?

I like jogging and swimming.

我喜欢跑步和游泳。 Wǒ xǐ huān pǎo bù hé yóu yǒng.

How to Say “What is Your Interest” in Chinese?

What is your interest?

你的兴趣是什么？ Nǐ de xìng qù shì shén me?

My interest is surfing the net and shopping.

我的兴趣是上网和逛街。 Wǒ de xìngqù shì shàng wǎng hé guàng jiē.

How to Say “What is Your Hobby” in Chinese?

What is your hobby?

你的嗜好是什么 你的爱好是什么?

Nǐ de shì hào shì shén me? Nǐ de ài hào shì shén me?

My hobby is reading, listing to music and watching movies.

我的嗜好是。。。阅读、听音乐和看电影。 Wǒ de shì hào shì yuè dú, tīng yīn yuè hé kàn diàn yǐng.

⑥ What is Your Marital Status?

Western men looking for a Chinese girlfriend would always be happy to declare that he is single and available. He also wants to know whether they are still single and available or married. It is just an illustration and applies to anyone who wants to say about their relationship status.

How to Say “What is Your Marital Status” or “Relationship Status” in Chinese?

To be honest, I have never had anyone asked me about my marital status 你的婚姻状况是什么? except when filling up forms because it sounds too formal. Many would just ask me about my relationship status “Are you married?” or “Do you have a boyfriend?”

It is always good to know the Chinese phrase ‘marital status’ for administration purpose and the different status as part of introducing yourself in Chinese to others.

What is your Marital Status?

你的婚姻状况是什么？ Nǐ de hūn yīn zhuàng kuàng shì shén me?

How to Say “Are You Single” in Chinese?

Most importantly, people want to know whether you are single or married.

Are you single? OR Are you still single?

你单身吗？( 或者 | or)  你还单身吗？ Nǐ dān shēn ma? (huò zhě) Nǐ hái dān shēn ma?

How to Say “Do You Have a Boyfriend” in Chinese?

Do you have a boyfriend?

你有男朋友吗？ Nǐ yǒu nán péng yǒu ma?

Are you seeing anybody? Do you have someone in mind?

你有对象吗？ Nǐ yǒu duì xiàng ma?

How to Say “Are You Married” in Chinese?

Are you married?

你结婚了吗？ Nǐ jié hūn le ma?

How to Say “I am Single” in Chinese?

I am single and have no girlfriend.

我单身, 也没有女朋友。 Wǒ dān shēn, yě méi yǒu nǚ péng yǒu.

I am still single but I have a boyfriend.

我还单身, 但是我有一个男朋友。 Wǒ hái dān shēn, dàn shì wǒ yǒu yī gè nán péng yǒu.

I am not married.

我未婚 ( 或者 | or) 我还没结婚。 Wǒ wèi hūn (huò zhě) Wǒ hái méi jié hūn.

How to Say “Got Engaged, Fiance and Fiancee” in Chinese?

I am engaged. He is my fiance. She is my fiancee.

我订婚了。 他是我的未婚夫。 她是我的未婚妻。

Wǒ dìng hūn le. Tā shì wǒ de wèi hūn fū. Tā shì wǒ de wèi hūn qī.

How to Say “I am Married” in Chinese?

I am married.

我已婚 (或者 | or) 我结婚了。 Wǒ yǐ hūn (huò zhě) Wǒ jié hūn le.

How to Say “I am Divorced or a Divorcee” in Chinese?

I am divorced. I am a divorcee.

我离婚了。 我是离婚者。 Wǒ lí hūn le. Wǒ shì lí hūn zhě.

How to Say “I am Separated” in Chinese?

I am in the midst of a separation.

我在分居状态中。 Wǒ zài fēn jū zhuàng tài zhōng.

How to Say “Widow” and “Widower” in Chinese?

For widows and widowers, it is not necessary to mention that. The Chinese might find it awkward to reply back. Just say that you are still single if you do not want to be too frank. After all, the Chinese are usually reserved people if you do not know them well and would not go too deep into such a topic.

I would think that not many people would say upfront that “I am a widow or widower” as it is somewhat private to use as a self-introduction in Chinese. Nonetheless, the Chinese sentences below are for information.

I am a widow. My husband passed away two years ago.

我是个寡妇。我的丈夫2年前去世了。 Wǒ shì gè guǎ fù. Wǒ de zhàng fū liǎng nián qián qù shì le.

I am a widower. My wife recently passed away due to sickness.

我是个鳏夫。我的妻子不久前病世了。 Wǒ shì gè guān fū. Wǒ de qī zi bù jiǔ qián bìng shì le.

Your Turn to Introduce Yourself in Chinese

So, now is your turn. Leave a reply to me in Chinese (or English) and tell us about yourself. 请你告诉我，平时你喜欢做些什么呢？ Take it as a practice and show us what you have learnt. I will reply back to you 🙂

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my name is haleema sadia .im from india .im 18 yrs old.i love chinese culture and languagei started studying chinese from 2 months.i want to visit china as soon as possible.

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Essay Samples on Chinese

The request for approval on the chinese new year.

When one mentions Chinese New Year (CNY), it is hard for one to not think of the joy from the numerous Ang Baos received from relatives during house-visiting sessions. Yet, such happiness comes together with the incessant questions, especially about marriage, from our aunts and...

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The Peak of Chinese Culture in the Chinese New Year

This research paper aims to compare the Chinese culture with Europe. Especially in terms of business, providing some examples of traditional Chinese norms when you are going to negotiate with a Chinese company that is important to take into account. To continue, with the help...

The Favorite Festival of Everyone, Chinese New Year

If you ask me what is my most favorite festival, of course, it would be the Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, which was the most important festival in China that symbolized the beginning of another brand new year. At this time of the year,...

The Identity of Chinese-American in Amy Tan's Fish Cheeks

Being Chinese-American often means being torn between balancing both cultures to form an identity so they feel like they fit in. Some Chinese-American might feel like they aren’t part of either Chinese or American, and others share feelings of displacement and frustration. Spiritual development lacks...

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Chinatown in Toronto, Multicultural Megalopolis

Toronto is widely known for its multicultural diversity. There are many different cultures which have resided in this city, creating ethnic enclaves throughout. Throughout this essay, I will specifically be focusing on changes occurring within Chinatown. Toronto consists of many Chinatowns that have been removed,...

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Anti-Chinese Oppression and Rise of Chinese Immigration in US

The milestones of economic, social, and political success that has come from a minority group has proven to be one of the most important mass immigration forces in Chinese-US relations history. Anti-Chinese hysteria, although still prominent in today’s US culture, was even more deplorable in...

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The Role of Kuan Yin: A Look at Her Impact in Chinese Buddhism and Taoism

Kuan Yin was a bodhisattva considered the embodiment of compassion in Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. She is also known as Guanyin, which is short for Guanshiyin, meaning, “Observing the Sounds of the World” (Doré). The word “sound” in this translation can also be read as...

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Best topics on Chinese

1. The Request for Approval on the Chinese New Year

2. The Peak of Chinese Culture in the Chinese New Year

3. The Favorite Festival of Everyone, Chinese New Year

4. The Identity of Chinese-American in Amy Tan’s Fish Cheeks

5. Chinatown in Toronto, Multicultural Megalopolis

6. Anti-Chinese Oppression and Rise of Chinese Immigration in US

7. The Role of Kuan Yin: A Look at Her Impact in Chinese Buddhism and Taoism

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Chinese Essays

Many students are faced with the problem of finding ideas for writing their essays. This website contains a database with more than 50 000 essay examples, using which you can easily find inspiration for creating your own essay on Chinese.

Here you will find many different essay topics on Chinese. You will be able to confidently write your own paper on the influence of Chinese on various aspects of life, reflect on the importance of Chinese, and much more. Keep on reading!

New Delhi launched 17 investigations into imports from China, 10 of which were anti-dumping probes, and had banned the importation of Chinese-made toys for six months alleging their high content of toxic chemicals is a danger to children. The remedy probes, including those of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy, against Chinese products, covering industrial salt, steel, auto […]

Acupressure History A traditional Chinese Medicine that was performed by Buddhist and Taoist during the late 2600 B. C. During the Han Dynasty, Physicians used it for physical, surgical and herbal treatment. 1930’s traditional Chinese Medicine was outlaw, due to China’s progression into Modern Science. 1960’s traditional Chinese Medicine resumed its teaching and soon later […]

Abstract: Title – A case study of the virtual money in MMOG: the impact of Cncard on Chinese EPS & online game industry Purpose –This paper examines Junnet. net’s strategy of introducing a common used prepaid card – Cncard. It will demonstrate the impact of Cncard on the Chinese electronic payment system and online game […]

The Chinese corporate bond market’s success depends on having a comprehensive legal protection framework for creditors and a means to communicate signaling information to potential secondary market investors. The distinction between investors who have lent and those who may lend “on the margin” is important. For maximum supply and demand, Chinese banks must undergo reform […]

Krill Goal Teacher’s name Postulated Chinese Cinderella Interior Monologue I feel really bad for my precious little treasure; her mother Inning hasn’t lived with us for a year and a half. I’m only mother she knows. I loved looking after her. Inning shouldn’t have done this. She should have Just realized that Little Sister is […]

A field research was done to find the answer to the problem statement was: To what extent do Chinese takeaway restaurants In Learned comply with the food safety regulations of European and Dutch law? Therefore, qualitative and quantitative data was gathered as well as a broad field of literature and articles were studied. With the […]

Abandonment and loneliness – Chinese Cinderella- final copy.”Into her lips, i injected my loneliness, isolation and feelings of being unwanted. To my heroine I gave everything of myself” page 210. This is when she is writing gone with the locusts, about the little African girl who was taken for her parents. The passage later on […]

Chinese Zodiac Sign The Chinese Zodiac uses twelve animals to represent cycles of a twelve year calendar. The animal that represents a person in the zodiac is determined by the year the person was born. Characteristics and personality traits are said to be typical of a person born during a specific animal’s cycle. Having been […]

Google, a Silicon Valley internet giant, is renowned globally for its industry dominance and ethical values expressed through the slogan “Don’t be evil.” With more than 50% of its user traffic coming from an extensive international audience, Google remains one of the world’s most popular websites and symbolizes success. Google.com faced difficulties in China due […]

The government in China today is communist. It refuses to give the population democratic rights for a variety of reasons based around the history of China over the last several thousand years, China between 1900 and 1949 and concerning the Communist Party itself. However the Communists encourage private enterprise because of what has happened since […]

I reacted to two stimuli: an article about a Chinese orphanage where babies suffered due to insufficient staff and funding, and Henry Sleasar’s “Examination Day”. The initial stimulus explained that parents were forced to abandon their children for various reasons, such as the cultural preference for baby boys over girls in China. Consequently, numerous baby […]

The Huanghe Valley has developed one of the four earliest civilizations for 5000 years. China has gradually become a superpower since the 21st century. I, being Chinese, am proud of myself. There are several events that further strengthened my pride of being Chinese. First, it is a honor that the two Chinese astronauts accomplished their […]

The Chinese Cultural Revolution yielded only one individual who achieved their goals, Mao Zedong. By utilizing the rebelliousness of teenagers, Mao aimed to regain control over China. These adolescents, known as the Red Guards, were at the forefront of his revolution and carried out acts of violence against any dissenters of Mao’s regime. Gao Yaun’s […]

Originally, martial arts were created for self-defense purposes by Buddhist monks who traveled throughout the eastern regions. India, China, and Japan were vulnerable to burglars, dacoits, and other anti-social elements in the past. Martial arts were instrumental in their defense. The Chinese martial art Wing Chun, also known as Ving Chun, Wing Tsun, or Ving […]

In order to organize people in organization, Human resource management, which is an important, effective and vastly used branch of management, is used. Research has proved the importance and effectiveness of Human Resource Management and its contribution in the success of a business. Human Resource Management is an important part of Management. It helps the […]

Understanding the Chinese market, their hierarchy of needs, and creating a brand personality that effectively targets their consumer behavior can provide several advantages. Cross-cultural analysis is an essential tool for successfully exchanging goods internationally between foreign countries. Marketers aspire to export goods and services to various developed countries, and comprehending the major differences in consumer […]

Diet is absolutely necessary in the life of mankind, and even in the existence or development. Because of the differences between Chinese and western cultural traditions, the Chinese and western dietary cultures are different In concept, target, pattern, attribution and nature. We study these differences and then find out the points that can be digested, […]

Mencius and Xunzi both follow Confucian doctrine yet have a dramatically different apprehension of human nature. Additionally. the two philosophers make their statements in strikingly different literary methods. Mencius believes that the “goodness of human nature is like the downward class of water” ( 147 ) in that people are of course inclined to be […]

2000 by Andre Levy All rights reserved No portion of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any signifier or by any agencies. electronic or mechanical. including run offing and entering. or by any information storage and retrieval system. without permission in. composing from the publishing house. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution […]

In China, the emerging market with a high growth rate and strong consumer base for luxury products, sales of luxury goods are increasing. In contrast, European countries are witnessing a decline in sales. To address this trend, Louis Vuitton (abbreviated as LV) is expanding its presence in China by opening additional stores. The objective of […]

This paper analyzes four of Lu Hsun’s short narratives viz. Kung I-Chi. Medicine. Soap. and Diary of a Madman. and examines lifting forms in Hsun’s plants that display the doctrines he believed in and those that he opposed. Kung I-Chi is about a adult male “who studied the classics but ne’er passed the official test […]

A revolution. in general footings. refers to “The overthrow of one authorities and its replacing with another” ( TheFreeDictionary ) . The 1911 revolution in China saw to the diminution of the Qing Dynasty and the ruin of the emperor. Through the opium war. the force per unit area from foreign states. Nipponese invasions and […]

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How to Write a Formal Letter in Chinese

Option 1: Specific, Formal

Option 2: Specific, Informal

Option 3: Generic, Formal

Option 4: Generic, Formal

Option 5: Other Specific Titles, Formal/Informal

Adding the Greeting

In MOST cases, you should also add a greeting after the person’s name/title, which is normally one of the following:

Here are a few examples of this:

Example 1 - Thank You Letter for Business:

Example 2 - Outreach Letter for Business:

Example 3 - Letter to a Chinese Friend:

(hǎo jiǔ bú jiàn! wǒ shàng zhōu mò gāng huí dào yīng guó, yí qiè dōu hěn shùn lì! nǐ nà bian zěn me yàng? shàng hǎi de tiān qì hěn rè ba?)

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Guest Essay

This Isn’t the China I Remember

By Gish Jen

Ms. Jen, an American novelist whose family hails from Shanghai, wrote from Shanghai.

In 1979 my mother pulled out a Band-Aid in a Nanjing hospital. The nurses clustered around it, amazed. “The West has everything!” they said.

We were on a family visit to China, where my Shanghai relatives were similarly wowed by our excellent teeth and ample body fat, not to mention our descriptions of American dishwashers, refrigerators and air-conditioning. And with the general awe came V.I.P. treatment. Hosts broke out bottles of expensive orange soda that they freely mixed with expensive warm beer. We could not escape drinking this any more than we could escape our government-assigned “guide,” whose job was to strictly monitor visitors like us. Relatives or not, we were foreigners.

I returned to teach English at the Shandong Mining Institute in 1981. My students were coal mining engineers preparing to study abroad, so that they might bring back safer mining techniques. I was their “foreign expert.” As such, I had not only a sit-down toilet in the apartment provided to me, but also running hot water, an unheard-of luxury. My ayi, or housekeeper, would make a fire under a vat of water on the roof and, when it was ready, turn the faucet handle in my bathtub.

After class, my students would bring stools out to the basketball court where, each facing a different direction, they would sit and study for hours on end. Loving their country and wanting to make it strong, they were grateful for Westerners like me. Foreign as we were, we were a help.

Fast forward a few decades to a booming China. In my many visits over the years — as a teacher, as a visiting artist and as a tourist — Shanghai hotel staff had always returned my credit card to me with two hands, a bow of the head, and a smile. But with a quarter of the world’s construction cranes said to be in the city during China’s boom years, raising skyscrapers from what had been rice paddies, attitudes had changed. My credit card was returned with one hand; the receptionist barely looked up. My relatives no longer asked that I bring American goods for them, either. “China has everything,” they said then. As many proudly proclaimed, the 20th century was America’s; the 21st was China’s.

One seldom hears that triumphalist tone today. Instead, the talk is of a loss of confidence and trust in the Chinese government. People remain proud of their city, which now boasts excellent, cosmopolitan food and spotless streets. There are huge new sports centers featuring tennis and paddle-boarding, there is an artificial beach with pink sand. The city is far greener than in years past, too. Magnolia and cherry trees bloom everywhere and even the strips under the freeways have been landscaped. And thanks to the ubiquitous security cameras, Shanghai is spectacularly safe.

Yet below the surface lurks a sense of malaise. In this famously cosmopolitan city, there are weirdly few foreigners compared to before, many having left due to the stifling policies during the pandemic or because international companies have pulled out staff, or other reasons. Clothing shops are empty and many other stores have closed. The Nanjing West Road shopping district, previously a sea of humans, is strangely underpopulated.

Shanghainese are still outraged at having been locked down for two months in the spring of 2022 to stem a surge in Covid-19 cases with little time to prepare. Such were the shortages of essentials that Tylenol was for sale by the pill. And so heavy-handed were even the post-lockdown policies that residents took to the streets in protest .

But for many, the pandemic debacle only capped a series of governmental blunders starting with Premier Li Keqiang urging young people to open their own businesses in 2014. This and other missteps cost wave after wave of people their life savings and many Chinese now blame government ineptitude and erraticism for bringing the economy to a standstill. As a Shanghainese friend put it, the government has turned China around and around until, like spinning cars, people’s engines have stalled and their wheels have locked up.

The result has been so steep and unrelenting a fall in real estate prices that elderly people, like my friend’s parents, can’t sell their apartments to pay for nursing or assisted living. And they are hardly the only ones affected by the downturn. Doctors find themselves squeezed — many patients don’t have money for operations — while businesspeople sit on their hands, unwilling to make investments in so unpredictable an environment. Many college graduates, faced with a grim job market, are essentially dropping out, or “lying flat,” as it’s called in China. Not even schoolchildren, it seems, have been spared the general despondency. As one teacher I spoke to observed, when the society is sick, the children pay the price. Too many parents know a child who has had to leave school because of depression.

Of course, for all of this the West is scapegoated — having opposed, people say, China’s rise — as is China’s other favorite enemy, Japan, whose brutal 1930s invasion and ensuing occupation of China still rankles. (One sequence of a CGI video shown in my recent Shanghai spin class featured huge coronaviruses studded with Japanese temples.)

Whoever is to blame, emigration is on the rise . According to U.N. figures, more than 310,000 Chinese left the country in each of the past two years, a 62 percent increase from the earlier average of around 191,000 per year over the decade through 2019. Those in Shanghai with the means to do so talk endlessly about “running away,” even to officially reviled countries like the United States .

This is not always an answer. One friend of mine has come back to China to stay, having spent six years attending graduate school in Boston, saying she missed the warmth of Chinese family life. And no one has illusions about the difficulty of getting established in another country. People in China speak of a whole new class of emigrants, women who have left high-powered careers to accompany their children to the United States early enough for them to assimilate — ideally, in middle or high school. As for the fruits of their sacrifice, it’s too early to say. Can the children really become Westerners? Will they — like me decades earlier — become the foreigners?

Things in China could change. Those “lying flat” are not asleep. They are watching and could someday rise up. But in the meantime, people in Shanghai are simply, as they put it, “xin lei ”: Their hearts are tired.

Gish Jen is an American novelist and the author of “Thank You, Mr. Nixon.” She is currently teaching at N.Y.U. Shanghai.

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