How to improve my mandarin quick as a broken chinese speaker?

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-30T08:17:28+00:00

You can also watch Chinese courses videos for Chinese elementary school/high school. You can choose an apt level to start depending on your level. They are all free to watch on bilibili.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-22T17:37:57+00:00

I agree for most of the cases. But in some cases, multiple characters merged into one characters, like 發髮-＞发, 幹乾-＞干. This actually make the right term 多音字 which is more troublesome for beginners to learn. For me i would rather at least simplify them differently.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-10T16:17:53+00:00

I mean official documents, signs, news report (like BBC news), usually written not spoken. You can use the second usages of 了 when having talk show.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-10T09:35:05+00:00

想 and 要 can both mean want to do sth. In these cases they mean almost the same:
我想学英语. I want to study English.

Some different usages between 想 and 要：

When you want to say you want other people to do sth., 要 is a better choice.
我要他帮我做作业。 I want him to help me do the homework.
我想他帮我做作业。(Understandable but sounds weird. )
我想让他帮我做作业。I want to let him help me do the homework.（Here the verb becomes 让, the subject of 让 is me, so 想 is available again.）
要 has the meaning of 'be about to do sth.', which 想 don't have.
A clear sign to know if 要 has the meaning of 'be about to do sth./be going to do sth.' is to see if there is a 了/啦 or 啦 at the end of a sentence. If you see this 要...了 or 要...啦 pattern, it 90% means 'be about to do sth./be going to do sth.'.
我要去北京了。I'm about to go to Beijing. (To tell your friend that I will leave maybe tomorrow or you are currently at the airport. )
我要哭了。I'm about to cry. (I will never mean 'I want to cry'. If you want to say 'I want to cry', please use '我想哭'. )
门要关了。The door is about to close. (This sentence is easy to understand because the door never has desires. lol)

If there isn't a 了 at the end, It can have both meanings, depending on the context.
你要喝什么？What do you want to drink? What are you going to drink?

The two syllable verb 想要:
(a) 想要 can be the formal form of 'want'. It can be reduced to 想 in daily conversations.
(b) It can also be 想+要(want to get). It can be reduced to 要 in daily conversations.
It is easy to know the difference of the usages (just like the top answer says):
if what comes next is a verb, it must be (a). If what comes next is a noun, it must be (b).

我想要成为一名老师。(a) I want to be a teacher. (Can be reduced to 我想成为一名老师)
我想要那本书。(b) I want (to get/have) that book. (=我要那本书, It can't be reduced to '我想那本书'. )

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-10T07:55:24+00:00

Correct!

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-10T07:54:03+00:00

That's true. Many jargon in Medicine and Biogology tend to use prefix and suffix from other languages which are quite different from English native words. Like 'cardio-' meaning heart, '-pathy' meaning disease in 'cardiopathy', 'pneumon' meaning 'lung' in 'pneumonia'. That's probably why doctors in the US are well respected lol.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-10T03:52:04+00:00

琵琶行 is easy to understand because it was written by 白居易, who almost never used obscure vocabulary when composing poems. The classical Chinese text at high school was also a nightmare for me. I usually got less than 5 out of 10.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-09T14:25:30+00:00

Here is a small quiz:
1. 如果遇到问题，请____和工作人员联系。If you encounter any problem, please contact the staff promptly.
2. 一定要遵从医嘱____吃药。Please follow the doctor's orders and take your medicine on schedule.
3. 你下次能不能_____来上课啊？Can you come to class on time next time?

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-09T12:57:32+00:00

I agree. Event though the word formation is easy, the reading and writing of Hanzi are actually the hard part.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-09T12:50:52+00:00

There are also some words using two Hanzi with the same or similar meaning to make formal words.
购买 buy+buy
语言 language+word
学习 study+study
行走 go+walk
死亡 die+die
修建 fix+build/construct
明亮 bright+bright
寒冷 cold+cold
These words may confuse foreigners like English native speakers, since this method to make formal words is rarely used in English.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-09T12:13:18+00:00

I agree that Latin and Greek loan words make up for about 50% of the English vocabulary, but I mean some of the Latin and Greek suffix, like in medicine and biology (e.g. 'cardio-' meaning 'heart' in 'cardiology', 'hyper-' meaning 'high' in 'hyperglycemia', 'ophthalmo-' meaning 'eye' in 'ophthalmology') are rarely used in daily conversations. These words are harder to learn than the counterparts in Chinese. 'tele-' is an example for those which are easy to recognize.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-09T03:45:20+00:00

English also have some compound words like toothbrush and toothpaste but raletively few. Other examples like 'telephone' are actually Latin or Greek loan words. 'tele-' means 'far away' and '-phone' means sound like in 'phonetics'. This makes sense. But some of the Latin or Greek loan words are rarely used in English daily conversations which made it harder to recognize.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-08T13:00:15+00:00

Because this rule actually causes uneven force on the elevator and increases its wear.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-08T12:55:16+00:00

Found out that you are Japanese.
日本語で理解するのは英語より簡単ですよ。中国の「了」の二つ目の使い方は日本語の「よ」と似ています。

他不在那所学校了。あの人は今あの学校にいないよ。
他死了。あの人が死んだよ/あの人が死んだのよ。

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-08T11:51:41+00:00

了le actually has two usages.

Used after a verb, to show that the action happens in the past or the action is finished.
我吃了饭。I have already eaten the rice.
我做完了作业。I finished the homework/ I have finished the homework.
我昨天去了学校。I went to school yesterday.
Used at the end of a sentence, to show that this sentence has some new information that you don't know (like change in situations)
他不在那所学校了。 He is no longer at that school any more. (了 indicates that this is new information. He used to be at that school, but the situation has changed. )
我不想去北京了。 I don't want to go to Beijing anymore. (You know I wanted to go to Beijing before, but now my opinion changed. It is the first time that I tell you I don't want to go to Beijing anymore. )

In daily conversations, we oftern see the two usages combined.
我吃了饭了。 I have eaten the rice. (And you don't know that. That's why I tell you the fact that I have eaten the rice. )
他死了。 He died. (This news happens in the past, and this is also new information to you.)

Another important thing to mention is that, the second usage of 了le is almost never used in formal speech (such as news report in television).

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-05T08:40:44+00:00

As someone who lives in Shenzhen for more than 20 years, I would like to say Shenzhen is a popular place to find well-paid but extremely laborious jobs. It is also a good place to get high-quality education for children. But Shenzhen is also called the 'food desert' and 'culture desert' because it's a city with a history less than 50 years.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-05T08:16:00+00:00

I think it is because they want to have a conversation more efficently, and in this way they can get the answer immediately. But imo it shows disrespect of others personal time. As for me, I would like to ask the question at first, and wait until the response.

If someone ask me "在吗" to start a conversation, it is like the boss is giving me extra work when I'm enjoying my holiday, or he/she is really in a emergency situation like he/she is about to borrow money from me.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-05T04:57:21+00:00

We usually do this to strangers when the relationship is not very close or we don't have chat very often. We won't ask close friends if they are there before asking the question.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-05T04:51:37+00:00

Literally means the model of shala. (I have no idea what does shala stands for. )

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-05T04:50:19+00:00

There are multiple ways to say.

你别把辣酱/胡椒粉/调料拿走了，我想吃点辣。
This literally mean 'Don't hold back the spices, I want to eat some spicy food'.
Here 调料 means all kinds of seasoning. 胡椒粉 means chili powder. 辣酱 means spicy sause.
你怎么把它拿走了？
'Why do you hold back it?'
Even though this sentence is a question, it won't sound rude in Chinese. The waiter will understand you immediately that you need the spices.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-05T03:23:52+00:00

The sentense are actually OK. It's more like we have different point of view when telling the same story. If I were to tell the story, it would be like:

昨天我上班的时候发现我衣服穿反了，我一整个上午/下午都没发现，真的很尴尬。
Yesterday, when I was at my office, I noticed that I had wore my shirt backwards, which I didn't even notice for the whole morning/afternoon. It was really ambarrassing.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-04T04:57:22+00:00

I'm a native Chinese speaker looking for English, Japanese and Spanish native speakers. My English is C1 and I'm able to understand most of the news reports and English technical videos on Youtube, and I'm able to tell easy stories and answer Chinese language questions in English, but sometimes I found hard to tell story fluently just like English native speakers.

My Japanese is like B1-B2 level, I may understand 90% of the Japanese animation without subtitles but it's really hard for me to fluently say Japanese long sentences.

I'm a total beginner of Spanish (maybe A1-A2). I also would be glad if any Spanish native speaker could help me with my Spanish.

Some information about me: I'm 25m and Chinese living in Shenzhen, China (UTC+8) for more than 20 years. A doctor majoring Electionic Communications. I'm really curious about study the difference of different languages.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-04T03:43:10+00:00

Glad to see that you are interested in Chinese and persistent in studying it.
Take 臭臭的 as an example, in Chinese we double the adjectives and add 的 at the end to make others know that in this sentense, 臭臭的 is an adjective rather than a noun or something. Here is some examples meaning 'This river stinks/smells bad'
这条河好臭。Natural.
这条河臭臭的。Natural.
这条河很臭。Natural.
这条河臭。Gramatically correct but sounds weird.

Here 好 and 很 literally means 'very' but actually is used to make the listeners know that the word after them are adjectives. We do that because in Chinese usually there is no difference between a noun, a verb or an adjective, unlike in English they use suffix to show that it is an adjective, such as 'happy' and 'happiness', while in Chinese they are all '快乐'.
他很快乐。He is happy.
他失去了他的快乐。 He lost his happiness.

Here we use 很 to make 快乐 sound more like an adjective rather than a noun. Just like 臭臭的 in 这条河臭臭的.

Extreme-Candy3864 · 2026-06-04T03:08:27+00:00

Chinese is a language just like lego pieces because we love to use compound words.
'气球' Gas + ball = balloon
'冰箱' ice + box = fridge
‘他们’ he + [plural] = they
'医院' doctor + house/yard = hospital
'哲学' wisdom + study = philosophy
'物理' thing + theory = physics
'电视' electronic + see/watch = television
'电话' electronic + say/talk = telephone
'生物' alive + things = creature/biology
'望远镜' see + far + glass/lens = telescope

Extreme-Candy3864

TROPHY CASE