Chinese Idiom for a Real-Life Batman

Chinese Idiom for a Real-Life Batman

You don’t see this every day: A real-life batman in a Lamborghini “Batmobile” pulled over on the highway for not having a valid license plate. Though he hasn’t fully followed the law, you can tell that the police in the video rather like Batman. And you know why: because he’s 与众不同 (yǔ zhòng bù tóng). 与众不同 [...]

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Chengyu for China’s Many iPhones

Chengyu for China’s Many iPhones

A Chinese analyst tweeted that Apple CEO Tim Cook was apparently very happy on his recent trip to China. Why? “Because he saw a lot of people on the streets using iPhones.” “There are iPhone3, iPhone4, iPhone4S, as well as iPhone5 and iPhone6. There are [iPhones] with three-inch screens, four-inch screens, five-inch screens, single-screens and [...]

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Chinese Learner Interview Series: Sara Jaaksola

Chinese Learner Interview Series: Sara Jaaksola

In the fourth installment of our Chinese Learner Interview Series, we interviewed Sara Jaaksola of Living A Dream In China. Sara has been a Chinese learner for as far back as her middle school days. What started as an interest, has developed into a full-on passion that has led her to where she is now [...]

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The Hot New Sacrifice for Tomb Sweeping Day: Paper iPhone

The Hot New Sacrifice for Tomb Sweeping Day: Paper iPhone

It’s almost April 4th, meaning that 清明节 (qīng míng jié), aka “Tomb Sweeping Day” is almost upon us. This is the holiday when Chinese people go back to their ancestors’ graves to pay their respects. Traditionally, people burn sacrificial offerings (祭品 - jì pǐn) — like paper money, paper houses, or even paper cars — so that their [...]

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Top 10 Tweets of March

Top 10 Tweets of March

If you follow us on Twitter (@FluentFlix), you may have noticed that we’ve recently gotten into the habit of tweeting various Chinese words, expressions, slang, and idioms, along with a handy definition and example sentence. Essentially, our goal is to share some of the useful, interesting, funny, and of course – relevant, things we bump [...]

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Chinese Learner Interview Series: Jacob Gill

Chinese Learner Interview Series: Jacob Gill

For the third entry in our Chinese Language Learners Interview Series, we had a discussion with Jacob Gill of iLearn Mandarin. The exciting twist on this interview is that Jacob is not only a language learner himself, but an aspiring Mandarin teacher as well. Jacob is currently in the process of earning an M.A. in [...]

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Chengyu For Close Game or Race

Chengyu For Close Game or Race

The Knicks narrowly won their 5th straight game in a nail-biter under their new coach! And Romney seems to slowly be pulling away with the Republican nomination for the US presidency, but things were up in the air for a while. In these types of competitive situations, you can use the chengyu 不相上下 (bù xiāng shàng [...]

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Chinese Learner Interview Series: Benny Lewis

Chinese Learner Interview Series: Benny Lewis

For the second installment in our Chinese Language Learner Interview Series, we’re featuring Benny Lewis of Fluent in 3 Months. Benny is full-time language learning enthusiast who has devoted himself to learning languages effectively, enjoying himself while he does it (gasp!), and sharing his tips, tools and experiences along the way. Benny has tackled numerous [...]

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Hot on Weibo: Top 10 Chinese Pet Phrases

Hot on Weibo: Top 10 Chinese Pet Phrases

Want to know the most used Chinese phrases? It’s your lucky week - the hot topic on Weibo is “What’s your pet phrase?” (#你的口头禅是什么?#) 你(nǐ): you 口头禅(kǒu tóu chán): pet phrase 是(shì): to be 什么(shén me): what The top 10 Chinese pet phrases in all their glory, based on official stats: 10. 没意思(méi yì si): boring. Eg.: “how was [...]

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Chinese Learner Interview Series: Kellen Parker

Chinese Learner Interview Series: Kellen Parker

For the first in our interview series we had a conversation with Kellen Parker of Sinoglot. Kellen is a published linguist with a background in linguistics and philosophy. He spent time wrestling with languages like Albanian and Arabic before coming to China and re-focusing his efforts on Mandarin, as well as more than one Chinese dialect. He’s the [...]

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