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Gift for a host? help please!

bluenailvarnish - Today, 06:09 AM in Society

Hey everyone Ok, I'm going to China in a few months and I will be staying with two families for two weeks at a time. I was wondering: What would be a good thank you  gift to give them? I think money may be too crass, so I was thinking some gifts from England (home)? Unless there is another gift you should give them? Is there a standard amount you should spend on a host family etc? I don't want them to think I'm a freeloader!! Apologies if this is already a topic of conversation....
Latest of 0 replies by bluenailvarnish at Today, 06:09 AM.

Online reference to find "vernacular readings" of the components of a Chinese character?

tooironic - Yesterday, 08:07 PM in Chinese Characters

Is there an online reference where I can look up the components of a Chinese character with their "vernacular readings" noted? Let's say I look up 壮 at chineseetymology.org. The reference tells me that the character is made up of the phonetic 爿qiang2, but since what I really want is to be able to explain in Mandarin how to write the character (this is actually a useful skill), the information "爿qiang2" is not terribly practical. Rather, knowing that it is written with a 将字旁 is much more usef...
Latest of 2 replies by imron at Today, 06:10 AM.

Chinese learners/communities on Twitter

sbelous - Yesterday, 07:46 PM in Resources for Studying Chinese

This forum already has a great community and is a growing storehouse of knowledge for Chinese learners. But, does anyone know of any Twitter communities that are similarly awesome? That is, are there any accounts to follow that provide great content based on retweeting their followers' great content? I guess I'm looking for a way to interact with the chinese-learning community via Twitter since it's something I already use and helps keep everything in one place.  Of course, I think forums...
Latest of 0 replies by sbelous at Yesterday, 07:46 PM.

There are two ways to pronounce 3rd tone followed by neutral tone, how do we chose?

chajadan - Yesterday, 06:35 PM in Chinese Pronunciation, Pinyin, and Audio Samples

Hello, When 3rd tone is followed by neutral, I am taught to do a half 3rd tone, followed by a high neutral tone, but sometimes I hear it pronounced like a 2nd tone followed by a a half 3rd. Certain words seem to prefer one over the other, but I found a case where I am given both: http://www.forvo.com...com/word/喜欢/#zh Are there any general rules about which form is encountered where or when? Is this phenomenon something you are familiar with, or are you used to 3rd+neutral sounding the same in all instances?...
Latest of 1 replies by Botterli at Yesterday, 07:18 PM.

Please help us beta test our radical-based Chinese character curriculum!

ABCsOfChinese - Yesterday, 01:42 AM in Reading and Writing Skills

Dear linguists, Sinologists, and students of Chinese: My name is Nic and I’ve been following the community forums here for the past few months. I’m so impressed with the helpful and knowledgeable users here and I would LOVE to get honest feedback from serious students and informed teachers early on in our curriculum development. We already have about 700 users, but I've been quite disappointed with the lack of feedback from users about what they like, don't like, and what they find helpful or changes t...
Latest of 12 replies by ABCsOfChinese at Yesterday, 10:47 PM.

Any information on how to get my girlfriend into America?

Alexander13 - May 20 2013 10:09 PM in Visa Issues

Okay, so I'm going to try to make this short. My girlfriend and I have been together for a while, but my time in China is probably going to end in about a year. Because of this, we're really thinking about our future together because we really don't want to have our relationship cut-off due to immigration laws. We want for her to be able to come to America and see what she thinks, and then possibly stay there with me. What is required to do this? Worth noting is that I'm 19 and she's 22. S...
Latest of 4 replies by msittig at Yesterday, 10:28 PM.

How helpful is SAFEA?

Walkfaster - May 20 2013 01:12 PM in Life, Work and Study in China in General

My employer has been dragging their feet for 9 months on fulfilling the terms in my contract, like getting me health insurance. So last week I emailed them, politely as possible, to tell them to get it done or I would leave at the end of the month. The response to to tell me to wait, and to threaten me by saying "I'll never be able to renew my visa again". Thats' about all I needed to hear from them, so I'm going to file a complaint with SAFEA. But them I did some reading about the real vs f...
Latest of 3 replies by kdavid at Yesterday, 06:27 AM.

Studying in China 2013- too late for a scholarship?

nath - May 19 2013 09:13 PM in Life, Work and Study in China in General

Hey all, I've recently made the decision to learning Chinese for learning months from September 2013. I'm currently a teacher in Guangxi, and have managed to study a fair bit over the last seven months. Still however, I'm still very limited in my vocabulary, and as someone who wants to use Mandarin within journalism, I need to get up to speed. I know I'm too late for the big CSC scheme, but my question is this. Is there any way I can get a scholarship for one semester? My friend directed me to...
Latest of 0 replies by nath at May 19 2013 09:13 PM.

Need some help with my master's thesis

MasterLi - May 19 2013 02:56 PM in The HSK Exam, and others

Hi, I am looking for people to help me out by doing the course I designed for HSK 4 and HSK 5 learners on Memrise. I am studying a master's and writing my thesis on westerners learning Chinese characters, I plan to use anonymised data from the course as part of this thesis. Here is a link http://www.memrise.c...one-characters/, please don't write any mems for the time being. Thanks for your time everyone. If you have any questions about Chinese, university in China or HSK 6  (which I passed l...
Latest of 4 replies by MasterLi at Yesterday, 12:25 AM.

Chinese worksheets for Children

SamODell - May 18 2013 11:45 PM in Resources for Studying Chinese

I worked in China for several years teaching English and it was easy to find 100s of different types of worksheets for use while teaching Children English...now me and my Chinese wife have moved to England and we are struggling to find resources as plentiful as those for teaching English. Does anyone know any sites which share 'for free' worksheets or printouts which can be used for teaching Children Mandarin? Or any other site focused towards teaching children Mandarin which has any resources which mi...
Latest of 2 replies by imron at May 19 2013 06:21 AM.