Hi everyone, I’m currently pursuing a master’s degree in China Studies at Ocean University of China, focusing on Chinese history. My thesis explores Spanish-language sources from the 16th century related to China, so my research doesn’t require extensive use of Chinese. Spanish is my native language. I’m considering continuing my studies with a PhD in history, preferably in Chinese history or global history, at a university in China. I’m particularly interested in English-taught programs, as my master’s is also in English and this is the language I primarily use for research. I would love to hear from anyone who has insights or experiences regarding PhD programs in history in China, especially those taught in English. Could you share information about the application process, the structure of the programs, and any recommendations for universities? Thank you in advance for any advice or details about programs that you can share!  Best regards.

Hello! I had a go at translating this phrase: Selfies in Paris with Li = 与李一起在巴黎自拍 It is for a video title where “Li” is the name of the subject of the video. The goal is for the title to fade from English to Chinese for a dual audience. My understanding is that the first two characters before the dash “与李一” mean “with Li”.  For the Chinese version to read correctly, would two characters “with Li” need to come before everything else or could it read like this: 起在巴黎自拍 与李 so that it matches the English syntax structure: Selfies in Paris with Li And I also would like to make sure the translation itself is clear and makes sense to native speakers. 谢谢

I've had a really great Chinese professor the last two semesters, but this will likely be the last class I'll take with her. I'd like to know a good way to say goodbye. I asked my Chinese coworker and she said it would be weird to say “我会想你", which makes sense as it would be weird to say to a professor in English as well. She then suggested I could say "If the opportunity to take another class comes up, I will take it" or "I learned a lot from this semester's class." However, she said these in Chinese but I can only really remember the English translation. Does anyone know how to say these two things in Chinese I remember that last one was something like "在这个学期课我受很多的.“ Or, what would you suggest saying in this situation?

Quizlet's gravity typing game was world-widely popular. However, it's retired. People are urging Quizlet to recover it:Petition for Gravity https://chng.it/2HM6mm6wXF Failed! Gravity is gone. Anyone know of an alternative? [Quizlet Gravity Alternative ] assiduousnes I wrote up a small tool to use till I find a better alternative: https://dleiferives.github.io/gravity.html. Only works for csv like"die Zeit,Timedas Jahr,Yearder Tag, Dayder Mann,Mandas Kind,Child" PM me if you have any problems.   1 visit https://dleiferives.github.io/gravity.html  2 upload CSV file 3. SET THE Spawn Time 4START   5 REPORT YOUR SCORE AND LEVEL  

Hey all! A few months ago I made a post about living in Beijing studying at Tsinghua and how it was kinda disappointing (damn, it feels like ages ago!). I said i planned to move to Chengdu, and well... I did! I've been here for around 3 months more or less studying at 川大, and damn, I super love it!! It seems like my problem was Beijing after all 😂  😂   Life here just feels so much nicer in pretty much all aspects: the people, the city, the noise, the ambient, the price xD hahaha. I found Chengdu to be an insanely well-planned city, much more than Beijing, everything feels like it was built with a purpose and there isn't a single wasted space in the city. Not that Beijing isn't well planned, but Chengdu clearly learned from decades of Chinese urbanism and it shows. Everything is green (y'all ever seen the 2nd elevated ring road?), there's parks, squares, open gyms, leisure spots and such scattered everywhere. And the city is SUPER dense, you can get everywhere very quickly, "the other side of the city" is like 10km away hahahaha, very different than living in Haidian. There's a little Mahjong bar on my 小区, and since I learned a tad bit of Sichuanese the old men inside absolutely LOVE me 😂 every night where I'm coming back from somewhere they invite me to play   As for the uni, it's pretty great! Leaps and bounds better than the Tsinghua course, who would've thought heh. We have classes every morning (at least in my schedule) and a bunch of electives in the afternoon if you want. We also have a class that I think it's pretty damn fun, we gather the classes and go to touristic spots together around the city and interview locals, we even did a presentation at a 中学! Hahahaha. There's electives about Ba-Shu culture, sichuanese dialect, even japanese as a second language lol! The teachers are really nice and don't really pressure you much, which is a welcome breath of fresh air   My chinese also improved greatly! I suppose that after a level you don't really notice your improvements much and may underestimate yourself a lot (good ol' impostor effect). I left China before classes started for a while and ended up being placed in Beginner II, which I thought was OK. But when classes started... so damn easy!! I was afraid of the Boya Intermediate books because they say you need 3000 words haha, but it ended up being surprisingly easily! One day out of boredom I thought of doing some HSK4 practice out of boredom to see how I was (that was the level I thought I was) and to my surprise I smoked that test 😄. I also took some HSK5 practice exams and got around 50%, which isn't enough, but I think it's quite good for the guy who thought he would need to learn HSK3 material 😆

I was talking with my Chinese coworker, and she brought up that her mom was going to visit her in the States. I wanted to ask her if she was excited, but didn't know how. So, I asked her how to say it in Chinese, and she thought it would be more appropriate to say "你高兴吗？“ I then tried to ask "are you looking forward to see her?" but I asked "are you happily waiting?" (你高兴地等着吗？）. This is very awkward, even in English, and probably more so in Chinese. She also said it sounded very strange. I don't need exact translations for the English sayings, but rather I'd like to know how one would normally respond in this situation.

I just got back from a short trip to the interior of China to a lower-tier city. The kind of place that barely any foreigners live.  As I navigated around town, I was somewhat nonplused by how little reaction my Chinese got.  None of those 你的中文说得很好 remarks I get all the time even here, on the east coast. Nobody reacted at all when I spoke, nobody tried to speak English to me (except one darling little girl in the airport line)  and  it was all completely normal.  It got me thinking, back in the day, speaking Mandarin was something that Chinese people never expected foreigners to do. What's it like today? Do more laowai speak Chinese than in the old days(i.e. approximately  2000-2020)? Where I live I haven't noticed any improvement among the foreigners, it's always the same, most don't, a few can poorly, a small number are quite good.   What's it like out there?

In case you're not aware, I'm the author of Regular Script Graphemics. I've considered doing this for over a year, but I think no matter what I do, I might piss some people off, so here's what happened. If I did things correctly, the first edition will no longer be available soon. Some people who paid for the first edition might be pissed that the second one will be free. Oh well. Don't ask me to send you the first edition while it's unavailable to buy. It's been pirated long ago so if you really want it, you can get it. Here's the plan. Large revisions. I'm pretty unsatisfied with the book. Overall explanations can be tighter. The handwriting is kind of ugly in some places. The cold calls have gotten old and what they aim to achieve can be integrated in a less disruptive manner. The writing also takes a tone that doesn't reflect my current views. Some of the hedging and speculation can be better supported. Some stuff is too long; some too short.  If anyone wants to help in a substantial way, let me know. As some of you might know, I'm currently prioritizing a largely unrelated PhD and would appreciate help from someone who cares about this more than I do. If you help enough, I don't mind putting you as an author. I'll admit I haven't been reading in this area. In my defense, there's so much crap everywhere. I never feel like looking for it. People can also give feedback or suggestions in this thread.   As for why it will be free, the first edition has never made enough sales to get my attention, so my goals would be better served if more people read it. That said, making it free isn't an invalid monetization strategy; some of the most successful products are freemium, but let's not get into that. For now, I'll provide some non-obnoxious method of expressing appreciation for those who want to.   When it's available. I'll probably make a new thread and post a link.

Feeling quite confident in my reading and listening abilities, I decided it is finally time to take an official language test. Since it is significantly cheaper than the HSK, I opted for taking the TOCFL reading/listening test. And because why not, I just went straight for the band C test, which upon passing it, attests a C1 or C2 level depending on the score. After taking the test, I am not too confident that I have passed it though..   I did a detailed write-up of my experience here on my blog for those interested. Has anyone here taken the TOCFL recently? How did it go? I am very curious what kind of score I will get. I would not be surprised to have failed it miserably, but deep down I am also hopeful that some of those gut-feeling answers were correct 😄

Hello! I have a final exam in my Chinese class and I need to present a speech. If anyone could grammar check what I have written I would really appreciate it! Thank you! (also if anyone has any ideas of what to add that would be great)     大家好，  今天我會談談我打工經驗。去年我想找到打工為了賺一點錢。既然我是法律學生，我就想在律師樓工作。   倒是你是學生的時後，可難找到辦公室的打工！我正要放棄，然後我的朋友這就打電話給我，他說《這家餐廳找到服務員！》我非常興奮！   從我的第一天工作起，先我的老闆介紹一下我的同事，等客戶來餐廳，再我请他们点菜。   我還不到一個星期打工，已經我打破了五個盤子了。我真是笨手笨腳！ 老闆罵我，再加上他拿我的小費！服務員各賺各的小費！他小氣得沒話說！   早知道老闆的個性不好，我就沒去打工這裡。動不動就我被老闆叫我走路了。   就是我不打破那麼多盤子，我也覺得我是不好的服務生。。。   我多少學了一點，我不該做服務生！   谢谢大家！