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It’s been hectic with travelling so anti and my turtle book have been my friends. I am now on chapter 12 in Tuttle. Revision of husk 1 is complete, Husk 2 and 3 still in progress HSK vocab only at about 50 words in…. Im attending and helping in a wedding this week, so it will likely be more of the same.

Well yeah, that's why I want to read these, to see what these different morals are. Not to sit and condemn them. Many westerners, particularly in literary circles, have a narrow view of what plot should be. Translation isba chore, but I'll never read them in the original, and Pearl S. Buck is good by me. The Good Earth helped me understand so much. I continued with both sequels, and while they weren't as good like everyone said, I still learned a lot about families. It made a great impression on me when Wang Lung's father was sitting on the cardboard box in the sidewalk and thought to himself, I have a son, my son has a son, and afterwards did not trouble himself too much about the affairs of the world. I was like, wow! That's it! That is the win state for Chinese people. It's what they're all working towards. They'd like to get there in more style, but whatever. Dad had what was important in life. Monkey sounds great too, and the 3 kingdoms with English names is an inspired choice. I thought I was a weirdo for that one. Good to know someone was way ahead of me. Thanks for all the help everyone. That's why this forum is so damn awesome, the depth of knowledge of the members.

Much better, in my opinion, to study in Kunming and take a side trip or two at some point to Dali and Lijiang. The logistics of that are apple-pie easy. You will have the benefit of a better selection of teachers in Kunming, and for a first-timer the city itself also has a lot to offer. I lived there most of 12 years and loved it. (Have been to Dali and Lijiang many times.) Here are some things to see and do in Kunming: https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/55348-a-minor-kunming-park-昙花寺公园/ https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/53449-green-lake-park-翠湖公园/ https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/55474-chasing-the-sun-kunmings-daguan-park-大观公园/ More here about one of my favorite spots in Kunming: https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/61588-why-kunming/. You can find other reports in the "Life, work, and study" forum.

This difference is caused by the variations in font styles. It's correct to write the character '的' without the short bar. I attached an image showing the character '的' in a different font for reference.

Well, I'm about 4 months late, but I finally did produce a Chinese language travel vlog documenting my honeymoon. Here is Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNiHyy1KpPM Any feedback both positive and negative is extremely welcome as it will help me when I go to produce Part 2!

Not to invite spoilers, but did I miss a chapter in 張系國's 五玉碟? Because I just started 一羽毛, and it seems like some important action happened in between. If it's not my mistake, that's a really disappointing move on 張系國's part.

的 see the bottom of the left part. The character goes down slightly below the horozontal line for example. If you forget that, is that a fail?

very envious you got to see it before the boom! My favourite of the ancient towns that doesn't seem to have gone the way of 'over-touristification' was Shaxi 沙溪 (or at least it hadnt when we were there back in 2017).

Not to go all hipster, but I visited as a student in the 1990s before it got all touristy and the earthquake that precipitated a rebuild; it was great then and only just starting to become known. It had featured in a UK documentary which is what inspired us to make the trip. Tiger Leaping Gorge the same, just two hippy guesthouses halfway along the trail. Returned with my brother a few years after that but still pre-boom.

I've been to Lijiang a few times and the old town is absolutely very touristy. Throngs and throngs of tourists, souvenir shops, local craft shops, cute coffee shops etc etc. Although my experience (some years back) was that the second you take one turn off the main road, it's suddenly quiet, still just as pretty but without the throngs and the cute coffee shops. And Lijiang is obviously bigger than just the old town, I have no idea what the rest of it looks like but it's probably not nearly as touristy or picturesque. It's been a Unesco Heritage Site for at least twenty years I think, so it feels a bit pointless to me to consider whether it was better before that. Where you should go depends on what you want from your stay. Touristy places are usually touristy because they are pretty or otherwise very attractive, which Lijiang and Dali certainly are. The upside of the commercialisation is that it's easy to find nice restaurants, cute coffee shops and souvenirs for friends and family back home. I haven't spent real time in Kunming, I remember it as mainly a big city, which of course also has its advantages.

paging @abcdefg I loved Dali, but I've heard some people say they didn't like it (for the same reason I didn't like Lijiang) If it was me, I would study in Kunming, then go out on trips to the smaller places

The reason why I asked is that I am planning on studying Chinese in Kunming this summer. The main campus of the school is in Kunming but they also offer other cities to study in. If you study in other cities, the price is higher and does not include food. The Kunming school is cheaper and also includes all meals. Still, the option of spending time in other Yunnan places is very attractive. Not only do they offer Lijiang, but they also offer Dali.

I spent about a week in Lijiang a few years ago and I loved it. I remember the city itself being a little touristy, but the highlight of the trip by far was hiking Tiger Leaping Gorge and staying at the guest houses along the route. I would recommend that experience 1,000%.

I posted a few months back about my experience reading 'All Men are Brothers', Pearl Bucks translation of 水浒传. The story is quite challenging from a modern readers perspective, as it is morally eyebrow-raising and the 'plot' meanders all over the place, more than any other of the classic Chinese novels imo. I think these issues were only exacerbated by reading in translation.

Yunnan is great, but Lijiang was far too commercialised when I visited, everything felt a little too 'traveller industry' to me. It's still worth a visit, just as long as you go with the right expectations

Has anyone visited Lijiang in Kunming province? If so, what was your experience and what did you think? I have read some recent opinions that feel that it was better before it became a Unesco World Heritage Site. Others that said it has become way to commercialized. Any experiences?

I haven't taken part in the exam, but I checked the questions. Yes, I believe that you should rewrite the sentence. They have given examples: 第71-75题 例如：小船 上 一 河 条 有 河上有一条小船。 Which characters? What kind of ticks?

I actually have a few copies of it! Thank you for the suggestion.

If your ultimate goal is to be able to read Classical Chinese, I would recommend studying the classic textbook《千字文》. This textbook was traditionaly used in ancient China to teach Chinese characters to children and foreigners. What a coincidence! You asked the question on the day when we commemorate the invention of the Chinese characters. We celebrate this day as '谷雨'. Therefore, I believe 《千字文》is the right book for you to start with. A book: https://item.jd.com/10050791437300.html.

@Susi12You are welcome! Searching and reading in Chinese must simplify your life considerably.

We did a livestream today on YouTube (it's actually still in progress as I post this) about 金瓶梅, which also includes some info about/an overview of the "big four" 四大名著. Brendan's a great teacher, so it may be of interest to people in this thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cv-H9My5gc

I am booked to do HSK3 next month. I had some questions about the final 10 questions (as they are worth 10 points each). Part 1. to reorder the characters, we have to rewrite every character in the correct order? We cannot just write 312 above the characters to indicate our desired order. Is that correct? Part 2. Writing characters from pinyin, I plan on probably getting 3/5 here. With the strokes how strict are they? Some characters have a little tick at the start of the strok. If I miss those do I get 0 or half points? What exam number did you do in the most recent exam? :)

I hope everyone realizes that The Dream of the Red Chamber is the same novel as The Story of the Stone!

So your information was absolutely correct and perfect. Thank you SO much for this helpful advice. With your help I was able to find the website and make an appointment for next week. ✌️ In English, that is - so I agree that they will have to cope with a lot of foreigners if they even invest in English apps/websites. Well, we are under a bit of time pressure - the company first "slept" a couple of months to now come around and say they need me ASAP please could you be here by June 😆But absolutely yes, I'll go with your suggestion and just give it a try, charge my translator just in case and try to go through on my own. I suspect so Thanks for your feedback. This gives me a little confidence 🙂 I'll let you know how it goes next week. This is funny indeed. The sheep herders being herded themselves... I'll think of that image in the waiting area when I feel like a sheep 🤭

I've been learning Traditional characters in Guilin, Guangxi, and I'm right about to complete the Integrated Chinese series after 8 months of study. The Integrated Chinese books are often used up to the 202 level in American universities, so that may serve as a point of reference. I've been going through the books with a tutor for 4 hours a day during the weekends these last eight months. My goal is to be conversationally fluent and be able to understand people easily, if you're wondering why I'm learning traditional characters in mainland china, my main goal is to be eventually be able to read Classical Chinese, and the schools in China are more affordable than in Taiwan. I'm planning on continuing studying in Mainland China for prehaps the next year and a half? I'd like to avoid any language that is only used in written especially formal Chinese and focus on having a foundation in spoken everyday Chinese first since it's easier to immerse myself whilst living in China. I'm wondering if anyone had any recommendations for any books after this level. Some books I'm considering A Course In Contemporary Chinese: there's a second edition available but I'm a bit confused on what the differences are between it and the first edition, it seems newly released. Across The Straits: the format of this book seems very useful. I like that its just a transcript of two people (beijing, and taipei) speaking to each other unscripted, and that vocabulary lists are provided. The problem is that the books seems out of print and its difficult to buy books online here. If anyone has recommendations for a book similar to this I would appreciate it. Taiwan Today Beyond the Basics NTLU Materials: A lot of these seem to be similar to the format of Across The Straits but quite advanced in level, I don't know which of them is the most fitting for my level Expressive Chinese The Routledge Advanced Chinese Multimedia Course Crossing Cultural Boundaries Books from the Princeton series, not too sure which ones though, they seem to have been gradually switching away from supporting Traditional Characters as well. I've also just been considering exhaustively listening to DuChinese? Making sure I know everything out of the advanced readers, and then move on to one of these or a harder book Thank you.