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(yes, really) Currently iOS only, Mac + Android will be coming along later (for a hopefully not quite so ludicrous value of 'later') https://www.pleco.com/2023/11/29/pleco-4-0-beta/

The next several releases will be all about adding new expert entries, and we'll be focusing on getting as many of them done for semantic components as possible, so it's likely that both 冫 and 金 will get expert entries soon. 冫 is an interesting one. First, keep in mind that while 小學堂 is pretty convenient and is certainly better than, say, hanziyuan, it's not super comprehensive and I don't think it's been updated in 15 years or more. Also, different scholars will differ on which forms should go under which characters, as we'll see below. Another thing to keep in mind is that we (paleographers) are often working with very scant data. This field of research is somewhat like forensics—a bomb went off in a room (figuratively) 3000 years ago, and we have to work with what little evidence has survived in order to figure out what most likely happened. I'll start with the entry in 季旭昇《說文新證》 that we based our entry on: So 季旭昇 lists those first two forms under 冫/ 仌 and cites 何琳儀 who says it's the original form of 鉼, while other scholars (such as 董蓮池 in 《新金文編》) take it to be the original form of 金 and list it under 金. Some people list that form under 呂 (and note that 季旭昇 says they share an origin). These approaches are all pretty compatible though, as in any case, it's being taken as a depiction of metal plates. Notice the third form, 勻, which originally referred to a unit of weight—"metal" makes much more sense here than "ice," I'm sure you'll agree. Then there's 冶, which you mentioned, but I think 季旭昇's entry is really interesting so I'll list that too: And then of course there's 冰. Here's 季旭昇's entry: Note that JXS (following the Shuowen) takes 凝 to be an alternate form of 冰. I'd have to spend some time looking into that to be sure, but it's not super important to this discussion. A few interesting things to note about 冰: it's a 會意字, and means "water 水 solidifying like molten copper 冫" (or in simpler terms, "ice") JXS thinks 冫 isn't a sound component for 冰, citing some middle Chinese 反切 spellings. We disagree with him on that (and note that phonology isn't his specialty). That being said, it seems there's still room for discussion here. Note also that JXS doesn't state his opinion strongly here, saying something like "it seems like 冫 isn't suitable as a sound component" instead of an outright "冫 is not a sound component." He's generally pretty careful with his phrasing. JXS says that it seems that 冫/仌 may have been borrowed (假借) or the meaning extended (引伸) to mean "ice" before 冰 was formed, with the 水 added later to form a new character. If that's the case, then by definition (at least the definition we go by, and that laid out in 詹鄞鑫《漢字說略》 which we take a lot of influence from), 冫 must be both a sound component and a meaning component. One key to all of this is to notice that characters with 冫 as a semantic component with meanings related to "metal" all arose during the Warring States period or earlier, while those using it to mean "cold, ice" are later. There's a pretty clear temporal division here between "metal" characters and "ice" characters. So putting all of this together, what seems to have happened is: 冫 originally had to do with metal, whether you see it as the original form of 金 or 鉼, or a derivative of 呂 early characters containing 冫 (such as 金, 勻, 冶) have to do with metal at some point, 冫 was either borrowed for its sound, or the meaning "metal plates" extended, to mean "ice," and eventually lost its association with "metal" either of those is plausible; although we went with 假借 in the dictionary, frost will easily form on metal plates in winter, so 引伸義 is also reasonable 冰 was then created to represent "ice" 冫 having already been associated with "ice," characters created later with 冫 as a component used it for its newer meaning "ice" As with all of our dictionary entries, if more evidence comes to light that makes this analysis untenable, we're happy to change the entry. But JXS's explanation fits the available data quite well, even if we differ with him on a few points. Hopefully this helps to clear it up! Let me know if I missed anything or didn't explain something clearly—our Black Friday sale just ended and I've been sort of cobbling this answer together over the last few days whenever I had a few minutes to spare, so it's probably a bit disorganized.

Completed this book in record time(for me), about 5-6 weeks cover to cover. Felt like an accomplishment as there is zero English or pinyin, and I was able to follow the analysis of all the questions and answers pretty well. This was all review, as I've already taken the HSK 4, though I learned some new vocab that was used for question analysis. My rationale in doing this book was just more repetition or sentence structures and vocab usage. I did 5 complete listening tests, plus 2 hours of audio breaking down listening questions into categories like "place questions", "attitude questions" etc. Also read every tape-script. 3.5 hours of audio with this book. Completed the writing section as well with broke the questions down by grammar type and included 6 practice tests with answers/sample answers. Not the most exciting book in the world, but certainly some good review. Next up is HSKK Intermediate. This will again be review, as I've already taken and passed the HSKK Inermediate. However, I took the speaking test with almost no specific test preparation, so I think this will be even more useful for when I take the HSKK again along with HSK 5 test sometime in the future. Over 4 hours audio with this book, and I'm looking forward to hearing the sample speaking answers/photo describing. I'm going to try and knock this one out in the same amount of time, around 5-6 weeks. Along with this, I'm still working my way through Kubler (on unit 15 of 24). Current study schedule: 1. Kubler Intermediate Spoken and Practice 2. HSK 1-4 Vocabulary Master 3. HSKK Intermediate Fun: Chairman's Bao 《幸福的方向》 (kind of sappy soap opera, but language is easy enough to follow quite well. Random Youtube videos Various books

參觀了你們的學校，並看了你們的文藝晚會，感到非常愉快和興奮。你們的歌聲是反映了你們愛好和平和幸福生活的熱情。聽到你們的歌聲，已在朝鮮為世界和平而鬥爭的中國人民志願軍也一定更增加鬥爭的熱情。 我們願回國之後報告給中國青年們，讓他們以你們作為他們學習的榜樣！ 希望你們大家好好學習，每一個人都是史大林同志的好學生，為建設共產主義美麗的生活而奮鬥！ 中國和蘇聯兩國青年的親密友誼萬歲！ 中國作家代表團 一九五一 十月十四日晚

It happened again the other day. I was out of my house waiting for a taxi, and this ayi wanders by and shoves a paper in my face. She's looking for an address in Chinese. Luckily for her I can read, and especially I can read the address of my own apartment complex. She's even going to my building. I pointed her towards the north gate, just across the way, and she thanked me and went on her merry way. It just amuses me to think that this lady thought that a laowai, of all people, could help in this situation. It's not the first time it's happened, either. One time this fellow stopped me on my e-bike and asked me where to find the south station. I was like, buddy you are really in the wrong part of town and told him where the fast train station was. Then it slowly dawned on me that I was on Train Station Boulevard and that they used to call the slow train station the south station (this caused no end of confusion back in the day). I circled back around and sure enough the same man was still walking, directly away from the train station. It was a hot day and a long walk, so I told him to hop on and I'd take him right there. It was a straight shot down the boulevard and I dropped him off at the entrance. He tried to pay me ¥20 for the black taxi ride, but I told him to pay it forward. It still boggles me today that there were plenty of Chinese people around to ask, but he stopped me (back before helmet laws so I rode around totally exposed back then). I mean, what are the odds the laowai can even speak, much less know enough about the area to know your destination, much less know how to get there. It's just charming. It's not like this happens often, especially in this age of smartphones and Baidu Maps. But it still makes me smile whenever it does.

Appreciate the experiences and the thoughts you share. I'm a Chinese from Henan(河南) and currently woking in Chengdu for two years, for me I go to work after wake up, and go home to sleep, don't have much time to hang around, maybe just because I'm too lazy, there are times when I was asked for directions and truth be told, I totally have no idea where it is. The only places I know is where I work and where I live. So maybe next time when I got lost I'll try to find one of you laowai to ask for directions.😜

I can remember this happening at least twice in beijing. One time I was walking down a hutong near wear I live and a woman looking for an address asked me in Chinese if the hutong goes through. I told her it did and helped her find the number she was looking for which was very near. The other time a woman asked me if there was a copy shop nearby. There was one in our community, so I directed her to it. Just a couple of weeks ago I was walking out our parking are and a guy yelled out his window “你能不能帮我一下? ”, I looked into the window and asked him what help he needed, he said he didn't realize I was a 外国人。 I said that maybe I could still help him, he asked me in Chinese to direct him out of the parking spot so that he didn't hit a nearby (parked) car. So of course I helped him. I agree, it doesn't happen much, but it makes you feel of a sense of belonging when it does.

连词成句. It's a tin with a big deck of small cards. On the 195 cards are various words, with duplicates of important ones like 我，你 and the like. There is pinyin with tone marks. You play the game by dealing each player ten cards. Six community cards are dealt, as in Texas Hold'em. Each player plays in sequence to make a coherent sentence. If a player cannot play, he must pass. The first player to empty his hand wins, and scores points according to the number of cards still in the other players' hands. It's a great game! I played it the other day with my buddy. It teaches you real dang fast about word order. There are a few wild cards in case you get stuck, and you also learn that conjunctions are the most valuable cards. You also learn some vocabulary that your textbooks didn't bother to teach you like 偶尔 and 参观. It's meant for parents to play with Chinese six year olds so if a word is important enough for them to know, it's important enough for you to know. Also, you can win against native speakers! It's very encouraging when that happens. I'm gonna stick it in my e-bike and next time there's nothing to do at the bar I'll whip it out. Good party game, small footprint, cheap so don't care if the cards get trashed by spilled drinks or riffle shufflers, players can easily join or leave the game, only need two to play but can go past the recommended six, and who even cares about the score? Lots of laughs as you make ridiculous but grammatically correct sentences. Kind of like Mad Libs. https://buyertrade.taobao.com/trade/detail/tradeSnap.htm?spm=a1z09.2.0.0.7a0b2e8d1RT7lK&tradeID=2019170280796022575&snapShot=true

I just finished 迴響 by 東西 (aka 田代琳). It's labeled as a murder mystery novel, and it is one of the winners of the 2023 Mao Dun Literature Prize. Chinese readers of murder mysteries (i.e, 推理小說) have told me in the past that there are few successful Chinese examples of the genre, and that most Chinese who like murder mysteries read translated ones. The protagonist is 冉咚咚, a 41-year-old professionally successful female police detective who is investigating the murder of a rich guy's mistress. Parallel to the murder mystery plot is the unravelling of the protagonist's marriage, which seems to be driven by a.) the protagonist's paranoia and extreme shit testing, and b.) the fact that her literature professor husband seems to have no backbone in dealing with her. Some observations about the novel: 1. It is less corny/hokey than Japanese murder mysteries that I've read in Chinese (e.g., those by 東野圭吾). 2. IMO, it's not really a 推理小說. I say this because all of the case-breaking turning points unfold not based on details that were previously dangled in front of the reader, but because of new information and characters that are suddenly presented just as parts of the case break open. To me, foreshadowing and prediction of who dunnit are part of the reader experience of this genre, and if those elements are lacking, then it doesn't really adhere to the genre. I think it causes a lack of suspense. 3. I also don't think the secondary plot regarding the protagonist's marriage is all that profound or riveting. It covers some themes like the passion in a marriage declining after having a child, and what I'd interpret as a husband being too much of a nice guy toward his career-driven wife for the marriage to stay healthy. But I didn't think these themes were constructed with prize-winning skill. 4. Language-wise, the book is not particularly hard. Unlike a lot of Chinese fiction, the writer does not do the obligatory, lengthy (and pointless? 😅) exposition of scenery or whatever at the start of every chapter. If you can read 平凡的世界 or 活著, then this book won't be too hard for you. You'll learn more vocabulary about police investigations and psychology. One thing that seems a bit different about the book is that back and forth dialogue is frequently presented within one paragraph, with no quotation marks, and frequently without marking like 他/她說... . I can't recall any other Chinese novels I've read that didn't follow a dialogue format similar to that of English novels, where each speaker's turn in the dialogue is bracketed with quotation marks, and where each speaker's turn tends to get it's own paragraph. This peculiarity forced me to slow down my reading in some places. 5. In order to not spoil the plot for anybody who might read the novel, I'll just say that the murder turns out to be a conspiracy. One could interpret the author's decision to construct the murder as a conspiracy as some sort of social commentary on outsourcing/sub-contracting. But to anybody who knows anything about actual murder cases, and to anybody who is into reading true crime, the conspiracy in this novel just seems contrived and implausible. Other than 平凡的世界, this is the only novel I've read off of the Mao Dun Literature Prize winner's list. I liked 平凡的世界, but I'm less impressed by 迴響.

The 1st row on left "甲申" is represents a certain year, it could be the year 2004 or 1944 or 1884, every 60 years has a 甲申年, 韋小忠書means "wrote by Wei Xiao Zhong". Then the next row "行健君子自强不息" is from《易经》(The book of changes), which was written maybe 3000 years ago, but the original text is "天行健君子以自强不息", which means "As the heavens move, the noble-minded strive for self-improvement without ceasing." I don't know why the author misses 2 characters, but to me, this writing doesn't make much sense.

Just finished 我曾走在崩溃的边缘, which is the autobiography of Yu Minhong, founder of a large education company in China called 新东方. In the beginning (1993), he taught students how to pass English exams so that they could go to foreign countries and attend foreign schools. He tells the story of all the crazy things that happened along the way as he expanded his company. For example, he was robbed and almost killed at one point. He also got into a huge legal fight with the American ETS (Educational Testing Service), who sued Yu for an enormous amount of money because they didn't want Yu's company reusing their old exams for practice; ETS likes to recycle the same questions every year and change them only slightly (which, honestly, also annoys a lot of Americans). Yu offered to pay the ETS fees and enter into a strategic partnership, but they refused. After discovering that their exams were going to be pirated anyway, with or without Yu, they gave up and decided to partner with him after all. He also had a difficult time dealing with local government officials, police, and competitors who were concerned that he was taking away their business. What really stands out about the book is the bluntness of the author. Extremely 坦诚. Holds nothing back. Upon discovering that his company could only continue to grow if it stopped being family-operated, he went through the drama of firing his entire family from the business. He ruthlessly evaluates his subordinates, his friends, and himself. In order to expand into the New York Stock Exchange, he realized he needed to hire a Chinese-American executive. He found someone he liked and wanted to hire, but he and the board of directors held a heated argument about whether he was "too ugly." Ultimately, the book was really plain and readable, and it was interesting to read about the strategic decisions that went into building and expanding a large company. As someone who is not a billionaire CEO, it's a new perspective for me. His advice is to be a life-long learner, don't settle into a comfort zone, take care of your health, and be transparent/straightforward in your dealings with people. Overall, I liked the book. I also finished 汉字就是这么来的, only to find out that it's part of a series that consists of 6 books. So I purchased the whole set (the priciest purchase I've ever made on WeChat), and I'm about to finish volume 2. The first volume shows you how Chinese characters are made, the different kinds of Chinese characters, etc. It makes a lot of use of ancient sources and poetry, and it traces the evolution of characters through each of the major revisions (甲骨文，金文，篆书，隶书，楷书，等等). The next 5 books simply explain a wide range of characters--animals, people, plants, food, geography, etc. There are a lot of nice illustrations, and even when the book makes use of ancient literature, it almost always translates it into modern Chinese prose, which I really appreciate. The book is actually aimed at school-aged kids, but it's surprisingly challenging to read, because of the archaic subject matter. Next, to return to fiction, I'm going to try a famous book called 一地鸡毛 by 刘震云. I don't know much about it, but it looks like it might be good! Prompted by my exchange with @lordsuso above, I'm emboldened to read my Jin Yong books before too long.

I would also be intimidated to start such a long series, that's why I chose a novella first (白馬嘯西風 sits at ~60k hanzi, for reference 活着 by 余华 has ~80k). But if you've read 45+ books my guess is that you are over-qualified haha (this was my 6th book). It wasn't my first wuxia book however, reading two Gu Long novels beforehand probably helped. The tricky part is that the problem wasn't the vocabulary, so I couldn't rely on the pop-up dictionary to get unstuck like I usually do, I actually had to use the translation tool quite often to get a sense of what a sentence meant and try to parse it from there (often unsuccesfully). But after the initial warm-up pages it was an enjoyable read.

That's quite a feat! Very flowery language and lots of literary allusions. Ge Fei may be a good writer but he is really really bad at math 😂. These are my proofreading notes:

Hello all, Quite big and good news for the forum. It's been clear for a while I'm not as engaged with the forum as I used to be. For some time I've thought I should pass the site on to another willing steward to, hopefully, keep it up and running until the http protocol is finally retired. I did sound out a few folk about this, but the people who immediately came to mind weren't keen. During October's set of recurrent outages, I got an email from Mike Love of Pleco, saying that if I was having trouble managing the site he'd be willing to take it over. This seemed like a good solution to me - Mike's been around for ages, he's always been a valuable contributor, and he's got the technical skills to keep things running smoothly behind the scenes (which, as we've seen, I lack). There's no money changing hands - the site doesn't owe me anything and I'm glad it'll be in a safer pair of hands. So the plan would be that in the next month or two we'll shift the site onto Mike's own hosting and he'll start taking over the management. I'll be around for a while to come, but will be in more of a "Oh, that breaks because in 2013 I..." and "I know them, they've been trying to post on here since 2008" role. There won't be any major changes you'll notice (except perhaps good ones like the site working more reliably). At some point I'll hand in my admin badge and demote myself to member, which I'm actually quite looking forward to - I think I might visit more if I'm not in charge of the place. There's obviously a bit more to say in the near future, not least some thanks for both your patience (which was appreciated) and your impatience (because it shows you love the place) recently, and a grateful salute to the mods who keep things ticking away behind the scenes. But I'll leave it at that for now. Chinese-forums.com万岁！ Roddy

Just finished 骆驼祥子, and...I must confess that it was way better than I expected it to be. One of my favorite aspects of the book is that it contains an afterword, written by Lao She himself, about how he wrote the story. He says that he's personally quite satisfied with it, he put a lot of work into it, and he feels good about showing it to the world, basically. And that really shows. He did a lot of research, even asking a friend to help teach him some phrases in the old Beijing dialect so that he could insert them in the book and make it feel more authentic. And I think that's the most painful part--there was a scattering of places where I just couldn't understand what was being said. A lot of words weren't in the Pleco dictionaries I own, and even when they were, Pleco had them labeled as "dated" or "literary." That's not to say that the book is extremely hard. Lao She's writing is, famously, quite simple and unadorned. But I'd say that the old dialect is prevalent enough to be a bit of an annoying encumbrance. I typically spend 5-7 minutes reading a page of a Chinese book, depending on how difficult it is. This book slowed me down to 8 minutes. One of the most interesting parts of the experience was reading along with WeChat community notes, discovering what native Chinese speakers think about the book. Surprisingly, many of them had trouble understanding parts of the book, too. Just a lot of, "Who was this character again, and what role does he play in the story? I can't remember." Or, "What on earth does this phrase mean?" When I struggle to understand a book as a language learner, I'm very quick to place all the blame on the fact that I'm a non-native reader. But actually, reading can be a challenge for natives, too. People's explanatory comments helped me understand a lot of things and gave me food for thought. Even so, the book was otherwise readable, quite beautiful in its depiction of certain scenes, deep and scholarly, and interesting in its plotline. The main character, Camel Xiangzi, is a rickshaw puller who wants nothing more than to buy himself a new rickshaw (rather than renting one from others), but he never seems to have enough money to do so. He lives in horrible poverty and constantly faces setbacks and disasters. Because of his singular desire to hoard more money and use other people for his own benefit, he plays the role of an unlikeable loser, as though Lao She is saying, "Don't be like this guy." It's a really dark novel that reminds me a little bit of Yu Hua's "To Live," except in that story, I think Fugui becomes way more relatable. But anyway, that's no accident--Lao She deliberately wrote the character that way, and he tells a really engaging story. To sum it up, I'd say that if I were the kind of person to read novels more than once (and I'm not), then I would probably read this one again! It's a rewarding book if you approach it with patience. Now I am moving on to 我曾走在崩溃的边缘 by 余敏洪, which is an autobiographical work about an entrepreneur who started a famous education company in China called "New Oriental." Along with that, I'm reading a very short and fun book, apparently aimed at kids: 汉字就是这么来的 by 孟琢. I am interested in learning the basics of how Chinese characters came to exist.

I previously got the sense that in some parts of China at least, people are likely to ignore strangers asking for directions. Maybe a laowai is seen as a soft touch.

ONS says "Family visas: Family accounted for 6% of non-EU long-term immigration in 2022, with an estimated 51,000 arriving for family compared with 62,000 in 2021." That's obviously offset by some leaving: "Family accounted for 16% of non-EU long-term emigration in 2022, with an estimated 42,000 leaving for family, compared with 29,000 in 2021." It's hard not to see it as a 'tough on immigration' stance, rather than actually being tough on immigration.

Ha. Six years later, they're almost doubling the salary requirement, to £38k+. That's a few grand above median earnings for the UK, and an even bigger ask if you're not going to be in London/south-east. Utterly appalling.

There was a very good film made from this, too, if memory serves; you might want to look it up. Can't remember the details right now, but it used to be easily available online (in one tube or the other...).

Most part of it comes from an essay by Han Yu (768-824) of the Tang Dynasty The essay is title "About/on Dragon" You can find more here: https://tangdynastypoetry.com/han-yu-on-dragons-with-english-translations/

I'd be wary of anything that could sound like it's been memorised for use in any situation. You're kind of reminding me of the kids I used to IELTS tutor who'd end up saying things like "The issue of where I like to go on holiday is a hot topic of debate in Chinese society and there are many opposing viewpoints to consider."

E-mailing is usually not the best way to reach a Chinese person or organisation, unfortunately. I assume you've studied their website? Perhaps also the Chinese part, with machine translation (not perfect, but should give you a good idea)? Is there any way to contact them on WeChat perhaps?

As a native Chinese I would say your teacher is right, your draft seems too formal, though your grammar and sentence is correct, but when we speak to each other, we don't speak like this. You should remove this part for certain, because only a YouTuber or video maker would say this. It's weird to say this at the end of an exam.

Peking University is the top University in China, it may receive thousands of applications each year. Good luck with your application. As for your major, you should make a career plan and see what major matches most with your career, one way is to look up the recruit website and see what the position you are interested requires.

It told you to contact the seller and get refunds if you are not satisfied with the goods you bought until Dec 5th, 2023.

该订单在2023-12-05 04：02之前处于纠纷保护期，如需退款，请引导买家通过纠纷退款 "This order will remain in the dispute protection period until 04:02, 05/12/2023. If you need to refund, please tell the buyer to go through 'refund dispute' channel" Here's a machine translation: "The order is in dispute protection period before May 12th, if you need to refund, please guide the buyer to refund through the dispute" Its pseudo-legalese, don't ask me what a dispute protection period is, or what the refund dispute means.

@Dlezcano Here's the expert info you need, following the source given for this entry by Outlier (季旭昇《說文新證》): 季旭昇 believes that 冫 is a related form of 吕. Outlier's entry for 吕 is 'two copper plates'. 何琳儀(《戰國》156)“甲骨文作呂，像兩塊銅鉼之狀，鉼之初文". ("Oracle bone script writes 冫as 吕, looks like two pieces of copper plate, the early version of the character for 'melt metal together' (鉼). There is only one source given for this theory. 季旭昇 then goes on to suggest that if 冫really was first 'metal plates', it was probably borrowed later for its meaning or its sound in characters like 冰, 冬 and 冶. It may be a phonetic in 冰, as the early pronunciation of 冫 may have been something like 'ying' (bear in mind the original gives 反切, so difficult to say what the actual intended pronunciation would have been). It may have been a meaning in 冬, indicating the 'fusion' of water together to form ice. Here's the issue. Why is it more probable that the two dots represent metal plates and not water droplets? Surely water droplets are more likely to have been put into the script at an early stage, then borrowed to show the melting of metal, a much more complex process. Note that Outlier follows 季旭昇, suggesting that 凝 'to condense' takes its 冫from 'smelt' (note, 'smelt' actually being different from 'melt') and 冫 was only later borrowed to mean 'ice'. I have to say, I am not convinced with this theory - its one of those dodgy ones you sometimes come across in 《說文新證》 which leaves you wondering why you should trust some pretty tenuous conjectures. Presumably the best thing to do would be to seek out a copy of 林清源《戰國“冶”字異性的衍生與制約及其區域特徵》，《香港中文大學第二屆國際中國古文字學研討會論文集續編》,1995 if you really want to make a more informed judgement. Unfortunately it appears this book has not been digitised and is only available in some physical libraries in HK. Anyway, hope this answers your question. I attach a snapshot of an early version of 冶 with the 《說文新證》 explanation for the components.

Maybe the add-on isn't installed? Check "Add-ons" / Features - even for the free demo one with a few dozen characters, there's still a file involved and that file might have gone missing. (can download the demo version by tapping anywhere outside of the 'buy' button and then 'download demo version')

Exquse me, i cant say weather its mandarin or not. I study in Yasnaya Polyana school. During USSR times here was an orphanage. People all around the globe were coming here, some were writing somethnig in a guestbook, which is now located in out school museum. Ive examined it a little and found this. Can you please translate what is written here if its possible?

That's fantastic @Publius, and what a time capsule. The volunteers in Korea and Stalin's good little students.

I have intentionally choosen a "dramatic" headline - I don't think there is a really chance to experience a bore out in Shanghai but well - let me explain. First of all, this is an absolute luxury problem. I am "stuck" in a suburb of Shanghai being a pampered expat-wife. I was supposed to work here, but when we arrived in Shanghai my job got canceled last minute. There are a lot of wifes here (unfortunately, it's always the guys working) but I haven't found something something smart to occupy myself with, apart from writing (unsuccessful) applications and learning Chinese. I'm quite fed up with the expat community because all the wonderful ladies seem to do here all day is care for their kids, cook, decorate the house and personal beauty. Unfortunately, apart from caring for my kids, neither of these hobbies are for me and I feel exceptionally bored. I never felt bored before in my life. I'd rather work but finding work is slow and hard as a foreigner. Also, the following things complicate exploring life in the city: - I have a 6 month old baby I have to take with me anywhere (can only be apart from him max. 2h) - we live 1 h from the city center in one of the beautiful but outlying suburbs Again, I know this is an absolute luxury problem but still I somehow feel I don't fit into this rigid pattern of stay-at-home-expat wife and just want to break out. I try to learn 4 h of Chinese every day but this alone is a lonely hobby. Tell me, what would you do in this situation with all your free time in Shanghai?

This comment is interesting to me, because I have a four-volume set from Jin Yong waiting on my bookshelf (射雕英雄传), and though I've improved my reading skills significantly (by working through about 45 books at this point), it's always looked intimidating. I always tell myself I'll get to it later! The language seems very stylish and not much like "everyday" modern Chinese. But if it's easier than it at first seems, that's encouraging!

After wanting to for a long time, I finally subscribed. I was kind of waiting until I was working on Hsk 5 since I feel like that's where news kicks in, though I see it's graded from Hsk1 up. My Du Chinese subscription ended a while back and I prefer reading non-fiction and news, so decided to take advantage of the Black Friday discount and go for CB. Love it so far. I'm glad to see that these are current, real news stories that are graded, rather than "made up news stories". For example yesterday I read an article about lockless sharing bikes, and while I've used those many times, I never realized how to distinguish them from a distance(the ones with yellow baskets). So today when I saw one I ran the story back though my mind. Also cool that you can download the mp3s and re-listen to review. Post story exercises are good too.

Hello, do you have any plan for releasing the expert version for 冫? Nowadays you are stating that it represents two metal plates, something you can see in the character 冶. However I searched for some info on Chinese sources like 小學堂, which shows that it's original form is related to 仌. But i could not find anywhere anything similar to the two dots besides in the 麥方鼎 and 利簋 forms of 金 (by the way this is another important component that also doesn't have an expert version). Also I can't see why most of the meanings for 冫 are related to "cold" while only one (as far as I know) is related to metals. Thank you and keep on doing your great work.

Here is a recap of 3 short books I've read in the past weeks: - 聚散兩依依 by 琼瑶: A romance novel by Qiong Yao. I can't say I enjoyed this one. Qiong Yao is great for learning (in particular the way she spams adjectives) but I think this will be my last book of hers. Her books are interesting for the cultural insights surrounding love and family, but this one was just too soap opera-ish for me. - 白馬嘯西風 by 金庸: A wuxia novella by Jin Yong. Not as hard as I expected. The vocabulary wasn't really a problem, the only minor issues were the longer sentences (compared to Gu Long) and some words used in a secondary meaning I wasn't familiar with (但 meaning only instead of but, 便 as 就, 那里 as 如何, etc.). I don't know how much harder his novels are, but I think I'll give it a year or so until I read one (書劍恩仇錄 most probably) to have a smoother experience. I don't know how to describe it, but the prose is closer to what I had envisioned before starting reading in Chinese, Gu Long and particularly Qiong Yao felt more familiar, closer to Western prose. Other than the beautiful ending, I absolutely adored the first half of this novella, which focuses on the setting and characters, the second half is more action-heavy and the plot becomes a bit messy. - 秃鹤不是一只鹤 by 曹文轩: A short story for kids by Cao Wenxuan from the collection 草房子, which contains 9 stories that share characters and setting. A very heartwarming story with vivid characters, but in the end not the most engaging read for adults. Still I might read another story in the future, it's very good for learning. I wanted to read 活着 by 余华 next, but I can't escape Gu Long's pulpy charm, so I picked up 血鹦鹉 by 古龙/黄鹰: A wuxia-horror novel by Gu Long, although apparently most of it was written by another author called Huang Ying. This is the first book in the 驚魂六記 series, and from what I've heard 吸血蛾 (and to a lesser degree 黑蜥蜴 and 无翼蝙蝠) are also worth checking out. Like the title says, it's about a parrot made of blood that grants three wishes. So far it's as fun as I expected. The next books I want to read: 活着 by 余华 金刚经说什么 by 南怀瑾: Non-fiction book explaining the Buddhist diamond sutra. 病毒 by 倪匡: My first attempt at science-fiction. 舍不得看完的中国史 by 渤海小吏: Non-fiction history book.

i assume you don't care about the flash card functionality then? and just want known/unknown words to be marked? if so, i've recently come across Lute which is a free open-source alternative. Introduction - Lute manual (jzohrab.github.io) unfortunately it has some hurdles for the non-techies. but not too difficult. also can't use it on phone

This is not really complicated anymore: https://forum.lingq.com/t/how-do-i-canceldelete-my-account/6877 You still do need to downgrade first and then you can cancel. The reason is that too many people had second thoughts and asked Lingq a couple of months later if they could reactivate their account and restore their data. While Lingq was somewhat poorly responsive to user's requests, they have massively improved their system and interaction with users since Covid. Lingq never had much of a fanbase here and I have no incentive to advertise it here. However, there are a lot of students of Chinese on Lingq that are seriously amazing/gifted and it is great to learn from them.

I recently switched from using an old jail-broken kindle Paperwhite to a Boox android tablet. I had been using the Koreader application on my kindle for over a year so i carried on using that. It's super customisable, and has great dictionary support and can segment Chinese words in sentences for better dictionary lookup. It also comes with a built in "vocabulary builder", which is a flashcard system for words you look up in the dictionary. I'm also a big fan of the detailed reading statistics that it provides. I highly recommend Koreader for reading apps in either Chinese or English. I would never read on a device that doesn't support it.

Collection of 30 University Bookmarks 5块 (including shipping 😃)

It has always been unavailable there. It sold well in Taiwan and Hong Kong when it came out, but the bookstore where it sold best of all was the Hong Kong airport bookstore. (Or so I've been told.) I finally joined the 平凡的世界 club, finished volume 1 yesterday. What a pleasant read. It was easy to put down after a chapter and pick back up again some time later. No plot in the Western sense, but the ongoing lives of the various characters. Some bad things happen, it being the later years of the Cultural Revolution, but no life-destroying stuff, everyone picks back up again and just tries their best. You end up rooting hard some some characters and some pairings, but even the 'bad guys' have their sympathetic parts, they may have serious character flaws but they're not evil. I was a bit worried the volume would end on a cliffhanger, but it didn't really. I need to read some other things first now, but it'll be nice to pick up volume 2 some time in the future. I bought the whole set something like ten years ago, read a few pages and concluded that I could learn a lot from this if I read it with dictionary & SRS. I now read it with very little dictionary lookup, and it was nice to find proof that I have learned a word or two in the intervening time.

I wanted to mention a couple of books I've read this year that I thought were interesting and pretty readable. 落葉歸根 by 嚴君玲: The writer was born into a well-off Shanghai family before WWII, and her mother died shortly after her birth. Her father remarried to a stereotypically nasty, manipulative stepmother, and the author grew up being kept at arms length by her father. The family moved to HK around 1949, and the academically gifted writer was eventually able study medicine in the UK. She returned to HK where she practiced briefly, but she eventually went to the US where she continued to practice medicine, and where she married badly, divorced, and slowly, yet in my opinion probably not completely, unpacked the emotional baggage of growing up in a pretty toxic family. The writer actually wrote this book in English first, and then translated it herself into Chinese. I wonder how many Chinese who have settled overseas, even intellectuals, stay sharp enough in Chinese to translate their own English work into Chinese. The Chinese version is well-written, and seemed to sell well in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the mainland. 大江大海一九四九 by 龍應台: The author is of course a really well known public intellectual in Taiwan, and was so during her time in Hong Kong a few years ago. She has been pretty widely read on the mainland, but some of her titles, including this one, now seem to be unavailable there. In any case, this book tells the stories of the author's family along with many others as they experience the end of WWII, civil war, and then fleeing to Taiwan. The narrative includes a lot of oral history from different kinds of people, including school children, nationalist soldiers, and even a couple of Taiwanese guys who grew up under Japanese colonialism, were conscripted into the nationalist army, and then ended up on the mainland for a few decades after the conclusion of the civil war. The book is a good example of journalistic metahistory. It seems a bit too ambitious in what it tries to do, but the stories are nonetheless moving, and as a whole, I think it provides a good sense of waishengren experience pre- and post-exile.

To abide by the sub-forum heading... I just finished reading Ge Fei (格非)'s "Peach Blossom Paradise" (《人面桃花》), I wanted to read it in Canaan Morse's English translation but by the time it arrived to my door, I had finished reading the Chinese - which turned out to be much more direct and clear than I thought, though still needing plenty of dictionary help. The story takes place just after the 100 Days Reform of 1898 by the young Qing Emperor, which Empress Dowager Ci Xi crushed with a military coup. The story doesn't deal with the historical events, but with their reflection, effects and after-effects in a remote rural location. To me, it was one of the most engaging contemporary Chinese novels that I have read so far, it kept me reading well into the night. The plot is complex and full of twists, the characters are lively and nicely drawn, the events happen on the edge of realism without turning into fantasy. The story has several layers of meanings, a critique of idealism - or failure of - at its core. More and better about it here: https://eastasianliteratureintranslation.com/2023/06/30/peach-blossom-paradise-by-ge-fei/ This is the first novel in Ge Fei's Jiangnan Trilogy. I started a few pages of the 2nd book "My Dream of the Mountain and River" (山河入梦), but it didn't appeal to me. The third in the Trilogy is "Spring Ends in Jiangnan" (春尽江南), 2011, but I have moved on to read stories from previous issues of 当代 Magazine (qq-weread has many). Currently reading 橘颂, a novella by Zhang Wei (张炜) in vol.5 of 当代. 橘颂 is the name of a ginger cat, one of 2 main characters in the story, it's also the title of a poem in the Songs of Chu (楚辭): "Eulogy to the Orange" - seems very much a story I will like.

Not sure this is a good place for this post, but it's probably something that may interest active readers Chinese literature. I asked Bing to list the winners of the 2023 Mao Dun Literary Prize: Glad to see the Forum back. Thanks @roddy!

My Chinese study (not including listening practice, which I do casually throughout the day) has averaged about 2-3 hours a day for the past 5.5 years, so I've likely invested around 5,000 hours, with maybe around 3,000 hours consisting of reading books. I was curious about what my numbers look like now, so I timed myself reading a newspaper article with 1,416 characters in it (not including punctuation, numerals, English words rendered with English letters, etc.). While trying to be efficient and focused, and not rushing too much, I took almost 9 minutes. 159 CPM. I think a year or so ago, I was getting numbers closer to 125 CPM, so that's a nice improvement. Reading the same article in English took me about 3.5 minutes (the equivalent of what 408 CPM would be in Chinese, or around 250 WPM), and I'm not even a very fast reader. My Chinese reading is about 2.5 times slower than my English reading speed, and I may never break the 200 CPM mark in Chinese reading. We'll see! Could I try to read at 200 CPM right now? Sure, but my reading comprehension/quality might suffer. I do resonate with what @PerpetualChange said, about there being "no linear path to fluency." I once thought, "How do I reach the height of awesomeness in Chinese reading? Well, I just read tons and tons! What about listening? Well, I should just listen to stuff all day long! Just do what I already do, but more and more, tons and tons!" Etc., etc. However, without adopting creative strategies, stepping out of my comfort zone, and finding new ways to train myself (traditionally, this would be accomplished by moving to China), my progress will just hit a wall before too long. Nevertheless, I *am* encouraged by the fact that I'm still improving (albeit, more slowly than in the beginning). And I'm inspired by the examples of other people who have gotten themselves to a half-decent mastery of a foreign language without yet visiting that country. It's possible, but it just takes time.

I didn't know that this was a specific learning method, but after about a year or so of study, one friend of mine and I naturally fell into this habit of speaking to each other in our native languages. At that time, conversing in the most efficient way was the most important thing to us, and "crosstalk" gave us that. I was able to focus on her speaking Chinese and she did the same with me and English, without the pressure of searching for how to express ourselves in our TLs and slowing down the conversation. As far as I can tell, doing this helped increase my confidence in my listening comprehension. The conversation would flow as we talked about a huge range of topics; we hung out a lot, so I was exposed to how my friend expressed herself and also opportunities to check my understanding. The downside for me, especially because we weren't specifically adopting "crosstalk", was that I could feel the gap growing between my listening and speaking (which have both always been my weakest competences) because I didn't take on as many opportunities to actually practise speaking my TL and I would get annoyed at myself for that, at the time. But that was easily resolved by deliberate conversation practices and exchanges with friends and language partners, etc. when i finally decided to do something about it. Also, when my friend returned to China, quite a few years ago now, we stopped "crosstalking". We have been talking both in either one language or the other ever since.

I don't watch online videos for that purpose. I watch them to learn more about a specific subject. One of my hobbies is cooking Chinese food, so I often watch videos that show an interesting approach to making this or that dish. I use Baidu and YouTube. One thing I've learned is that searching English titles in YouTube yields very different results from searching the topics in Chinese. If I search 鱼香肉丝 I am more apt to get authentic results, mostly videos made by Chinese cooks, aimed at Chinese viewers. Instead, if I search using the English name of the dish, such as "Sichuan fish-flavored shredded pork" I will mostly get recipes geared to foreign cooks and foreign tastes.