Meet the Asian Woman Part 1

Meet the Asian Woman Part 1

Ni hao:

Have you ever seen a mixed couple (異國情侶yìguó qínglǚ)?

Why all the fuss about western men and Asian women (亞洲女性yàzhōu nǚxìng)?

Have you seen all those dating sites (交友網站jiāoyǒu wǎngzhàn) for men to meet Asian women?

Let’s uncover the mystery of the Asian woman.

Most Asian women fail to fit the stereotype (刻板印象kèbǎn yìnxiàng)of the submissive Asian woman (順從的亞洲女性shùncóng de yàzhōu nǚrén).

Asian women have minds of their own and goals and dreams.

Asians in general do tend to be family-oriented, as the stereotype suggests, but there’s still a generation gap (代溝dàigōu). Younger Taiwanese women enjoy freedoms their mothers never had, such as jetting off to Provence alone. Yet the family still tugs on her heart: She’d never miss Chinese New Year (春節Chūnjié) or Tomb Sweeping Day (清明節qīngmíng jié) at home.

Body-consciousness: We strive to fit into the smallest pair of jeans (牛仔褲niúzǎikù) possible. We weigh ourselves every day and avoid that pineapple cake (鳳梨酥fènglí sū) at the office. We ruthlessly compare ourselves to others, sometimes even eyebullying overweight women.

Click here to listen the podcast of this post!

That’s all about Asian women? Of course NOT!

That’s just part of it. We’ll be sharing more about Asian women with you in our next post!

Cheers,

SMART Mandarin

Katrina Lee

Knowing lots of vocabulary in Chinese but still can't speak Chinese well?

Knowing lots of vocabulary in Chinese but still 

can't speak Chinese well?

When it comes to learn a new language, we'd rather our students

to know how to use a vocabulary in 5 different ways than to know 5 vocabulary but can't even make a single proper sentence in Chinese!!

This is a huge problem to most of the language learners- learning too many vocabulary but speaking/practicing too little!!

BUT!!!

Don't worry, we have EXACTLY what you need!!!

Bringing our classroom voc. activity to this video lesson.

We like to pick out words and vocabulary which students

have learned and teach them how to make good sentences

in Chinese!

Check out the link below and enjoy the lesson!

http://www.smartmandarinchinese.com/class_Detail.asp?id=316

SMART Mandarin

Katrina Lee

Expressing EVERYTHING, EVERYONE in Chinese.

Expressing EVERYTHING, EVERYONE in Chinese

We use a specific sentence structure when it comes to say those in Chinese

1. I want to eat EVERYTHING.
2. I know EVERYONE at the party.
3. I like EVERYONE

Check out the link below and enjoy the video lesson !
http://www.smartmandarinchinese.com/class_Detail.asp?id=315

SMART Mandarin

Good Taiwanese Movie Recommended for Learning Chinese

Good Taiwanese Movie Recommended for Learning Chinese

Calling all the Dog LOVERS (愛狗人士ài gǒu rénshì) there!!!

There's a Taiwanese nice movie that I accidentally found recently on YouTube called

 "只要一分鐘" (zhǐyào yī fēnzhōng)  -- Name of the movie in Taiwan

 "我的男友和狗" (wǒ de nányǒu hé gǒu) - Name of the movie in China

This is a story about a workaholic woman who adopted a golden retriever(黃金獵犬 huángjīn lièquǎn) and raises it with her boyfriend, and the story of their lives. 

The reason I recommended this movie is because that it has simple and commonly used conversation and structures of Chinese, and if you happen to be a dog lover, you can related to it so much! (at least I can! ;P)

Some of the lines in the movie are spoken in Taiwanese (a popular dialect in Taiwan), so if you find yourself not understand what they say, don’t worry!

We listed some vocabulary in simplified and traditional Chinese about this movie

1.      黃金獵犬 (traditional) / 黄金猎犬(simplified) huángjīn lièquǎn  ： 

        Golden Retriver

2.      愛狗人士 / 爱狗人士 ài gǒu rénshì ： dog lovers

3.      寵物 / 宠物chǒngwù : pet

Click the link below to watch the trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmATJjQEG5M

Hope you all like this movie and learn some Chinese!

SMART Mandarin 

Katrina Lee

Chinese Idiom - To Read One's Face Color?! - SMART Mandarin

Chinese Idiom - To Read One's Face?!

There's a Chinese idiom we say 看人臉色 （kàn rén liǎn sè）

in Chinese. And according to Chinese dictionary


看 kàn - to see, look, read, watch

人 rén - people or person

臉  liǎn - face

色 sè - color or complextion


So literally it means " to read one's face color",

but the closest meaning in English might be 

"at one's disposal". 


Let's take an example in Chinese

我們拿老闆的薪水，就得要看他的臉色做事。

wǒmen ná lǎobǎn de xīnshuǐ, 

jiù dé yào kàn tā de liǎnsè zuòshì



Direct translation

(we receive our salary from the boss, so we have to 

read his face and behave whatever makes him happy)



People usually show their emotions on the face, so if you

wanna know a person's mood, then reading his face is a 

good way to go! 


According to the example above, one needs to read his 

boss's face, knowing the boss's mood then take actions 

that whatever makes the boss happy.


So we'll be coming up with a video talking about 

this interesting idiom again soon!

We hope you like today's idiom!

Keep up the good work! 

SMART Mandarin

Katrina Lee  

How to Say NOT AT ALL in Chinese? - SMART Mandarin

Dear SMART Mandarin Students,

We've uploaded our newest video 

" Not at All in Chinese 1 " (lower intermediate- page 3)

And in this lesson, you'll be able to learn how to say

1. I don't have any friends. 

2. I don't have any money.

To emphasize the degree of a certain negative structure by using the right word!

Check out our video here

http://www.smartmandarinchinese.com/class_Detail.asp?id=313

I hope you have a great weekend! 

SMART Mandarin

Katrina Lee