Chinese Poems for Kids to Learn Chinese

Chinese really likes poems. Chinese poems are appreciated not only in the meaning but also in the structure. Notice how each line has the same number of characters. They are made so the “sound” is good as the poem is read. They way to read also matters. In the past, many are accompanied by music.

These are samples of simple ones but really famous. All Chinese know these. Also,they are great materials for kids to learn Chinese online.

Chinese to English translation for this:

The Peasants' Lot

By Li Shen

Hoeing the grass under the noonday sun,

His sweat drips on the ground beneath.

Who knows that on the dining plate,

Every single grain means hardship.

Chinese to English translation for this:

A Spring Morning

By Meng Haoran

This morning of spring in bed I’m lying,

Not woke up till I hear birds crying.

After a night of wind and showers,

How many are the fallen flowers?

Chinese to English translation for this:

Ode to the Geese

By Luo Binwang

Geese, O geese!

Your necks curve and sing to sky in glees;

Your white plumes float on water green,

Red feet paddle streams clear and clean.

Driving in Beijing

Driving in Beijing is really no fun at all, especially during the rush hours. All the roads are pretty much a parking lot. But other than that it's ok. However, Beijing is really big, for far distances, I'd rather use the subway.

Since Beijing is getting crowded everyday by cars, there are more and more restrictions on the road. Beijing expats need to be aware of this.

Driver's License
Be sure to study the booklet really carefully for your written test. I think the test was really hard. They have many languages to pick, including English. I had my test directly in the computer. We did it together in a room with other people.

Buying a car
There's a quota to buy a car in Beijing. People can get it trough lottery system. (2011)

Parking
Beijing is really crowded so there's little parking space available. In modern shopping centers, they start to provide parking underground but could be really pricy. The range is from 5 mao per half an hour to 10 yuan and more per hour (as of 2011). Really, consider public transportation! Everyday there'e a driving restriction, based on your license plate. For example if the restriction is 0 and 5, that means, all license plate whose last number is 0 or 5 are not allowed to enter the road. Usually starting the third ring. You can get fined when the police caught you. (2011)

Do you know?
When I came in the year 2000, the road was empty. Big shopping center only had tiny parking lots and there's only 1 car or 2 in it.
NOW? Forget it... There are so many cars everywhere no matter how big the lots are!

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Metric in China

Units used in China are not the same as, say in the USA or other countries. Some common units are listed below. Although initially it might bother some expats in China, I can assure you after a while you'll get used to it :) For this issue, the tip for living in China (especially for those who like cooking): get a calculator or get some coversion unit tables from the web.


km (kilometer) is used to express distance instead of miles.  1 mile is roughly 1.6 km.
1 mile ~ 1.6 km   or   1 km ~ 0.625 mile

Example: a 10 km distance is about 6.25 miles.


For weather, cooking, etc, we use Celcius instead of Fahrenhait.
F= 9/5 C + 32

For example: 10C in Fahrenhait would be (9/5)*10 +32 = 50 F


For length, sometimes we use centimeter (cm), but sometimes we use our own unit chi.
1 inch=2.54 cm

For example: 2 inches= 2*2.54=5.08 cm

1 尺 (chǐ) ~ 30.48 cm When you go to clothing/clothes store, most sellers are using chǐ


If you go to buy fruit, vegetable, rice, etc, sellers are using jin.
1 jin (斤)   is about 1 pound 1斤~1.1lb


For smaller items such as  spices, say star anise, five spice, etc, the seller uses liang.

1jin~ 10 liang (两)

Other commonly used unit is Gram.

1 公斤 (gong jin or kg) = 1,000 克 (gram)

1 毫克 = 0.001 克 （1克=1000毫克） (毫 háo mili)


For volume, we use liter here. For example to buy gasoline
1 gallon ~ 2.78 liter

 升shēng is liter


Say you buy water (sewer), the unit is dun
1 吨 (dūn) = 1 ton = 1000 kg

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Youth Day in China

Youth Day in the China is on May 4 every year. It was established in December 1949 by the Government Administration Council to commemorate the beginning of the May Fourth Movement.
After World WarⅠ, U.S., Japan, U.K., Italy, France and some other countries held a "Peace Conference" in Paris in 1919. Chinese government of that time also sent some representatives for the conference, and demanded that the imperial countries should abandon their privilege in China. In May 1919, "Paris Conference" unfairly refused the reasonable request that China asked to abolish the unequal treat, and even decided to transfer the Germany's illegal privileges in Shandong Province to Japan.
When the news passed back to China, the whole country got angry. On May 4th, about 3,000 students from various universities in Beijing congregated at Tian'anmen Square and held a student protest parade for the first time in the history. The students shouted out some patriotic slogans and presented a petition to the state president, but suppressed by the warlord government of that time. This suppression made angrier the people all over the country. A great number of students, workers and businessmen went on strike, and the students' demonstration and parade finally developed into a national-scale anti-imperialistic and patriotic movement. On June 10th, the warlord government had to compromise, and deposed Cao Rulin, Zhang Zongxiang, and Lu Zongyu who were regarded as committing a crime of quislingism. On June 28th, Chinese representatives at Paris Conference refused to sign the "Peace Treaty." This news passed throughout the world soon and the imperialistic countries were greatly shocked. So far, the direct goals brought forward in the movement were basically achieved.
May 4th Movement is a landmark event in Chinese history. It is not only a patriotic student movement, but also a new culture movement with the characteristic of democracy and science against feudal culture. It was due to the influence of May 4th Movement that science, democracy and the usage of modern Chinese language were greatly advocated later.

Online Resources for Learning Chinese

According to a research, some students learn Chinese language for cultural reason, for they are interested in over 5,000 years of Chinese culture. Some learn it as a big challenge, for it is the most difficult language to learn in the world. But the most learn Chinese for a better job opportunity, for an increasing number of jobs place preference on applicants who know both Chinese and English. Due to the convenience of Internet, there are more and more useful online learning materials and tools to learn Chinese. It is necessary to know how to take advantage of these Internet resources while learning Chinese.

As all of us known, traveling to China is the most effective way for learning the language, this type of learning is so expensive that not many people who would like to speak Chinese can afford it. A more affordable alternative is taking online Chinese courses. By learning online, one can cut back tremendously on costs while enjoying all the benefits of an online education. You might think that learning to speak Chinese online will not be as effective as traveling to China but with the latest technology, virtual classrooms are becoming as good as the real thing. Nowadays, There are numerous Chinese learning websites offering language speaking lessons for all types of learners. Make sure choose a Chinese learning website that fits you best.

Besides learning Chinese online, there are also lots of free Internet learning resources. For example, watching movies is another useful way to get exposure to the language. There are lots of great Chinese movies to download free online. No matter what kind of movies you like, they can get you used to hearing Chinese while they entertain you. You can watch a favourite again and again but rely less on the subtitles every time you watch it, which is a great way to learn Chinese. Enjoying movies could improve the pronunciation. You may learn the simplest way native speaker systems pronounce words along with follow that movie to employ your pronunciation. If you would like, you can acturally break that conversation into sentence to listen and repeat after it. It is important, however, to make sure that the movie you choose is in the dialect you are studying; the old kung fu movies are in Cantonese and wouldn’t be of any use to someone trying to learn Mandarin.

It is now painless to come across a free translation tool that translates from one language to another. For sure you don’t want to use those types of programs in place of becoming trained in a language, though you can use them as devices for assisting you. When you’re browsing the web you can search for a variety of websites that are in Chinese. To help you practice reading characters, you can try to translate a web page and then use a translating tool to check your results. You should bear in mind, though, that these programs might not be entirely precise, they can permit you to have a decent idea of what is written. When learning Chinese, you might find that some free translation tools are beneficial.

Chinese Tea Leaf Eggs

During my internship in China, there are so many delicious Chinese food impressed me. My Chinese friend recently gave me some Chinese tea which makes me thought of Chinese tea leaf eggs immediately, and it’s perfect for tea leaf eggs. Maybe you know scrambled eggs, fried eggs and steamed eggs. But today I want to teach you how to cook Chinese tea leaf eggs, which is much easier than learning Chinese language.

Ingredients

10 eggs4 cups of water

1 teaspoon of sea salt1 tablespoon soy sauce1 teaspoon sugar2 tablespoons black tea leaves2 pods of star anise1 cinnamon stick1 tablespoon Chinese five-spice powder

1 Tablespoon tangerine zest

Instructions

In a large saucepan, combine eggs and 1 teaspoon salt; cover with cold water.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Remove from heat, drain, and cool. When cool, tap eggs with the back of a spoon to crack shells but do not remove the shells yet. 4. In a large saucepan, combine 3 cups water, soy sauce, black soy sauce, salt, tea leaves, star anise, cinnamon stick, and tangerine zest.

5. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 3 hours.

6. Remove from heat, add eggs, and let steep for at about 8-10 hours or more.

Chinese Books for Kids to Learn Chinese

Choosing Chinese textbooks for kids is a big decision. The learning materials are now far more abundant than before. But it's still important to have good criteria before making your selection. we recommend you read the following general guidelines first to avoid waste your time and money.

1. Good Chinese materials, whether books or videos, should be designed according to children’s familiar and interested topics and be better if they are funny story-centered.

2. We strongly recommend those lessons based on conversational situation, which introduces your kids to a real life communication. Those materials can help children to build the confidence to communicate with others in Chinese.

3. Most of our kids are visual learners. Sound supporting materials, such as CD, videos or tapes attached with the text-book help your children learn the correct pronunciation effectively.

If you are seriously let your children learn Chinese language, you may consider a comprehensive set of learning material. Besides above general criteria, a good set of Chinese textbook should adopt the spiral approach and review.

1. Happy Chinese: KUAILE HANYU consists of six books with three levels, with both a student's book and teacher's book. The assistant materials include flash cards, charts, audio cassettes and videos. With vivid design and colorful illustrations, the series suits the students from 11 to 16 years old and focuses on the training of Chinese communicative competence.

2. Easy Steps to Chinese Textbook: Fun and effective, this excellent textbook series adopts an exciting new approach to teaching Chinese as a foreign language. The task-based program, designed by the authors of the popular Chinese Made Easy and Chinese Made Easy for Kids, is based on feedback and helpful suggestions from teachers who use those series in their classrooms.

3. Learn Chinese with Me: Learn Chinese with Me is a series designed for students of 15 to 18 years old whose native language is English. It guides the students from beginner to low-intermediate level. The series is composed of four volumes each of which contains Student's Book, Teacher's Book, Workbooks, and phonetic and listening materials.