Speak Fluent Chinese

Happy thanksgiving!
This is the second part of the Mastering Pinyin series where we focus on the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, the basic pronunciation elements of the Chinese language, among 23 initials, today we are going to cover the rest of 15 initials and some techniques to get the right easier.

The opening song is a phenomenal single called 错位时空, here's the full song.
The opening lyrics are:
填不满半排观众的电影
直到散场时突然亮起灯
字幕定格在某某出品和发行
我目送他们行色匆匆
像个自不量力的复读生
完不成金榜题名的使命
命不是猜剪刀石头布的决定
那么任性
我吹过你吹过的晚风
那我们算不算相拥
可如梦初醒般的两手空空
心也空

And the tongue twister at the end of the episode is:
四是四
十是十
十四是十四
四十是四十

If you need any help, you could reach me by [email protected]

Enjoy.

This is the first part of the Mastering Pinyin series where we focus on the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, the basic pronunciation elements of the Chinese language, among 23 initials, 24 finals, and 16 whole-syllables, today we will start with the first 8 initials.
And also, we will talk about how to effectively practice them to improve your Chinese pronunciations.

The opening song is a recent popular single called 一花一世界, here's the full song.
The opening lyrics are:
钻戒的印痕纪念缺憾的梦
苍白的那一圈抹不去种种
数的星星排列成你的面容
原来想你已天衣无缝
闭上眼睛听着风说些什么

音色怎么完全和你吻合
门响了或许就是你来了

And the poem at the end of the episode is called 咏鹅.
鹅鹅鹅
曲项向天歌
白毛浮绿水
红掌拨清波

If you need any help, you could reach me by [email protected]

Enjoy.

In a sea of too much content, information, and misinformation, a zillion online courses, how do you effectively learn Chinese?
Today, let’s talk about the two things you need to set your Chinese learning to success, and by the end of this episode, you will have a clear roadmap, starting as a beginner and ending up well on your way to fluency.

As usual, this is the lyrics of the opening song, one of my favorites, 声声慢 performed by 西彬.
屋檐洒雨滴
炊烟袅袅起
蹉跎辗转宛然的你
在哪里
You could find the full song here.

Introducing ListeningDrill, a new format of the show.

In a ListeningDrill episode, I will read to you a piece of complete content, from what I can access, I will select something that fits into the intermedia level range, matching the HSK Level 3 to level 5 difficulties on average.

This will greatly help you get exposed to the authentic Chinese content that is created for the Chinese people, and also help you explore the interests that you use to build up your learning environment, an authentic and entertaining environment as part of your Chinese learning practice.

So, try to immerse yourself into a pure Chinese piece of content, and see how it fits into your study routine, and also, please let me know how do you think of it, by sending me emails to [email protected].

The full song 一剪梅 by Sam Tsui could be found here.

Enjoy the show.

This episode is packed with great materials for you to speak more natural Chinese, and we are going to learn from the best Chinese comedy in the recent decade, Goodbye Mr. Loser.

The movie clip is a scenario of the guy and the girl meeting up again in the alternative life, and we are going to learn how to greet a long lost friend in the best way for the Chinese.
And of course, beside the new words, we are also going to learn two extremely critical pieces of grammar.
One: The Ba-construction, 把字句;
And two: Repetitive Verbs.

And after that, we are going to cover the neutral tone as well, the mysteries neutral tone that makes your pronunciation so much smoother, and makes you sound more like the natives.

Like always, here's lyrics of the opening song:
我会在你身边 你左右
绝不会回头
你的一举一动 像心跳
牵动我所有
And you can listen to the full song here with lyrics.

And here's the transcript of the dialog:
快进来，大明星，你说你，提前你也不打个招呼，我把家收拾收拾，这乱得。
我们家屋小啊，跟你那大豪宅可没法比。

家是不分大小的。

夏洛，你坐，你坐下说。

冬梅，好久不见。

我可老能看见你啊，在电视上，这家伙，你现在火的，换一个台就是你，换一个台就是你，这把我看得，烦死了都。

Enjoy the show.

The Great Charlemagne once said, “to have another language is to possess another soul.”
So in this episode, let's talk about how to get you a great start of the journey of learning Chinese: getting a great Chinese name.
Let’s talk about how to get a Chinese name, and most importantly, what makes your Chinese name great.

Here's the opening lyrics:
银辉描淡的石桥
桥边嬉戏的垂髫
风吹枝柳折细腰
童谣声声伴长吆

The full version of the opening song could be found here with the full lyrics.
And here is the Chinese surname catalog, or 百家姓.
And here are the 10 given name examples mentioned in the show:
家辉 文轩 子文 天朔 德华 文辉 俊杰 自清 永康 美玲

For any questions, you could contact me at [email protected].

In this episode, let's talk about the secret weapon for practicing Chinese tones, classic poetry.

For poems, tones are everything, they are like songs minus the music, they are beautiful and they rhyme, and not like modern poems that only rhyme at the end of verse, classic poems rhyme at every single character.
So, here’s secret for how to use them for your benefit.

The full version of the opening song could be found here with the full lyrics:

You could contact me at [email protected].

Appendix:

Poem from Meryl Streep
鹿柴
空山不见人，但闻人语响。 
返景入深林，复照青苔上。

5 Poems for Practice

#1. 大林寺桃花
人间四月芳菲尽，山寺桃花始盛开。
长恨春归无觅处，不知转入此中来。

The peach flower in Da Lin temple.
In June, the petals all have fallen,
But the mountain temple's peach blossom has just begun to bloom.
I regretted so much that spring had gone without a trace,
But I didn't know that it had only moved up here.

#2. 江南逢李龟年
岐王宅里寻常见，崔九堂前几度闻。
正是江南好风景，落花时节又逢君。

Meeting Li Guinian at south of the river
In Prince Qi's mansion house, I met you often,
By Cui Jiu's hall, I heard you several times.
Truly the landscape south of the river is good,
I meet you again in the season of falling blossom.

#3. 赠汪伦
李白乘舟将欲行，忽闻岸上踏歌声。
桃花潭水三千尺，不及汪伦送我情。

For Wang Lun
Li Bai is already on the boat, preparing to depart,
I suddenly hear singing on the shore.
The water of Taohua pond reaches a thousand feet in depth,
But still it's not as deep as Wang Lun's feelings seeing me off.

#4. 静夜思
床前明月光，疑是地上霜。
举头望明月，低头思故乡。

Thinking at Night
The moon is shining bright beside my bed.
I thought that it was frost upon the ground.
I raised my head and look at the bright moon,
And I lowered my head missing my home.

#5. 草
离离原上草，一岁一枯荣。
野火烧不尽，春风吹又生。

Grass
The grass spreads out across the plain,
Each year, it dies, then flourishes again.
It's burnt but not destroyed by fires,
When spring winds blow they bring it back to life.

Full video version is available on Skillshare:
https://skl.sh/3vuptpH
You can also get a one month free premium access from the link.

In this 2017 comedy, inspired by the 2015 modern drama, we are going to learn the following words and expressions.

1, 不是说好, didn’t we agree.
2, 倒下, collapse / 挺住, hold on.
3, 再, for expressing something goes to a higher degree.
4, 价钱, price. And a phrase for bargaining, 讨价还价.
5, 信誉, reputation
6, 假, fake / 真, authentic
7, 坐地起价, daylight robbery.
8, 厚道, honesty and kindness.
9, 绝, as in ending something, stopping something from progressing.
10, 偏, as being contrary to the expectation or against somebody’s will.
11, 就, doubling down for doing something.

Never Say Die was a modern drama that premiered in 2015 in Beijing, and because of its popularity, it then became this movie.
I enjoyed it, it’s a lot of fun. I recommend it.
And I hope you learned something useful in this episode.
Enjoy!

Full video version is available on Skillshare:
https://skl.sh/310lk1t
You can also get a one month free premium access from the link.

The 2015 comedy, Detective Chinatown, is written with very natural dialogues, and it is a great source material for practicing daily conversations.

In this lesson, we are going to learn:
1, How to construct a basic rhetorical question;
2, How to empathize emotions with various words;
3, Popular exclamatory phrases like, 别装了！and 神经病呀？
And much more fun stuff.