Chinese vocabulary notes (June 2022)

In this month’s edition: Chinese as a global language, Chinese drinking culture, cat slaves, financial advise, computerized chopsticks and last but not least: finally understanding the Chinese news.

June has been a good month in terms of extensive listening for me. Recently I’ve been visiting Dong Chinese Media a lot to find interesting content for my Chinese vocabulary notes. Because their mostly short videos come with transcript, they make good study material. Even to practice pronunciation, since you can simply click on a sentence to repeat it. Their media feed is being updated regularly and offers a great variety of topics for almost all levels. Also, I’ve been listening to the German YouTuber 老雷’s fascinating story about his walking adventure from Beijing to Germany.

And I heard about the new Harry Potter Chinese audiobook, recorded by professional Chinese voice actors and available on Ximalaya. The first chapters are free of charge. Much better of course than the amateur recordings you find on YouTube.

Will Chinese Replace English as the Global Language?

Will Chinese replace English as a global language? And why did English become a global language, where as Chinese doesn’t have and never had this status? Li Can discusses these and other questions. This video got a HSK 3 classification by the Dong Chinese team, although HSK 5 is closer to the mark. There’s no way to discuss such a complex topic with a HSK 3 vocabulary, Li Can does a great job though.

Chinese University Girl Studying in US Shocked By American Culture!

If this is Chinese-American culture shock, I’m amused but far from flabbergasted. Americans drink tap water, Americans give tips in bars, Americans look very differently from each other, not all Americans streets are safe at night… Could it be that American culture is so present in China that this Chinese graduate student in the interview has been mentally prepared to such an extent that there are no real surprises left, apart from micro-level differences? She might even have a bigger culture shock moving to Inner Mongolia to live with local horse breeders. Nonetheless, ninety minutes of completely transcribed conversation about cultural differences between the US and China.

Learn Chinese Through News

Always when I felt confident about my level of “listening comprehension”, watching the CCTV news woke my from my dream, because it seemed like a related, yet different language than what I had been learning so far. If you have the same experience, this video might be helpful. It explains the CCTV news on a word by word basis in a way that even the tiniest details start making sense.

「 智能筷子 」 Speak Chinese with Da Peng

Japanese researchers have developed computerized chopsticks that enhance salty tastes. The idea is to help those who need to reduce sodium in their diets. Da Peng explains this new development in his clear and unique way.

酒桌上的中国

Chinese drinking culture was the topic from my latest online Chinese lesson and we covered some common drinking vocab like 嗜酒如命 and 灌酒 or 喝趴下了. I had to slow down the video and repeat it several times to get all the details.

Cat slave

Are you a 猫奴 or do you know people around you who are? Another short dialogue from the “课本上学不到的汉语” series by GoEast Mandarin. They are great at creating this kind of both original and “snackable” learning content.

如何在经济衰退中挣钱？

Did somebody say economic recession (经济衰退)? If the economic recession indeed is inevitable, then we might as well face the fitting Chinese vocabulary. This video covers how to deal with the new economic climate by taking a look at some “smart money” tactics and 暴富机会 in particular, because our optimistic friend Peng Peng believes that where others are losing money, you can get rich.

That’s it for this month. Enjoy the summer, learn Chinese and see you in July!