Lotus Chinese Classroom

11/08/2024

Chinese Lessons with a native speaker. Check out https://3327160.wixsite.com/lotuschinese for more details.

03/08/2023

01/01/2021

A New Year Quote

“This is a new year. A new beginning. And things will change.” ——Taylor Swift

新年名句

“这是新的一年。新的开始。事情将会改变。” -泰勒斯威夫特

02/10/2020

Xiangsheng is a traditional Chinese comedic performing art. it is typically performed as a dialogue between two performers. I made this Xiangsheng video of my two students. I hope it brings you joy and laughter at the Mid-Autumn Festival.

04/08/2020

My kid's summer chinese learning projects series 2-Origami

31/07/2020

One of my productive ways to pass summer 2020 is to help my kids improve their Chinese. Series 1: Telling stories of famous people in Chinese.

21/03/2020

Quote of the day!

21/03/2020

Since you all are at home now, you may want to spend some time learning Chinese language. I am listing some resources to help you learn Chinese at home.

08/01/2020

Chinese New Year is around the corner, and we are thrilled to put up a celebration event - Lunar New Year Fair.

One of the best ways to stay motivated and become more effective in learning Chinese is to bring a little Chinese culture into your life, like celebrating Chinese traditional holidays.

Come and join us! It will be one of a kind experience in your life!

06/12/2019

Today I am answering some of the questions I’ve been collecting from my classes.

The very first question is how to pronounce differently s and sh. S is very simple, like s in the English word snake. Sh is very simple too, like sh in the English word bush. The key to pronouncing them differently is the tongue position. When you pronounce s, the tip of your tongue touches the front teeth and it is flat. That’s why we call it a flat tongue sound. When you pronounce sh, the tip of your tongue is curled up. That is why we call it a curled tongue sound.

The second question is regarding the word combination. The question is like this: the word 中 means the middle and the word 间 means between, but the word 中间 means in the middle too. Why do you need 间, why doesn’t the character 中 stand alone to indicate the full meaning? The reason for that is in Modern Chinese language a lot of words share the same sounds and therefore there are a huge number of homophonic words, which make spoken communication quite hard sometimes. To solve this problem, modern Chinese combines characters, in many cases of identical meaning, to build two-syllable words like 中间。 In other cases, we use prefix or suffix to form two-syllable words like 老 in 老鼠， 子in 儿子 ， 头 in 石头. In other cases, we simply repeat the character, like 妈妈 and 爷爷。Why most words are two-syllable words? That is because two-syllable words sound more vivid and better than one character, don’t you agree?

The third question is still concerning combining words together to make a phrase. The question is like this: The word for mouse is 老鼠，but when you say the phrase 鼠年, you drop the 老，why can’t we use老鼠 in the phrase and say 老鼠年.

To understand this, you need to understand that 老 in 老鼠 is just a "suffix"。 老 doesn’t have any meaning here, it is only used to build a new word that has two syllables. The other examples include 老师，老虎 etc. But as soon as you combine these two-syllable words with other new words, 老 itself has no meaning here and therefore you omit 老 in 鼠年. The 鼠character already carries the proper meaning by itself, so there is no need for an extra character老. That’s why we say 鼠年instead of 老鼠年。 The two characters can express the same meaning and are preferred. If I say that 老is "redundant", you might wonder why on earth we just use 鼠 instead of 老鼠？The answer for this goes back to the second question.:)

Hope you find this post helpful.

08/09/2019

好好学习,天天向上(hǎo hǎo xué xí , tiān tiān xiàng shàng ) is a popular motto in China. Word by word it means "good good study, day day up.” It actually means “study hard and make progress every day.”

When I was a child, my teachers and my parents often said this to me on the first day of a new semester. These eight simple words are full of the ardent expectations of the old generation for their children. As I grew up even until today, these words still guide my life.

We all live and learn. We learn new things every day. We learn to drive, learn foreign languages, etc. So how do you learn? Study hard and make progress every day. It just tells me to be persistent and achieve my goals.

In the first week of our class, I wish you all 好好学习,天天向上 (hǎo hǎo xué xí , tiān tiān xiàng shàng ) - “study hard and make progress every day." with your Chinese.

18/08/2019

Lotus Chinese Classroom

I hope you all have had an enjoyable summer and are ready to begin a new school year. In the fall, we will offer three different levels of classes. If you have any questions, please contact the instructor. I am looking forward to working with you this year. All the Classes begin the week of September 8.

Instructor: Wenjie Xu Text: 269-332-7160 [email protected]

Pinyin and Chinese Characters for Kids Level 1
For Grades K-4
This course is designed for young students who wish to learn Pinyin and Chinese characters. For the Pinyin part, We will start from the basics, such as the tone, the final, the initial, the spelling rules, etc. For Chinese characters, We will start with the basic elements of Chinese characters, the strokes. Then we will learn Chinese characters, combine those characters into words and phrases, and then learn to read. Our classes use a creative way to teach the characters: making a story for each character by looking at the origins of Chinese characters. Each character is shown in the form of a picture which matches the shape of the character. Students will master these characters through engaging games and authentic Chinese stories. Our course specifically teaches simplified characters.

Chinese as a Foreign Language #101
For Grades 5 and up
This course is designed for students who have had no or little prior experience to Chinese language and are interested in learning basic Chinese language as well as culture. Students will be exposed to the phonetic symbols and tones from the very beginning. Chinese Characters are taught according to the character formation system. We will explain the basic knowledge of Chinese characters, which make students’ further study much easier and more efficient. Students will learn vocabulary related to their environmental topics such as numbers, greeting, and phone numbers. Students will develop communication skills of listening and speaking through authentic stories, audio exercise, dialogues, questions and answers, speaking practice, games and rhymes. They will learn to read and write Chinese characters, and examine how culture and language interact in china.

Chinese as a Foreign Language #102
For returning students
We will continue to review pinyin. Radicals and simple grammar will be introduced. Students will learn to read and write Chinese characters, and learn how culture and language interact in China. They will learn the expressions of the year, month, day and dates. They will make simple conversations of how to ask and answer birthdays, ages, phone numbers and addresses.