For me, the difficulties in learning Chinese have always been due to society more than linguistic details. Nowhere is this clearer than in the issues surrounding learning Chinese names. Learning to recognize names is an important part of learning any language. In many cases, recognizing which words in a sentence are names [...]

Tags: Chinese, Language Learning, names

Even after living in Taiwan for three years, I still find myself amused at Chinese street names. Ham-fistedly translating them word for word into English yields amusing results. Here are some of my favorite Chinese street names:

Chinese
Pinyin
English

麗水街
lìshuĭjiē
Beauty Water Street

和平路
hépínglù
Peaceful Road

仁愛路
rén’àilù
Humanity Road

博愛路
bóàilù
Brotherly Love Road

中山路
zhōngshānlù
Middle Mountain Road

建國路
jiànguólù
Establish Nation Road

市民大道
shìmíndàdào
City People Boulevard

永康街
yŏngkāngjiē
Ever-Healthy Street

That’s right. In [...]

Tags: Chinese, names, Observations

One peculiarity about Chinese ESL learners is that they usually want “English” names. Back when I was learning French, I didn’t take to calling myself Jean-marc; when I was learning Japanese, I didn’t call myself Taka. I just used my English name phoneticized into Katakana. I saw no need to change my [...]

Tags: China, classic, culture, EFL, Engrish, Japan, Language Learning, my-students, names