Blogs

mandarin slang - why 二百五 (èr bǎi wǔ) means idiot

billyeveryteen's picture
Posted December 22nd, 2010 by billyeveryteen

I have been using italki to ask random questions about Mandarin and could not resist this one. I heard on a chinesepod(cast) that calling someone 二百五 èr bǎi wǔ (250) means idiot.

They didn't explain the story but I got a few responses below. My favorite was provided by Kaly.

The storry is very long...

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More Useful Shopping Lessons

Posted August 11th, 2010 by michael medlock

To follow on from the last entry. Qiu and I have produced 3 screencast lessons to help basic Mandarin speakers. Have a look at Chinese Language Builder: Shopping. It's all free and there's no registration or any bothersome things like that.

http://www.medlockchinese.com/chinese-language-builder-shopping.html

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Spam Problems

Confused LaoWai's picture
Posted August 9th, 2010 by Confused LaoWai

I would just excuse the recent spam that popped up into the Blog feed. I have added more measures (text Captcha) to try and prevent this in the future. If this still happens, then I'll have to take more extreme measures. For now, the Captcha forms will only be there on your first use of creating a scoop, blog entry or forum topic. Afterwards, you'll be a trusted user.

So go on. Get blogging!

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Subtleties of Subtitles

chris's picture
Posted August 8th, 2010 by chris

A bit of a fuzzy post this one as I don't want to get bogged down in techy details and arguments about file encodings and operating systems etc. etc. That always leads to tears and is too much like the day job.

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自我介绍一下

Confused LaoWai's picture
Posted August 5th, 2010 by Confused LaoWai

大家好！

[I'm trying to improve my writing skills, so I'll be writing more posts in Chinese mixed with English. Please help me improve by critiquing (批评) me! I know I will make errors, but I'm here to learn and share with others.]

我是一个老外。我在大学学习汉语， 我觉得我的最好的课，因为汉语真的有意思！现在学了两年半，但是我还能力不太好了，比如我的口语和听力，不过我的写作和阅读还可以。

除了汉语，我很喜欢音乐。我常常写歌曲，最近写汉语的歌曲，但是不好听！可能将来让你们听了。。。 我很生怕。

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Get Blogging! 写博客!

Confused LaoWai's picture
Posted August 4th, 2010 by Confused LaoWai

I've always wanted to interact with other learners of Mandarin more closely. Get to know their progress and how they learn it. In doing so, you learn from them. See their study methods, their textbooks, their tips.

Blogs

So, I've added a feature to the site that allows you guys to start your own blogs here on Social Mandarin. Post your stories on learning this language! Had funny mishap the other day? Does something intrigue you? Have some tips you want to share? Did you have success in speaking with a native speaker? Want someone to critique your speaking or writing?

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Social Mandarin Update: 2010/07/20

Confused LaoWai's picture
Posted July 20th, 2010 by Confused LaoWai

First I would like to thank all the users that keep coming back to the site and those that share their resources with others.

Social Mandarin is growing every month, but I want it to keep growing. Share this site with your Mandarin learning friends, so we can all share the best resources on the web.

Social Mandarin is also constantly undergoing changes. I'm currently working on a redesign for the site, to make it more accessible.

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