Watch this China-born YouTube warrior tear into all the annoying mistakes commonly made by Chinese learners of English, as he tries to convince them to actually learn how to pronounce an English word, rather than relying on Chinese character approximation (E.g. Hali Pote (哈里坡特) instead of Harry Potter). more ›

A reader pointed us to this hilarious video, which takes numerous clips of Hollywood actors trying their hardest to muddle through various Mandarin scripts. Some (Michael Jai White as Black Dynamite) do a lot better than others (Bruce Willis). But whether they're actually on point or completely unintelligible, it's all awesome. more ›

At least that's the figure quoted by The Confucius Institute, the government-sponsored non-profit institution aiming to promote Chinese language (and culture) learning. 40 new Confucius Institutes and 97 Confucius Classrooms opened worldwide, and eight new countries joined the program in just this year - and they're planning on getting the total of institutes up to 1,000 by 2020. Since Mandarin is apparently great for the CV, internationals ought to look for one of them in the neighborhood - assuming, of course, you're not afraid of it possibly turningyou into a Manchurian Candidate or something. more ›

With all the news about Chinese hackers and what they could be doing to mainframes all over the world(!), China watchers may find themselves searching up more hacker news and being confused by all that hacker terminology. Luckily, the site Chinese Hacks has compiled 25 useful words for cutting through all the jargon. Some, like 下载 (xia zai - download) and IP位址 (IP weizhi - IP address), should be familiar to anyone who uses the internet - but did you know the term for botnet, trojan or DDOS attack? Now you will! more ›

Next time you take a squat and “swipe” on your iPhone to play Papertoss or send a quick message, please remember this guy in Jiangsu province. After dropping his phone into the toilet, he had the intestinal fortitude to go fishing it out. Instead, he ended up getting stuck but, after a couple of crowbar-brandishing firemen, showed up he was able to fully relieve himself. He saved his phone but it’s probably safe to say lost the high score on the snake game he had going. more ›

We've all smirked at Chinglish signs around town of English that was either completely unintelligible or accidentally hilarious, but now the tables are turning! With more and more Chinese-speaking tourists entering the Western world, more and more signs are coming with Chinese translations - and they're just as babble fished as the stuff here! more ›

A couple weeks ago I translated the rants of a Shanghai subway security dude. It contained a bit of Shanghainese and I cursed my inability to speak the language. Well - if I want to translate anything by the locals ever again, ChinesePod is now offering Shanghainese lessons! Each dialog on their new spankin' podcast has been recorded by a native and will be things you can hear at any restaurant or street. I'm looking forward to it (coming: April 23)! Note: The guys from M and MX wanted to tell everyone that they teach Shanghainese too (and have been for a while). Well, TWO podcasts to learn the dialect from. Aren't we lucky? more ›

In case you wanted to start out your morning learning a little Shanghainese, mandmx.com, a delightful little site for Chinese language learning, has what they're calling the Top 4 Most Important phrases. more ›

The fourth annual "Chinese Bridge" US High School Student Chinese Speech Contest took place this past weekend at the University of Massachusetts. High school students from 21 states took participated in song, pronunciation, and dialogue events that were graded by a panel of Chinese language teachers and native speakers. Students with higher abilities were graded on individual speeches on self-selected topics. The American students opened the competition with a rousing rendition of "北京欢迎你," ("Beijing Welcomes You"). We're happy to see so many young people taking an interest in the Chinese language, but we couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of a young Bostonian with a thick Bean Town accent talking in a learned Beijing accent. That would be wicked pissah-儿！ more ›