I have to admit, I’m not entirely sure what Learn Chinese from Movies is or how it works. But it sounds intriguing… The site says it uses “magic subtitles” that will “learn Chinese for you”. I like the sound of that! Here’s a link to the site. Let me know if you try it. I’d [...]
Rocket Chinese is a Fun Course! – RECOMMENDED
I started using Rocket Chinese in February (when I first began my Chinese studies) and it has helped me enormously. I highly recommend it to both beginner and intermediate students looking for fun, interactive lessons. Each interactive lesson lasts about a half an hour. I do about 3 or 4 lessons a week. I prefer [...]
I love listening to Beijingers speak Chinese. They seem to form words in the back of their mouths and most sentences seem to end in “errrr” or “arrrr”.
I’m certainly not the only person to notice this and, I recently I heard one person humorously describe it as the “Beijing pirate accent.”
Such an apt description.
Arrrrr, matey!
A few weeks ago, while in Beijing, I saw a television news report about how Beijing wants to be an international city like London or New York. To do this, they believe that English has to be more widely spoken.
To achieve this, they will start teaching Kindergarten students English next year. They also want more police officers and border guards to speak English and have target dates to achieve this.
So why does Beijing want to become an international city, you may ask? Part of the reason is that they want to attract more corporate head offices. In other words, the reasons are economic.