Interesting Chinese culture and things

These videos give you some pictures of (Han or ethnic) Chinese history and culture. 

1. China X: 

• videos updated by Prof. Peter Bol and Prof. William Kirby from Harvard University, introducing Chinese history and culture. 
• 哈佛東亞系及歷史系教授，聯合主講中國歷史文化。

2. Off the great wall: 

• funny videos introducing Chinese culture uploaded by Asian Americans. 
• 美籍華裔朋友的搞笑影片。

Typing Chinese by Zhuyin(bopomo)

A typing tool site i2bopomo :

• using Bopomo to type characters ( It works even offline!)
• simply putting your cursor on the Green box, and start typing
• to copy what you've typed, and then paste to anywhere you'd like

Chinese Dictionaries

Here are the online Chinese Dictionaries I recommend. The 1st and and 2nd are with Pinyin & Zhuyin(bopomofo) input system, also simplified and traditional Chinese. You can use Chinese to search English and vice versa.

1. ChineseTools.eu:

• simple and tidy results
• Using colors to mark tones

2. Mandarin Spot：

• tidy layout
• more collocations

3. 萌典：

• basically traditional Chinese only, suits people who can read characters (Simplified Chinese see the last point) 
• search tool accepts "PinYin and Character", but no ZhuYin or English input
• demonstrating the origin, the stroke order and the calligraphy of characters
• supports APP on iOS/Android
• 

English/Chinese Dictionary APPs on iOS/Android

1. PLECO (free) for other devices see their website

• 

• Handy on your mobile devices
• Both simplified and traditional
• Pinyin / Characters / English input
• With pronunciation

Pronunciation practice

Search ZhuYin(Bopomofo) or PinYin, you'll get tons of pronunciation learning materials, but I would like to introduce this American teacher for all the English leaners.

Glossika, the video below, was actually one of my English teachers (or a coach, as he said). He is an expert in pronunciation training. I am glad he is working on teaching Mandarin and would like to introduce his efficient learning method.

His materials have copyrights for sure, so I simply add part of the mapping table of PinYin to Bopomofo(ZhuYin) below. You could get much more by watching his videos. 

* The empty cells mean those combinations do not exist.

Pinyin	Zhuyin	Pinyin	Zhuyin	Pinyin	Zhuyin	Pinyin	Zhuyin
j	ㄐ	ji	ㄐㄧ			jü/ju	ㄐㄩ
q	ㄑ	qi	ㄑㄧ			qü/qu	ㄑㄩ
x	ㄒ	xi	ㄒㄧ			xü/xu	ㄒㄩ
zh(i)	ㄓ			zhu	ㄓㄨ
ch(i)	ㄔ			chu	ㄔㄨ
sh(i)	ㄕ			shu	ㄕㄨ
r(i)	ㄖ			ru	ㄖㄨ
z(i)	ㄗ			zu	ㄗㄨ
c(i)	ㄘ			cu	ㄘㄨ
s(i)	ㄙ			su	ㄙㄨ

At last, here shows how to write Zhuyin (Bopomo). Click to learn these Mandarin Pronunciation Symbols.

The lyrics of ”Xiao3 Qing2 Ge1(小情歌)" with bopomofo(注音) - 蘇打綠

The song 小情歌(ㄒㄧㄠˇㄑㄧㄥˊㄍㄜ; xiao3 qing2 ge1) is performed by the band, 蘇打綠(ㄙㄨ ㄉㄚˇㄌㄩˋ; su1 da3 lü4).

The singer, also a song writer and composer, 吳青峰(ㄨˊㄑㄧㄥ ㄈㄥ; wu2 qing1 feng1), features his high-pitched singing.

The lyrics in Mandarin with bopomofo. (Click to download)




See the English translation here.