Chinese Scribbles

About a year ago, I took a week off to hang out in Yangshuo, near Guilin. If you're ever planning time in southern China, this is a must-visit. The photo to the right was taken right out of my hotel room window! (Apologies for the quality, it was taken with my mobile, through a closed window.)

I chose to travel alone for that week, for two reasons. Firstly, I was planning on spending a few hours a day doing volunteer-teaching at a local English school, and secondly I wanted to practise speaking Chinese - and having an English-speaking friend with me would have been a distraction. (If you remember, last January I wrote about ideas for things I could volunteer with while in China, and ended up choosing the teach-English option.)

At the time of my travels, I had scribbled some notes about what I was experiencing - as a Mandarin student - intending to write an article about it for Mandarin Segments. However, I lost those notes, and the article was never written. Until now.

Yes, this morning I found an old backup file from my previous Blackberry, containing some of the scribbles.

This post is just a set of bullet points from my time there, all in relation to learning Mandarin. I would love to hear from you if any of these strike a chord with you too.

• I arrived in Beijing, and then took a shuttle to a different part of the airport in order to get my flight to Guilin. As the shuttle bus was pulling up, an announcement came over the speakers which said, "The terminal has arrived."  I smiled to myself, pleased that people make mistakes from Chinese to English, and therefore I shouldn't feel guilty if I made mistakes over the next week going from English to Chinese.
• In Beijing airport, I overheard one security guard starting a conversation with another, where he started of his sentence as follows, "Gum'r ..."  I had heard that expression in a ChinesePod lesson before - it means "dude" - but this is the first time I had heard it in the wild. 
• (It's actually written: 哥们儿 (gēmenr), or just ​哥们 (gēmen) if you're not in Beijing.)
• Then, while riding the bus from Guilin to Yangshuo, I learned my first word of the trip, without trying. We drove past a petrol station, and I remember seeing the following characters as part of the name of the petrol company: 石油 (shíyóu). I already knew that 石 means 'rock' and 油 means 'oil' - so I deduced that 石油 must mean petrol ("gas", for the Americans reading this :-). So easy.
• Also on that bus, I sat next to a Chinese woman who works in Yangshuo - and we swapped language-learning horror stories. I remember her correcting some of my tones, which I appreciated. And I taught her how to say, "She sells seashells on the sea shore" - you should have seen the joy on her face when she finally recited it free of errors.
• While doing some shopping along the famous West Street, I spoke Chinese every chance I got. I remember the one vendor was absolutely shocked that I knew how to read the characters: 孙子 (Sūnzǐ, or Sun Tzu - author of The Art of War), and that I knew the Chinese word for 'pearls' (珍珠, or zhēnzhū​- although I only knew that because I knew how to say "pearl bubble tea" in Chinese :-)
• Even though we were well within the borders of the People's Republic of China, I was surprised that there was so much writing in 'traditional' and not the 'simplified' script. I remember discussing it with the one waitress at a coffee shop, trying to understand why 'traditional' was being used. A couple of days later I stopped at the same place for another great coffee, and I remember the waitress asking me (in English), "Are you the traditional Chinese guy?"  Haha - I've never been called that before.
• In comparison with my previous trip to China, it was clear to me that I was understanding a greater proportion of the conversations that I was over-hearing. Small victories ... huge pleasure ...
• Then there was the evening when I ate a pig's penis. I passed a stall that was selling everything on skewers - all you had to do is choose what sticks you want, they'd grill it and then serve it. I could easily identify the prawns, the beef, the larvae, and the snake. But there was one I couldn't identify - although I guessed what it was! The waiters spoke no English, but I could understand zhū (pig: 猪 or 豬), and zàng (organ: 脏 or 臟). I asked them to point where on my body I could find this organ (after all, it might have been the spleen, for example) but the girls just giggled and the guys just shrugged. I kept the receipt, and have since been able to confirm that 猪鞭 (zhūbiān) is indeed a pig's penis.
• In case you're wondering it's extremely long, thin, and really crunchy due to the cartilage. Yes, crunchy.
• I was constantly being harassed by people trying to get me to go on their bamboo boat rides. In other cities, "zhēnde bùyào' (真的不要)("I really don't want it") has normally been very effective for getting these people to leave me alone. But even that was not powerful enough for the hawkers in Yangshuo! But I quickly discovered that my saying "wǒ yǐjīng qù guò le" ("我已经去过了")("I've already been") was all I needed to be left alone.
•  My first few attempts at this involved saying "我已经去了" - but after two of these hawkers corrected my grammar :-)  I moved to the longer sentence of "我已经去过了". I didn't want to give the impression that I had already "passed over" and thus was dead.
• Sometimes I would ask a question (like: Where is the stairway?) and they would answer me. I wouldn't understand so I'd ask them to repeat. They would say it again using the same words at the same speed. I'd ask them to repeat, and it was almost like a comedy sketch - it didn't matter how many times I'd ask them to repeat, they would also maintain the same speed and use the same words - no attempt to slow down, no attempt to clarify. 
• (I normally stopped asking after 5 repeats, and pretended I finally understood them. Then I'd go ask someone else.)
• The one evening I met a Chinese woman who was working in Yangshuo and also an Israeli guy who was there for the rock climbing - and the three of us strangers spent the evening chatting. It was rather a surreal experience, trying to explain to her what a Jew is, since she'd never come across the concept before!
• Interestingly, the waitress serving us claimed to have a Masters degree in linguistics. It's an easy claim for anyone to make, but on the basis of the conversations we had with her, I would say I really did believe her.
• It's funny - when you're learning Chinese you sometimes memorise words that you think you're unlikely to ever use again. In my case, one such word was 翅膀 (chìbǎng)  - meaning 'wings'. And yet I am pleased to report that I did use that word, in Yangshuo! I was trying on a pair of trousers, and they really seemed to be "flappy" at the sides. She was trying to understand why I didn't like them - so I pulled on the pockets and explained it's because the trousers have 'wings'. She laughed as she got it - and went off to find a better pair for me.

In general, I had lots of conversations. And I got a lot of compliments. But I'm not deluding myself - I know what standard my Chinese is! After all, when they compliment me after I say "nǐhǎo" (你好)(hello), that was my clue that they hadn't yet done a full assessment. But they were nevertheless very genuine about their pleasure that a foreigner went as far as nǐhǎo, and that felt good.

I also made a lot of mistakes. And yet I felt no embarrassment whatsoever - I was pleased to be trying, and sometimes succeeding.

No matter what your level of Chinese, go spend some time in China - ideally outside the big cities (where English is an easy way out). Go practise - it's amazing how much your confidence and your 'flow' will increase after that.

I look forward to hearing about your experiences ...

MyPaper, my vocab

I just came back from a business trip to Singapore, where I discovered MyPaper, a newspaper that is handed out for free at MTR stations. (It also has an electronic version of the 'paper' on the website.)

The first thing I like about the paper is that it's available in both English and Chinese. That's really useful for Mandarin students.

The second thing I really like about it is that with many of the articles, it has got a short vocab list at the end of the article. Here are some examples:

 

 

So if you're looking to learn current and relevant words, or to practise your reading, try to spend some time at the MyPaper website - I'm impressed.
 

A Chinese Idiom in the hand is worth two in the bush

We have Idioms in English.

Every cloud has a silver lining. The early bid catches the worm. Better late than never.   But as many as we have (and as many as you were forced to memorise during your years at school) nothing comes close to the Chinese system of Chéngyǔ  (成语 / 成語 - which means 'set phrases').

Chengyu, in the strict sense, are four-character idioms, and according to Wikipedia there are over 5000 of them. Children spend a lot of time learning them at school, so you can be damn sure you're going to come across them often.

This post is not to get you like Chengyu, or even to start memorising them. But it's what happened in my own Mandarin-learning life around these idioms - just an unconnected series of personal anecdotes (although if you can see the hidden connection then well done!).

In the beginning
I had heard about some Mandarin students dedicating a lot of their time to learning Chengyu, but at the time I was thrilled if I could just remember how to say "I'm from South Africa" in decent Mandarin. So I promised myself I would never memorise any. Unfortunately, as your level increases, you can't avoid them - they come up more often that you'd like.

Losing my virginity
My first Chengyu was in a London dimsum restaurant called Ping Pong, which has the ceiling covered in a wall-paper with Chengyu written all over it. At that stage, my reading skills were rubbish, but looking around I saw one that I could actually read!

开门见山  (kāi​mén​jiàn​shān).  Literally, this is: open door see mountain. Can you work out what that means?

Open door see mountain. I had fallen in love with Chengyu. So simple, so direct. Wow - I could memorise millions of these!

I hate Chengyu
A few days later I was speaking with a Chinese friend about my new-found love, and she asked me what that particular Chengyu meant. So I explained my understanding: It was kinda like Nike's "Just do it!"  Open the door, see the mountain. It's right outside.

But I was wrong, she explained. The actual meaning is "Get right to the point."  This was so annoying, for two reasons.  Firstly, she was right - I spoke with several people, and looked up several resources on the net, and she was right. Secondly, my interpretation made more sense than hers. But no matter how much I argued, I couldn't change a few thousand years of habit for the Chinese.

Chengyu were not obvious, they were not simple. And I hated them.

Love at first sight
OK, so I learned to relax when I came across another one:  一见钟情 (yī​jiàn​zhōng​qíng). Literally, this means "one look bell emotion". Basically, it's just "love at first sight" - which was relatively intuitive, and my dislike for Chengyu started to fade again. (Love is fickle, eh?)

Which reminds me of 好久不见 (hǎo​jiǔ​bu​jiàn), which literally means 'long time no see', and the idioatic meaning is, uhm, 'long time no see'.  In fact, even though it's four characters long, it's so literally correct that I'm not sure if it's idiomatic enough to be called Chengyu. (Amusingly, I've got Chinese friends who insist that the West stole the phrase 'long time no see' from the Chinese. OK.)

Have you lost your horse?
Some Chengyu require you to understand the back-story to understand the meaning. So with "open door see mountain", although my definition is better than the actual definition :-) at least now that I know what it should mean, I won't forget.

But take for example, 塞翁失马 (sài​wēng​shī​mǎ). You can spend as much time as you want with the dictionary, you're not going to get it yourself. If you get the literal translation, you've got something like "block old-man lose horse". What?

Actually, 塞翁 is the name of a person - it has nothing to do with blocking old men from losing their horse. The back-story is in fact well known to Westerners, in various guises. Basically, Saiweng has a horse that runs away, but he doesn't take that as bad news. Months later it comes back with another, but he doesn't take that as good news either. His son then goes riding on the new horse and breaks his arm - which Saiweng doesn't take as bad news. Then a war breaks out, and his son avoids conscription because of the broken arm ... and so on.

This actually remind me of another 'story' I remember from school:
     A man takes a ride in an airplane.
     Unfortunately he falls out.
     Fortunately he has a parachute.
     Unfortunately it doesn't work.
     Fortunately there is a haystack below him.
     Unfortunately there is a pitchfork sticking out.
     Fortunately he misses the pitchfork.
     Unfortunately he misses the haystack.

But I digress ...

Do you know that?
I was reading through Carl Gene's excellent blog,  and in his one post about love idioms, I saw the following:  藕断丝连  (ǒuduànsīlián), which he describes as follows: "The lotus root is severed, but linked by threads. This chengyu metaphorises the idea of a relationship breaking up, but still being connected in some kind of way."

Nice concept, but frankly I had no idea what he was talking about. Lotus root threads? What?  So I did some searching, and came across the following really interesting article, with a whole bunch of pictures.

I did not know that!

Chengyu joke
两个裸男坐在石头上，打一成语

Brilliant, isn't it??  (Actually, I couldn't see why that should be funny. See if you can work it out, even after  you've read the explanation!)

My most recent Chengyu
And to wrap up the article, I'll mention that recently a colleague of mine was visiting HK from our Beijing office (he's German, fluent in Mandarin), and the topic of Chengyu came up. He immediately announced that his favourite (and indeed his first) is ...

画蛇添足   (huà​shé ​tiān​zú​) - literally "paint a snake, append a foot".  Its meaning is to do with over-doing it, or to do something superfluous to ruin the effect. That's a great Chengyu (although I still haven't had the chance to use it)!


Chengyu tools
So that's my life's relationship with Chengyu, an apparently unconnected set of stories. I'd love to hear about your experiences, whether failures or favourites, so drop us a note below ...

In the meantime, here are some other sites that might interest you:
     Wikipedia article on Chengyu
     Chengyu Dicionary: by Chinese-Tools.com
     MDBG idioms: all 250 entries where the word "idiom" appears
     Ten Chinese love idioms by Carl Gene
     Twenty actually useful Chengyu by Carl Gene
     Ten Chinese idioms to do with animals by ChineseHacks
     My Chengyu Top Ten by Sinosplice

In space, no-one can hear you learn vocabulary

There's a great little character (actually it's the same size as all other characters :-) that comes up really often in Mandarin, so it's worth spending a moment with it.

If you're a beginner, the content of this article may be new to you; and even if you're intermediate, then there are probably still words that are new.

Overall in the WordPack context, this is an example of what we discussed recently about being an active learner, when reasonable beavers co-operate.

The root of all time & space
Our starting point is 间 (間) which is pronounced 'jiān'. You can get the full definition at MDBG, but for our purposes, it comes down to "time & space".

Space
When 间 (jiān) is used to mean 'space', these are some of the resulting words:

空间 (kōng​jiān) space (literally empty space)
房间 (fáng​jiān) room (literally house space)​
洗手间 (xǐ​shǒu​jiān) bathroom (literally wash hands room)
雅间 (yǎ​jiān) private room
田间 (tián​jiān) farming area / village (literally field space)

Time
When 间 (jiān) is used to mean 'time', these are some of the resulting words:

时间 (shí​jiān​) time (perhaps literally this is: time space)
日间 (rì​jiān​) day-time (literally sun time)
夜间 (yè​jiān​) night-time (literally night time)
北京时间 (Běijīng Shíjiān​) Chinese Standard Time
格林尼治标准时间 (Gé​lín​ní​zhì​biāo​zhǔn​shí​jiān​) Greenwich Mean Time, GMT (ignore the literal meaning here, this is more of a transliteration)

Special Mentions
I've put these into a separate group because they have a bit of an 'angle' on them:

之间 (zhī​jiān) between
外层空间 (wài​céng​kōng​jiān) outer space (literally outside stratum empty space)
空间站 (kōng​jiān​zhàn) space station (literally empty space platform)
网络空间 (wǎng​luò​kōng​jiān) cyberspace
三维空间 (sān​wéi​kōng​jiān) three-dimensional space
坐标空间 (zuò​biāo​kōng​jiān) coordinate space (maths)
拓扑空间 (tuò​pū​kōng​jiān) topological space (maths)


How many of these words will you remember next week?  Are you really progressing over time?

Reasonable beavers co-operate

The meeting

I was in a meeting in Taipei recently which was being run in Mandarin. Although I was able to follow the general flow of the discussion, the extensive use of technical terms meant I was really missing the meaty bits.

There was one word which, during part of the debate, kept coming up: "hé li" (although I couldn't quite get the tone on the second character, given the pace of debate).

Back at the office, I looked it up in my usual MDBG dictionary, and saw a few words that matched 'heli', being:

   合理    hé​lǐ​    rational / reasonable / fair
   河狸    hé​lí​    beaver
   合力    hé​lì​    cooperate

These words

These are all good words, I decided, and I didn't want to forget them. So I copied them into my flashcard pack. However, rather than copying them as separate words, I thought their similarity made them easier to learn as a pack (in the usual WordPack logic), like this:

   合理 / 河狸 / 合力
   hé​lǐ / hé​lí / hé​lì​
   reasonable / beaver / co-operate

(And amusingly, each time one of these words come up, I immediately hear the sentence "reasonable beavers co-operate" in my head. Now I'll never forget!)

This article

I wrote this short article, not specifically to teach you these three words (although it would be a pity if you didn't take the time to learn them quickly now), but to challenge your thinking ...

When you come across a new word, what thoughts go through your mind?

• [no thoughts]
• Oh, that's a new word (... now what's for lunch?)
• I will come back and memorise it later
• I'll quickly memorise it now
• Do I know any synonyms for that word?
• What other words sound the same?
• Let me try make a sentence with that word
• I will use that word at least once today (and also once tomorrow (and also once next week (and also ...)))

Just to be clear, I don't have the time to do this with every new word I discover, but I do it often enough that I definitely have a materially larger vocab than I would otherwise if I didn't practise active learning.

The Truth

How active a learner are you?
 
  

Heisig: my just desserts

I was reminded recently that there is a large gap between knowing individual Chinese characters, and being able to understand what the entire phrase or sentence might mean.

This is already an idea I know well, I certainly mentioned it a few times in my series on learning to read using the Heisig system, and I've left numerous comments on others' blogs to that effect.

Nevertheless, I felt this example was 'extreme' enough to be worth sharing.


As you can see from the photo attached, there is an item on this late-night dessert place, which says:
    南北杏木瓜雪耳


(By the way, I did screw up a bit by initially confusing the 杏 character with 否. Forgive me?)

Anyway ... so doing what I normally do, I tried to work out what the dessert was. Actually, from my Heisig days, I knew the meaning of every character, which are as follow:
    = South North apricot wood melon snow ear

I had no idea what that was!   (All I could guess was that there was melon in there.)

It's easy enough to put this through a dictionary, but even here, it doesn't get much better, because I'm still left with:
    = South North apricot [papaya] snow ear


Upon discussing this with a HK friend, it turns out that the expressions are Cantonese in nature, and so knowing Mandarin (or using a Mandarin dictionary) isn't going to help much. But I persisted ...

Now, using human input and a Cantonese dictionary, I discover that the grouping should be as follows:
    (南北杏)(木瓜)(雪耳)
    (almond)(papaya)(white fungus)


Aside: According to Wikipedia, apricot kernels are sometimes used instead of bitter almonds, but it seems to be accepted in HK amongst those I spoke to that when they see 南北杏 they generally take it to mean 'almond'. White Fungus, in this case, does indeed look more ear-like than mushroom-like.

So there we have it. (Although *I* didn't have it.  No, I ate some kind of warm red bean soup instead. Mainly because I didn't need a dictionary for that one!).

Chinese seems hard, but it's actually harder than that! :-)


Can you recall any specific words that you learned along the way where the word or phrase looks *nothing* like the characters which make it up? If so, please leave a comment below.

Who's on First?

Gym has been helping me improve my Chinese since I moved to HK. (And my Chinese would be even better if I went more often!)

While running on treadmill, not only am I listening to Mandarin music, but I'm also watching the (silent) TV screens. Actually, I'm not even looking at the picture - just reading the subtitles as they flash past.  It's too fast and too complicated for me to work out what's going on, but it's good practice for the characters that I know ...

This time there was one character that kept on flashing past - I couldn't remember seeing it before, but sadly I also couldn't remember it well enough to reproduce it - which meant even a few minutes with a dictionary came up with blanks. (Forgive me, I was concentrating more on the burn in my thighs, and less on the shape of Chinese characters at that time.)

I got to work this morning, and asked a colleague what this character meant - and after a few failed attempts, she recognised it as 甚. She pointed out that it is usually associated with another character: 甚麼.

The dialogue then went as follows:
     G: 这是什么?  (zhè​ shì​ shén​me​?) ("This is what?")
(Yes, I've been learning Simplified characters, so I talk in Simplified too :-)
     E:  这是甚麼   (zhè​ shì​ shén​me​) ("This is 'what'.")
(Note the identical pinyin, which is why I was confused ...)
     G: 我问你: 这是什么?  ("I'm asking you: This is what?")
     E:  对 我告诉你: 这是甚麼  ("Correct, I'm telling you: This is 'what' ")

If you haven't worked it out by now, the word for 'what' in Simplified is 什么 - which according to the dictionary is written as 什麼 in Traditional Characters. However, there is a variant of this word in Traditional which is 甚麼.

This is what?
Yes, this is what.

Kinda reminded me of the old Abbot & Costello sketch called "Who's on First?". If you don't know it, you'd better see it!


Have you ever listened to a story that sounded like it was going to have an amazing climax, but didn't?  Ah yes, well this is one of those :-)

Neither Coke nor Water

Sometimes I really don't understand why people can't understand my Chinese.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I use the wrong words, the wrong tones, the wrong facial expressions a lot of the time. But still, if you don't understand a person, don't you sit there trying to work out what they might have meant?

Of course, it's not just with Chinese - this is an English problem too. Let me start with an example that happened in Boston USA about a year ago. A small group of us were sitting in a restaurant (including my cousin, who had been living in Boston for 10 years).

The waitress asks us what we'd like to drink, my cousin orders a coffee, I order a "Sam Adams" (the beer is actually called "Samuel Adams", but this waitress is so smart, so she managed to work out what I wanted), and Charlie orders a water. She orders water using her English accent, saying "water" very clearly.

"What?"
"Water."
"Sorry, what?"
"Water?"

The waitress is really struggling to understand the word "water", in spite of the fact that she just asked us what we'd like to drink. "Wheelbarrow" would not have made sense, but "water" seems quite obvious.

My cousin interrupts: "She wants water."  Lynn says this with a Boston accent, which sounds more like "wadder" than "waw-tuh".

"Oh wadder?  Sure, no problem," and off the waitress goes.

Seriously. This really happened.


And so to Chinese.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Shenzhen. I'm in a restaurant, and wanting to order a Diet Coke. Dammit! I can't remember the Chinese word for diet Coke - so I say ​kě​lè​ (可乐)(可樂)('cola'). This part she understands.

I remember that the word for "lose weight" is jiǎn​féi (减肥), which kinda rings bells. I know it's not quite right, but it's close ... so I take a guess by asking for "jiǎn kě​lè".

She doesn't get it. I clarify by saying "méi​yǒu​ táng​" (no sugar), then I repeat "jiǎn kě​lè".  This is not going anywhere, and after another minute of trying, I give up and just order a normal coke.

Now the truly frustrating part is that the word I was looking for was "jiàn​yí​ kě​lè" (健怡可乐)(健怡可樂). When I looked that up back in HK, I was dumbfounded - because she knew I was looking for a type of cola, it doesn't contain sugar, and it sounds like "jiǎn kě​lè".

Wouldn't "jiàn​yí​ kě​lè" be an obvious guess?  I guess not.


tom-A-to is different to tom-ah-to,  but people can work that out.
water is almost the same as wadder, but people can't work that one out.


And I know that what I speak is is waaaaay different to proper Chinese, but still ....

Now blogging from Hong Kong

Hi all

I was shocked to notice that I haven't posted in nearly two months!  Thanks for the emails from those of you who were wondering if I was still "around" ...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had plans to move to Hong Kong. And in fact, I have moved to HK. Indeed, this is me now, blogging from Hong Hong.

The picture you see to the right is from my current apartment window, in the heart of Wanchai. This coming weekend I will move to my permanent apartment further east.

In the last couple of months I got tied up with the process of moving, using up some leave that was still due to me (in the US & South Africa), and coming across here. I've also been settling in HK, doing 'domestic' things grocery shopping and getting haircuts.

I've not had that much opportunity to practise my Mandarin (well, more than London, but less than I would want) - except for the last two days which I spent in Shenzhen for China's 61st birthday. I've also been having to re-learn some of my reading, because HK uses the Traditional character set, whereas I learned the Simplified set - but I've done this learning "in the wild" and not from books.

So, following soon, I'll be writing more articles. I've got so many ideas in the last couple of weeks. Keep an eye out for my next post called "Neither Coke nor Water".

If you're still reading, drop me a note below to say hi. (And if you're based in HK, let me know - it would be fun to meet up.)

Getting Sentenced in Mandarin

This is another article in the Life Sentences series.  In my opening post, I wrote the following:

"Copyright acknowledgement: Over time I have collected a variety of sentences, and loaded them into my flashcard system. By this stage, I no longer have any idea where they came from. Some are of my own construction, or from friends who have emailed or instant-messaged me. Others have been copied from websites along the way. To make sure I give credit where due, the following sites are the most likely external sources ... "

The purpose of this article is to say a few words about why I bother getting sentences, and where.


Why?
Originally I used to just read the sentences and convince myself that I 'got' the structure, but over time I realised I didn't - so I then started adding entire sentences into my Anki flashcards collection. There are two major benefits to this:

• Chinese sentence constructs can be really different to English (as mentioned in my previous post). You can't just memorise lists of words and do literal word-by-word translations, it doesn't work that way.
• You should make sure you're using the words in the right context. In English, for example, there is a difference between jealousy & envy,  disinterested and uninterested - and you'll want to use the right words in Chinese too.

Where?

Daily sentences

• Whether you're a beginner just learning words, or an intermediate learning sentences, it's worthwhile subscribing to mandarin.About.com's Word of the Day. Here you can see a sample for yǐngxiǎng (影響)(影响). Almost every day, I pick a word or sentence from the email, and enter it into my flashcard system. Highly recommended.
• There are several pre-made databases for the Anki flashcard system, one of which contains 20,000 thousand sentences. Whether you set it to one new sentence a day, or many, is up to you - but start that habit today.

Rolling your own sentences

• The jukuu.com website is basically designed to take words that you input (English, Mandarin, Japanese) and track down sentences which use that word. I find that lots of the resulting sentences are too long to interest me, and often of a technology theme, but you can still get some great sentences to copy into your flashcard system. Here's a sample using the word yǐngxiǎng again.
• The nciku dictionary is one of the better web-based Mandarin/English dictionaries, and it also has a sample sentence facility - take a look at the yǐngxiǎng examples.
• I only discovered Engkoo.com while in the final draft of this article, but so far I'm very impressed.  The sentences tend to be quite long, but the front-end is quite polished. You can see the yǐngxiǎng examples here.
• iChaCha offers yet another option, neat presentation and nicely short sentences. You can also see the example sentences for yǐngxiǎng.
• Of course, you always have the option of simply entering the Chinese characters into your favourite search engine (I'm now using Bing, but you may still be using Google). It certainly takes more effort than the above options because it requires a lot more reviewing of the results to find good sentences, but maybe that's your preference.
• I have a little paper dictionary  called Collins Chinese Dictionary (in colour), which often gives sample sentences for the words I look up. 
• Finally, I have installed the free Pleco dictionary on my iPad,  which usually gives example sentences for looked-up words. For yǐngxiǎng it provides about a dozen sentences.

Pre-loved sentences

• Sometimes when I'm listening to Chinese podcasts (usually ChinesePod or Popup Chinese) I hear a sentence that I really* like - whether because it contains useful words, or has an interesting structure, or simply because I think I will use it often. I then enter a version of that sentence (English, pinyin, hanzi) into my flashcard system, and wait for it to come into the queue.
• When emailing or instant-messaging (let's pretend that's a verb, OK?)  with a Chinese friend, they might use a sentence which strikes me as likely to be of common use, or it may have interesting vocab or sentence structure. So I sometimes paste sentences like that into my flashcard collection.

If you use other sites for finding sentences, or even completely difference methods, then please leave a comment below. I hope you find this useful ...


* JP, I know you're reading this. One of the sentences coming through my flashcards at the moment is from an old ChinesePod QingWen episode with you, Connie & Amber. From that, I took this sentence: "难怪你那么佩服JP" :-)
** Some links are affiliated.