Chinese Study

Happy New Year!

My wish for all of us is, may we not wait. Do the thing. If you can't do the thing, do something else.

人生苦短，不要等待 ♥

祝你们新年厉害！

Now it's warm and raining?? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We could just talk about weather every day; I love weather.

But if your weather is uninspiring, tell me about your languages ♥ If you're learning Chinese (or any other language) right now, is it your second language? Third? Fourth, tenth?*

*No rules for how much of a language you know, or what you can do with it, for it to "count." I'm just here for a good time.

(And also to find out how many Chinese sign languages there are, and if they have a word for "fingerspell" - I will google and then comment.

It looks like it's time to end 2025 as I began it, by posting to chinesestudy ♥ I didn't do as much reading as I meant to this year, but I did a lot of writing.

Today I spent a little time dreaming about language practice in 2026, and, as always, what a great and productive year it's going to be :D

I've turned on anonymous commenting and turned off IP logging for this community, and I'll test it myself on this post. So if you want to do a little writing practice, reflect on this past year or the next, or just comment on the weather, please feel free to do it with or without your name attached.

Love you all, and happy learning!

With lunar new year activities still ongoing, I finally looked up the significance of the writing on the Boston Chinatown gate ♥

(What I learned is that many more hours of study will be required to understand the significance. I included notes from my initial googling below for anyone who's interested.)

( gate pictures, front and back )

♥ 天下为公
(in traditional characters on the gate, right to left: 公為下天)
Translated in a variety of ways including "everything under heaven is for the public" and "the world is shared equally by all."
( unverified google research )

♥ 礼义廉耻
(in traditional characters on the gate, right to left: 恥廉義禮)
Four principles necessary to a functioning society: "propriety, justice, integrity, honor" or "etiquette, righteousness, honesty, sense of shame."
( more unverified google research )

祝福大家新年万事如意！♥



(I made this cute little wish out of transparencies from PNGWing.com)

龙漫画｜dragon cartoon, by Tan Huay Peng~

( picture of cartoon )

"Fun with Chinese Characters: The Straits Times Collection," volumes 1-3, are compilations of cartoons by Tan Huay Peng, circa 1970, providing "imaginative and humorous interpretations" of individual Chinese characters.

♥ 第五个感恩的问题：这个三月发生了哪些好事情？（好天气、有趣的体验、这个月终于结束了、等等？）

我这个月听说了另一件事，好像和感恩的主题有关：“国外的月亮比较圆。” (Allen, 在这个视频中：Taiwanese Talks About Starting a Business in Thailand。Eileen的翻译是，"the moon is rounder abroad.")

♥ 第二个感恩问题：你今天看到了什么新的东西？人、书、电视剧、体验、等等？

So I've spent a probably unreasonable amount of time thinking about how to modify the game "word dragon" so that people can play it individually AND in a group (not that group games aren't great, just that it's fun to have both options) and I'm temporarily conceding defeat.

Instead, I propose "share a chengyu" day!* Since it's the year of the loong, here are two great options:

1) Comment with a chengyu that includes 龙/龍/🐲/loong/dragons. (Feel free to include the meaning or just the chengyu itself.)

OR

2) Comment with any chengyu you like! It's like the "ticky box" option on a poll ♥ Favorite chengyu, one you heard or used recently, whatever springs to mind.

*Inspired by how great the Pleco app is: it not only provides contextual examples for word use, it also provides chengyu involving particular characters (if you look up the character and then click "words" for sample words, chengyu including that character will be included on the list).

除夕快乐，Happy New Year's Eve!

It's the last day of the year of the rabbit, or already the year of the dragon depending on when you read this! Here is a friendly word jumble to start the celebration off right:

你 乐 新 快 祝 年

Assemble the six characters in order to form a common wish this time of year ♥

Alternatively or in addition, feel free to share a word, phrase, or sentence with 兔 (thanks, rabbit!) or 龙 (welcome, dragon!) in it.