ULearnChinese

Schools Network Chinese Conference Day 2

mcopleston — Sat, 19 May 2012 11:48:51 +0000

A move to the British Museum! A full programme, including a great performance from the students from Kingsford School. Katharine Carruthers gave a revealing insight into the Asia Society in the USA and immersion schools followed by a great presentation on ‘Seeing differently’ by Helen Wang of the British Museum. A full workshop programme occupies the rest of the day.

Schools Network Chinese Conference 2012

mcopleston — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:45:17 +0000

The first morning at the Connaught rooms, Sunny Qiao and Daping Fu with Kate Hammond at the ULC stand. Eager delegates and a full programme and an even busier lunch.
Gao Fei, from the Confucius Institute, University of Saint David’s Lampeter, who recorded some of our Chinese audio. George Zhang gave a really thought provoking presentation on the contrasting definitions and roles of teachers in China and the UK as well as the need to differentiate between language acquisition and language learning.

Olympic sports and pair games

mcopleston — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:43:32 +0000

Word games for download

There are three PDFs which can be downloaded, printed, cut up and used as required. Firstly, the Olympic pictograms with sports names in Chinese and pinyin. Secondly the Olympic words in characters with drawing sheets and thirdly, ‘pairs’ games. In this last PDF are four sets – pictograms, Chinese characters and pinyin, Chinese characters, and finally pinyin. The pairs can be used in any combination, with students even miming a sport to see if another student has the card, or just plain 4-way snap!
Olympic Sports
Olympics characters
Olympic pairs

I want more steamed stuffed buns!

mcopleston — Fri, 04 May 2012 07:30:53 +0000

In this great video, a father is trying to get his son to say 我还要包子–wǒ hái yào bāozi – I want some more baozi. No matter how hard the father tries, the little boy refuses to repeat the phrase.

Click on the link to run the video.

“I want more steamed stuffed buns”

Tourism in China – scary walks!

mcopleston — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 14:26:37 +0000

The skywalk is situated 4,700ft above sea level on the side of the Tianmen Mountain in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, China. The 200ft long bridge joins the west cliff at the Yunmeng Fairy Summit and Zhang Jiajie. If you have ever been skiing you will recognise the name ‘Poma’ who have constructed the world’s longest cable car to take visitors to the top of the mountain.

Also in Hunan on the side of Shifou mountain in Hunan province a new ‘plank’ walk is being constructed!

London Book Fair

mcopleston — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 19:46:27 +0000

Madame Xu Lin and presenters and students from Kingsford School today at the LBF. Please drop in to our presentation at 10.30am Wednesday to look at ULearnChinese and how it can be localised for teaching Chinese from any language.

On-line shopping with a difference

mcopleston — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:27:49 +0000

On line shopping, 网购 wǎng gòu, is even more popular in China with low delivery costs. There is a difference with one online giant, Taobao, 淘宝, helping to breed a new generation of creative entrepreneurs. Almost 600,000 Chinese under the age of 32 running individual Taobao stores. Virtual stores with a national image, a sort of retail ebay. Taobao has revolutionized not just Chinese retail, but the lives of thousands of young people.

清明 Qīngmíng Pure Brightness (Tomb Sweeping Day)

mcopleston — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 21:09:51 +0000

Qingming Festival (also known as Pure Brightness Festival or Tomb-sweeping Day) falls this year on April 4th as it is a leap year. Tomb Sweeping – paying respects to dead relatives, Spring outings as it is a National holiday and Kite flying, with little lanterns at night, mark a really serious Chinese festival that was banned during the cultural revolution. On-line remembrance using facebook is also used by family members unable to travel home as this is a really important part of Chinese family life.

Dancing in China

mcopleston — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:33:19 +0000

In China, ballroom dancing seldom happens in ballrooms. Every evening dancers make use of any open ground: squares, parks, the outsides of banks or supermarkets, and even sidewalks. No-one minds if you join in.

The dances themselves are different from Western ones and some are named after cities, where they were invented: the Guangzhou cha-cha, the Nanjing sailor’s dance, and the Tianjin jitterbug.

But mostly the dances are just named for their rhythm: the fast three (快三 kuài sān), the moderate three (中三 zhōng sān), the slow four (慢四 màn sì) and the just four (平四 píng sì). They are danced to popular old Chinese songs like The Military Harbor’s Night or to ethnic music.

Which is dearer? Tea or Gold

mcopleston — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:54:46 +0000

Taking tea in Hangzhou’s famous Longjing Manor restaurant. Starting this Friday, tea farmers in Hangzhou will start harvesting Longjing. It’s one of China’s most prestigious teas, and this year, the price of the most refined Longjing has reached 60 thousand yuan per kilo.

The plucking is carried out as early as possible to harvest young shoots. It is said that the best time to harvest longjing tea is before Qing Ming (清明), Tomb Sweeping Day, occurring on April 4 (leap years) or April 5 (other years). Subsequently, tea harvested before Grain Rain (谷雨)named as 雨前茶 (Yu-qian Cha) is second in quality. In any event 0.5kg contains about 60,000 pieces of young shoots.