Getting Nuts About Standard Chinese, By Learning About the Chinese Names of Nuts

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Hanbridge Mandarin

In pursuing the need to teach Mandarin Chinese, it's important to deviate from the old-fashioned Chinese language education (read here). Instead, we need to get people interested in basic vocabulary. This would be a good exercise to learn from basic sentence making and conversations. 

Here's an example of what's called bon toi back in my day. Let's think of learning Chinese through nuts.

  • Question: 你想要巴西坚果、核桃、杏仁还是腰果? (Nǐ xiǎng yào bāxī jiānguǒ, hétáo, xìngrén háishì yāoguǒ)
    • Translation: Do you want brazil nuts, walnuts, almonds, or cashews?
  • Answer: 我想要杏仁，非常感谢. (Wǒ xiǎng yào xìngrén, fēicháng gǎnxiè.)
    • Translation: I want to have almonds, please, thank you very much.
However, there's a mistake in the chart because the coconut isn't a nut. Instead, it's a coconut fruit of the coconut tree, of the coconut palm family. The song was written by Filipino musician Ryan Cayabyab. 

Now, it's time to enjoy learning Chinese through learning about nuts! 

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