Mandarin Group Class in Suzhou (50% Special Discount)

Suzhou Pingtan

In our Chinese lesson, one of our students told me that he heard a strange Chinese language that he couldn't understand. I told him the strange Chinese was Suzhou dialect. In Suzhou, people can even sing songs in Suzhou dialect which is called Suzhou Pingtan.

In the late years of the Ming Dynasty and the early years of the Qing Dynasty, actors and actresses began to perform in Suzhou dialect, from then on Suzhou Pingtan emerged. Suzhou Pingtan, which is known for its story telling, joke cracking, music playing and aria singing, enjoys its popularity in the subsequent 200 years and is still popular now.

Come to ask our Mandarin instructors and get more information about the culture of Suzhou.

斗蛐蛐(dòu qūqū)

Do you believe that Chinese people like a kind of entertainment called斗蛐蛐(dòu qūqū), i.e. cricket fighting? Yes, it’s true! China's cricket fighting culture, which has a long history from about 900 years ago, is not only a reflection of unique and colorful Chinese cultural life, but also a kind of Chinese art.

Many people like this game especially in ancient China. They care a lot about the variety, physical ability and fighting capacity of 蛐蛐(qūqū) and even provide a special container for them as the battlefield. They find斗蛐蛐(dòu qūqū) very interesting and exciting. Nowadays this activity is less common but it still exists in the folk.

Want to know more? Come and join the Chinese course in New Concept Mandarin in Suzhou！

萌 méng

Chinese characters are very interesting, 萌(Méng) is one of them.

萌(Méng) is very popular. Its original meaning is that trees and grass sprout. But nowadays, its meaning has a great change. It used to describe a person who is sincere, lovely and innocent. We usually use the world to describe an animal or a girl.

There are many interesting pictographic Chinese characters like this. Come and learn Mandarin with us, you’ll find that Chinese is very vivid!

萌 méng

Chinese characters are very interesting, 萌(Méng) is one of them.

萌(Méng) is very popular. Its original meaning is that trees and grass sprout. But nowadays, its meaning has a great change. It used to describe a person who is sincere, lovely and innocent. We usually use the world to describe an animal or a girl.

There are many interesting pictographic Chinese characters like this. Come and learn Mandarin with us, you’ll find that Chinese is very vivid!

汉字（hàn zì）

Most foreigners say the Chinese characters are really hard to learn at the beginning. In the ancient time, people did not know the characters. They drew pictures to record things. This is the simple pictographic representations of objects. There are totally about 600 pictographic characters. These characters are very interesting. Everyone has its own story. Then the other complex compound characters are consisted of the basic ones. You can guess the meanings and pronunciation of the compound characters. They also provide a fascinating insight into the Chinese sense of humor.

If you are interested in Chinese characters, please come to learn more stories about Chinese characters together.

Shān zhài 山寨

Jenny is new to Suzhou and has been taking Mandarin intensive course with us. Today, she had an interesting discussion with her Mandarin teacher. Jenny told the teacher that when she went out shopping at a night market, she saw a lot of designer’s bags on sale there. So she suspected that those bags are copies. The teacher told her that those are Shān zhài bags.

In Chinese, Shān zhài is used to describe something that is not the original, or is a copy of the original.

Learn Chinese with New Concept Mandarin Suzhou and find out more interesting Chinese words!

wú yŭ无语

Our Mandarin student John just came back from a business trip last week. When being asked how everything went with the trip, he told us everything was ok on the business side but he had an unpleasant experience flying back. He got to the airport at 5am to catch his 7am flight. But after he arrived at the airport, he was been informed that his flight would be delayed till 1pm. John said, “I was rendered totally wú yŭ! ”

In Chinese, if you are rendered speechless by something, you can say I am wú yŭ.

Learn Chinese with New Concept Mandarin teachers and find out more ways of describing feelings and emotions in Mandarin!