During the traditional Chinese New Year, the firecrackers are the necessary thing to make the festival more enjoyable and exciting. The most spectacle can be seen at 0 o’clock of the 1st day of the lunar January. When the clock strikes 12, it announces the arrival of a new year. Exactly at 0 o’clock—the first […]
Chinese embroidered shoes are reputed as “Chinese shoes” as they are characteristic of Chinese culture and elements. In the Spring and Warrior States periods dating back more than 600 years, the capital of Jin was located in Shanxi Province. In 606 BC when Jin Xiangong became the monarch, he set out to expand the territory, […]
In ancient times, Chinese people had a tendency of preferring boys rather than girls. And they think boys should be the person to learn, to work and to do some important thing, while girls should stay at home and learn to look after the family, do some embroidering and making clothes such kind of things. […]
In a traditional Chinese marriage, the teasing games are a very interesting part. After the groom took the bride home and passed some of the fixed ceremonial procedures, the bride will be sent back to the room. After the great feast and the night falls, all the young men who haven’t married can come into […]
The Formation of Chinese Characters Chinese characters were created in accordance with a certain model or prescribled patterns. In China’s first dictionary, “shuowen jiezi” (“Explaining and Analyzing Chinese Characters”), there were character-formation methods. Chinese characters can be classified into four main categories: pictographic characters, self-explanatory characters, associative compounds and pictophoentic characters. 1. Pictographic Characters Many […]
If you have studied Chinese or are studying Chinese now, you may have heard of “Self-explanatory Characters” when learning Chinese characters. The pictographic character for knife is “刀” (dao), isn’t it look like a big knife? So in order to obtain the character “刃” (ren, “blade”), all we need to do is to add a […]
Are you studying Chinese? There are many rules for Chinese learners to memorize the Chinese characters. In Chinese, two “人” (ren, “people”) characters written together gives us the character “从” (cong), which depicts one person walking behind another and means “to follow”. When three “人” characters are written together, we get the character “众”(zhong, “many […]
The individual components of associative compounds represent meaning. In the pictophonetic characters, some components represent the character’s meaning and others represent its pronunciation. For example, “财(cai)”, “帐(zhang)”, “货(huo)” all have the character “贝” (bei) and all have meanings related to money. Actually, “贝” (bei) means “shell”, and in ancient China, people used shells as money. […]
When it is time for the traditional Chinese Spring Festival in each year, China will experience of the “spring transportation” and the “shopping booming”. The reunion dinner contributes part of these. As the New Year is great time for family reunion, and there is usually a reunion dinner for members of the family, no matter […]
The ancient Chinese incorporated their observations and awareness of nature into the shapes of Chinese characters. Learn Chinese: 日(“ri”, the sun) The archaic character for “日” resembles the shape of the sun. the small dot in the middle indicates that the sun is a luminous body—⊙. In ancient China, there was a story called “Houyi […]
So during my first week at Keats, I didn’t dare to speak any Chinese words. I found out that my Chinese level quickly improved since then. Although I have many options to study in China, for example, some other schools have homestay, I found I could immerse myself and fully focus on learning Chinese by staying at Keats.
It has been notable because I have met a lot of people who I met first time last year like me to come back to Keats this year. The teaching has been fantastic. The teachers carefully prepare each lesson. I think this one-on-one approach is really a great way to rapidly increase your level of Chinese and increase your confidence and fluency with the language.
My name is Sarah Fish. I am 81. I knew very little Chinese when I arrived. How was I going to survive 2 weeks of intensive Chinese course? I have to laugh when I think of that now. What a positive experience this has been! I really wish we could be here a little longer. The teachers are extremely encouraging, evaluating first how much someone knows, and then starting from there.
Kunming is a fantastic city. The weather here is great. The school is excellent. The instructors are very helpful, very friendly. I strongly recommend that anybody who is looking for a Chinese language school in China come here to study. Kunming and Keats school are much better than any other place.
I am a graduate student working on my doctorate degree at Columbia University. We were able to really focus on speaking especially interview-style speaking and we are able to really up my Chinese reading and writing skills, so when I go back to Columbia, I can take formal Chinese classes. It has been a really good experience and I really love my teacher.
Kunming is a great place to learn Chinese in China because not many Chinese on the street speak English. Keats has been a great school for me and a lot of other foreigners who studied in China recommended it to me. I think they are all right. The study method here is really structured. They make learning Chinese really easy. There are also a lot of cultural and natural places to visit.
The best part of the school is the patience the instructors had and the time to focus on the fundamentals like pronunciation. I think it is very easy to skip over those and go to vocabulary. But by learning the pronunciation, I feel like it helped me gain a better understanding of the language.
I have 2 teachers, and I do 4 hours a day. So I have got Dong Laoshi and Jin Laoshi. Both of them are very good. They made the experience very nice to me. They are willing to help you whenever, so if you ever have a question here, the teachers are always there to help you whether it is visas, whether it is getting around the city. Everyone wants to talk to you.