Chinese native speaker. Teach Chinese Mandarin and let's discover Chinese together in an interesting way

Find out more about Hanxiang

• Do you speak this language fluently because of your origins or because a teacher inspired you to learn?

  I am a native speaker of Mandarin Chinese. My hometown is in northeast China and is close to Beijing, which has less accent and is close to the standard Mandarin pronunciation. That makes my Chinese learning and teaching follow the most standard Mandarin.

• Can you name a living, historical or fictional character that you think is the emblematic representative of the language's culture?

  Ying Zheng was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first Emperor of China. He has conquered and united 7 kingdoms into one country. The languages in different 7 kingdoms were also united into 1 standard Chinese. Since then all Chinese have been using one language which makes the culture and record of history continue to prosper. It was a significant work in the history of uniting such a big area's language into one.

• Is there a typical word, phrase, tradition or behavior in the language that you particularly like?

  生肖, Zodiac from Chinese tradition, 12 animals used to show different years in hexadecimal. People can also calculate the age of a person without asking the age straightly. It does not only have the meaning singly and mathematically, but it also teaches people to learn and improve their personality from their paired animal. For example, "tiger" and "rabbit" are a pair, so the tiger person should learn to be smart and humble to avoid and solve problems smoothly, not only brave and aggressive.

• Why does speaking this language matter to you?

  As a language spoken by the most amount of people, it brings more opportunity to the speaking person to get to know more information from other people, the history, the news to discover more on the culture, policy, economic, etc

• What is the main difficulty in learning this language and what can help the process of learning?

  A part different from English, Chinese has thousands of different characters which makes reading and writing more difficult. Even though there is a large amount of character and vocabulary that needs to be remembered, it can be easier when we know how the character has been invented or structured with more practice to use those words in real-life talking and writing.

• Provide a valuable anecdote related to your language learning or your days at school.

  In one of my classes, when I was learning Chinese, the Teacher taught us about the multiple meanings of a single character. The example she gave was the sentence "I almost fell while riding my bike, luckily I suddenly held the handlebar." The "suddenly held the handlebar" are four same characters written like"一把把把把住", and sounds also funny. I found out it was a clever example to learn not only the meaning but also the grammar at the same time.

• How has travel or a specific trip helped you to increase your skill and knowledge of the language?

  China has a huge language system that includes many different accents and local languages which are different from the standard Mandarin. By traveling domestically, you can learn what the local people saying and how they use Chinese. By traveling globally, you can find a chance to display your Chinese skills in different environments. Either way, it will increase the skill and knowledge by practicing more and meeting more people and cultures.

• What makes you a Superprof in language?

  A Famous quote by Confusious: Revise the old as well as learning the new, makes you a master. Becoming a Superprof is the same way, by learning from great people like Confusious and books, revising and systemizing the knowledge I have, learning up-to-date knowledge, and trying new ways to teach. And always standing in the student position to think about how the beginner learns and understands a new language.