How Mandarin is actually learned
Long pieces on method: what tones really are, why word counts mislead, how review scheduling works, and what an examination does and does not measure. Written by the editorial team, reviewed before publication, and revised rather than quietly deleted.
Chinese Has No Conjugation — And That Is the Hard Part
No tenses, no persons, no agreement, no irregular verbs. The relief lasts about three weeks. Then you discover that what replaces conjugation is a system of aspect, time words and context that is genuinely harder than an endings table.
Sofia Ouazzani · June 1, 2026 · 6 min read
The 把 Construction, Explained Slowly
Most learners do not struggle with 把 — they avoid it, for years, behind a set of workarounds smooth enough that nobody notices. Here is what the pattern actually does, the three rules that govern it, and the places where no workaround exists.
Nadia Haddad · April 20, 2026 · 5 min read
Chinese for Work: A Starting Vocabulary for Meetings, Email and Introductions
Workplace Chinese is not advanced Chinese. It is a different set of very ordinary words that general courses skip: how you are addressed, what you say to hold the floor in a meeting, and the four lines that make up most internal email.
Omar Benjelloun · April 6, 2026 · 6 min read
How these are written
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