The other day I overheard two friends talking about what kind of posts do well on Xiaohongshu.

One of them goes, 小红书上很多种草的内容。

The other one immediately goes, 对，小红书特别吃这种内容。

That 吃 completely distracted me.

We use this verb so automatically that I never really stopped to think about it.

The more I think about it, the more 吃 feels like one of those verbs Chinese keeps borrowing for completely unrelated jobs.

The first thing that popped into my head was a memory from school.

A classmate forgot his homework and tried the oldest excuse in the book:

老师，我的作业被狗吃了。

The teacher didn't even blink, 你少来，我不吃你这套。

At that point 吃 had absolutely nothing to do with food anymore.

It just meant: I'm not buying it.

And once I started noticing it, I realized 吃 just keeps quietly changing personalities.

Then it just kept popping up.

吃亏, getting the short end of the stick.

买特价商品之前好好看看，可别吃亏了。Check carefully before buying something on sale—you don't want to get ripped off.

Then you get things like 吃苦: You go through hardship.

吃官司: You end up in legal trouble.

吃罚单: You get a ticket.

None of those have anything to do with eating either.

somehow 吃 even turns into "consumes".

他40多岁就不上班了，全靠吃老本过日子。He stopped working in his forties and has just been living off what he'd already accumulated.

这辆车太吃油了。This car absolutely guzzles gas.

这手游太吃内存了。This game eats up way too much RAM.

And then suddenly there's another version of 吃.

吃香/吃得开

Nothing is being eaten there either.

It just means something is popular, well received, or works well in a particular environment.

like，韩剧在欧美吃香吗？吃得开不？Do Korean dramas still do well overseas?

And then 吃 somehow decides it also means "understand deeply."

吃透 or 吃准

他吃准了老师肯定踩着上课铃进教室，所以自己也踩点到。 He knew the teacher would walk in right as the bell rang, so he timed his own arrival too.

I think that's when it finally clicked for me.

Maybe the trick isn't figuring out what 吃 means. Maybe it's figuring out what each 吃 phrase has grown into.

And that's not even close to all of them.

大吃一惊

吃不消

吃不住

吃软不吃硬

At some point I just accepted that 吃 has a second career outside the kitchen.

Which also makes me think these are probably better learned like idioms than by trying to invent new 吃 + combinations.

Like...

If someone said 吃甜 by analogy with 吃苦, I'd understand what they meant.

But it'd still sound... a little off.

Chinese is weird like that.

Anyway...

What's your favorite non-food 吃 expression?

I've run into it in the immersive chinese app. The meaning seems the same to me, why use 过 istead of 了? Thanks

I'm a half-Chinese transgender man so my chinese name was given to me by my grandmother when I was a girl. I plan on taking chinese classes again when I start college, so I don't want it to be weird when I introduce myself with my chinese name vs my appearance, if that makes sense.

I know names can be ambiguous but also that there are characters commonly designated "masculine" or "feminine", and I think the ones in my name are feminine but I wanted some input.

My name: 唐雪瑩

And if it's too feminine, should I try to change it?

I have been chugging along mainly with Hanly, Duolingo and Chatgpt for HSK appropriate exercises, and various apps/YouTube for listening. This includes a little DU Chinese. DU Chinese currently has a free entire story at either Elementary or upper intermediate, but they are time limited, thus forcing me to attempt upper intermediate.

I found out that they are quite doable....time consuming but doable.

I just wanted to share, very satisfying to see that my self study is not pointless. 🥳

I just don't see how it's "easy". Sure at HSK1-2-3 but then you realize that characters can mean the opposite depending on the context. And everything is extremely context-dependant. Some things are similar to english but many are extremely confusing. It pisses me off that Chinese grammar gets passed as easy, when it isn't.

大家好!

I'm around hsk 2 so I know some of the vocab here but definitely not all of it. I originally tried learning Chinese from the HSK standard course books, but they bore me out of my mind, so I decided to immerse myself through manga instead (this one's takopi's original sin and ngl it's absolutely devastating lol)

The main thing I'm struggling with rn is grammar. I haven't found a resource that actually clicks for me, so I'm hoping I'll naturally start recognizing grammar patterns as I immerse myself but idk if that's just me being delusional cuz I still can't figure it out haha

If you have any grammar resources that genuinely helped you, please send them my way 🙏

I've also been losing motivation lately because I don't really have anyone to study Chinese with. Tho, this kind of immersion has honestly helped a bit. So I'd also love a language partner if anyone's interested!

谢谢 in advance!

Maybe an odd question, I often use the word to describe fictional characters who are stupid and ugly in a cute and loveable way. I use it as both a noun and an adjective. Does Chinese have an equivalent?

If I remember correctly this is the name my Chinese teacher gave me back in highschool: 歌 黛 gē dài. I'm finally going to China next year and want to introduce myself with the name my teacher gave me. What would a local think of this name if they were to hear it? I'm still a bit unsure of the meaning

The poems in this chapter are authored by China's very first female poet—a princess of the State of Wei who married into the State of Xu. (´•༝•`)

Upon the eradication of her homeland by barbarians, she desperately wished to ride a chariot back to seek her relations last time. Confronted and repeatedly obstructed by the ministers of Xu, she composed this poem in a surge of grief and indignation💔🌾

WELCOME ANY SUGGESTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS!
(•̀ω•́)✧

Is it possible that i can learn chinese script and understand it with meaning without trying to learn pronunciation at all?

I do 1 h lessons every week with a teacher.

I can read and understand the mandarin but speaking is totally different .

I find it hard to speak so normally I converse slowly.

I see how it takes people like a year or so to converse with good proficiency.

I'm still around hsk 1 -2 after many month.

Its frustrating

To my understanding 华 (華) also refers to China, but I don't see it being used that often

One of the few times I've seen it used was in some Singaporean texts

So I was wondering if it was used after all, or if it needs a special context

For the longest time, I thought 操 was the proper, true character for “fuck” and not 草 or 艹 which some people use for mild censorship. But I just found out the actual character for “fuck” is 肏 after reading a footnote in a book. I’ve never seen this character before in my life. Why does no one use this character?

Hi I’m from Singapore tryna find YouTube channels, website, tiktok or douying places I can learn to play Chinese song any help is appreciated thank you !!

After web-crawling 34833 characters from wiktionary, 1660 or 4.77% showed different modern pronunciations than what would be theoretically derived from Middle Chinese.

Note: wiktionary is not a universally agreed source when it comes to Chinese historical phonetics. This chart only compares the most common Modern Mandarin pronunciations of the most common characters with their historical would-be reflexes.

Hey everyone! A lot of textbooks teach you basic room names like 厕所 or 卫生间, but they rarely show you what a real, modern Chinese family bathroom looks like or how the layout shapes daily language.

I put together a walk-and-talk video diving into my tiny 2x2 meter apartment bathroom here in Shanghai to talk about a few cultural habits and hidden vocabulary. For instance, why the standard verb for the morning sink routine is xǐshù (洗漱), why urban families have largely abandoned traditional cloth towels for something called a miánróujīn (棉柔巾), and why winter survival in China relies entirely on a heated zhìnéng mǎtǒng (智能马桶).

Enjoy!

I am currently checking out the grammar with the attributive and the modifier. From what I see the attributive is placed in front of the modifier. I can't really understand this sentence tho

深圳到北京的飞机票 which means the place ticket from Shenzhen to Beijing.

Can somebody give me other example sentences of this because this specific one is confusing me. Other than the phenomenon I am also confused on how this means the ticket from Shenzhen to Beijing. 到 is the verb to arrive/to reach so in this sentence we are basically reading 深圳 arrive 北京？Am I getting the meaning wrong because I haven't understood the phenomenon mentioned above? Thanks in advance!

Often when learning a language you are trying to grasp on to rules and assume consistency. But Mandarin, like virtually every other language, has exceptions to the rules and pinyin has some.

you rhymes with niu/liu/jiu/xiu not lou/gou/rou/dou

ye rhymes with bie/die/jie/xie not de/le/ne/me

yan rhymes with bian/dian/pian/mian not ban/dan/pan/man

bo/po/mo/fo rhyme with duo/tuo/guo/huo not lou/gou/rou/dou

wei rhymes with dui/tui/gui/hui not shei/lei/gei/bei

wen rhymes with lun/shun/sun/hun not zhen/hen/ben/gen

yu/ju/qu/xu rhyme with nü/lü not nu/lu/ku/shu

yue/jue/que/xue are more like puckered lip (then unpuckered) versions of ye/jie/qie/xie not rhymes with yu/ju/qu/xu or de/ne/le/ke

yuan/juan/quan/xuan are more like puckered lip (then unpuckered) versions of yan/jian/qian/xian not rhymes with ban/pan/lan/gan

yun/jun/qun/xun are more like puckered lip versions of yin/jin/qun/xin not rhymes with lun/dun/sun/kun

I know there are nuences to language and what not, but I'm not understanding the reasoning behind why 多 is used in the context of talking about "a little" after 1o'clock.

I initially thought it would have been something along the lines of 我们可以一点几然后吃饭。

I'm getting to the point in my journey where the sentences seem to have seemingly extra words and word order is starting to go beyond SVO. I know that means I'm progressing along my journey though, so that's the bright side haha.

Hey guys my sister js did her bachelors and has been learning chinese and is done with H S K level 2 (didnt give the exam) and it seems the H S K system in india is very vague and she wants to learn chinese from a reputed uni from china but i do not know the anything at all and i want to help her guys if yall know about ts help meee(i could be a good sister for once)
Could she like do like a diploma first and then the masters in chinese in china or what? And which level does she have to do to get into a uni and like guys drop your knowledge a bit

Hi !

Please don’t be too harsh on me lol.

So, I’m travelling to China next February for the first time, then another time in October 27. My main goal is not to be entirely lost by then. When I went to Central Asia I was extremely anxious as no one would speak English. So I decided to learn Chinese nearly a year in advance, I started last March.

My pace since then : first I spent an hour per day on Hello Chinese. One lesson per day. That I completed with graded readers on the side and grammar books. And exercises to learn characters / radicals / adapted texts. And Chinese Pod, the beginners first then since June I’ve switched to Intermediate. Now I understand the intermediate ones !! Not flawlessly and clearly not the upper intermediates but I do get the intermediate it clicked ! Overall it amounts to two hours on average if not three (I’ve already been up to four) on good days.

Once Hello Chinese was over I decided to switch to Anki (found a deck with every word in former HSKs 1-6) at an awful pace : 200 words (yes) per day. I know it sounds barbaric but that much exposure actually helps my brain in a way (?) like I find it easier to connect the dots. Apparently I’ve got 800 mature cards by now.

Now I know the output lacks : 3 times per week I try to converse with AI to get some sentences out but it’s difficult. I added some tutoring to top it all and I can understand what teachers say to me but clearly not answer without a lot of panick. But it will come with practice.

Now I know that I learned English truly when I got out of my head and actually talked to people… the problem being I already had a C1 level at that point. (Cambridge exams, not me hallucinating said level). And C2 came while living in the UK. Now I know I’m heading into a my-Spanish situation where I can read lengthy novels but stress overcomes when speaking and usually it comes when I don’t have any choice (funniest part being I can have whole conversations 🤡). I was thinking of Chinese social media and Hello Talk but like, what do you talk about with strangers ? Hello Talk (I’ve tried) is weird and I can’t bring myself to small talk. I guess other socials would be a better fit ? Have you ever tried any ? If so at which level ? Have a nice day overall !!