In this video, I break down the catchy Chinese song Wo xing shi. You can follow along with on screen characters, pinyin, and clear English subtitles as we sing through each line together. I explain ...

So begins one of the most beautiful and well-known Tang dynasty poems, Farewell, composed by Wang Wei (AD699-761). To spell out this passage using Hanyu pinyin, mainland China’s official system of ...

FEW people live to 111. Fewer still leave as big a mark on linguistic lives as Zhou Youguang, who died on January 14th. Mr Zhou was the chief architect of pinyin, the system that the Chinese use to ...

Have you ever wondered why it’s Peking Duck from the city of Beijing? Turns out, it’s all due to the work of a Chinese linguist named Zhou Youguang, who is being celebrated on Google’s homepage on ...