In English it is possible to suggest subtle changes in meaning by altering the tone of your voice. However in Chinese this is not an option, because altering the tone of your voice could completely change the meaning of the word. To achieve the same affect, the Chinese use Modal Particles. Modal Particles frequently appear in written Chinese and especially in "on line" Blogs or e mails and can be confusing to the foreign students, because they are rarely mentioned in text books. This study will fully explain their use, and including judicially chosen Modal Particles will enable the students'...

This book offers a completely new sequence for learning Chinese writing. If foreign students start learning to write Chinese by first inputting Radicals on the computer, they will make faster progress in being able to remember the vocabulary, and their transition to writing Chinese by hand will be more successful. At every stage in this carefully thought out sequence, the student should be encouraged to also practice what they have learnt on computer by writing the characters out by hand. The biggest problem that students have with learning Mandarin Chinese is being able to write Chinese. It...

2016 is the 150th Anniversary of the first Chinese Government approved visit to England, by the learned Manchu BinChun. The book draws on the diaries of those involved, the Government papers and also newspaper reports from the time to follow his route and bring into sharper focus some of the famous people that he met. The British Government's aims were broadly to try and support the Qing Government as it tried to modernise and thus help it preserve its independence and also to create a future market for British trade. Politically it was a failure, but perhaps BinChun's importance is that he...