Mandarin Monkey Podcast

Chinese New Year is here… but we’re not just talking about red envelopes and dumplings. In this episode: Who should give red envelopes (and when it stops) The weird firework pranks from childhood Why we chose not to vlog our kids And… our idea for a 48-hour Mandarin-only retreat Could you survive two full days speaking only Chinese? No English. No safety net. Just immersion. Let us know if you’d a...

This week’s mailbag: a learner understands his mother-in-law at the worst moment, a tone mistake turns into a workplace disaster, and a four-year-old becomes the teacher. Plus: how to ask to camp in Taiwan without sounding like a tourist. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does real bilingual development actually look like? In this episode of Mandarin Monkey, we talk about one of the biggest concerns parents have when raising bilingual children: “My child understands Mandarin… but won’t speak it. Is that normal?” We explore: • What children usually understand first • Why mixing languages is a sign of competence • Whether silence means failure • How long it real...

This episode started as a simple idea: list 100 very specific things to do before you die. We didn’t get to 100. We talked about sharks, Lapland, Route 66, Disney parks, cherry blossoms, tequila in Mexico, collecting memories, and why “someday” is a dangerous word. Mandarin and English. Travel, goals, family, and that quiet feeling of wanting more life in your life. If this episode sparks an idea...

Learning Mandarin isn’t just about vocabulary or grammar. Sometimes it’s about confidence, fear, and not feeling “good enough”. In episode 444 of the Mandarin Monkey Podcast, we talk honestly about: – Why language “levels” can actually hurt learners – Speaking Mandarin without destroying your confidence – Trial lessons that start way too basic – Learning through conversation, not correction – Why...

This is a mailbag episode of the Mandarin Monkey Podcast. We answer listener questions about a deceptively common Mandarin mistake: why you can’t use “ask” the way you do in English. Ula explains why 問 is for asking questions, but doesn’t work when you’re asking someone to do you a favour, and why 請 is often the natural choice, even though it doesn’t translate cleanly into English. We also respo...

This episode is a fully bilingual English–Mandarin conversation. Tom speaks in English. Ula responds entirely in Mandarin. We talk about: Extreme risk and a climber scaling Taipei 101 Whether dangerous stunts should be streamed live Travel plans including Lapland, skiing holidays, the Maldives, and the US Fear, animals, parenting, and how perspective changes over time This is not a scripted lesson...

Why does Mandarin feel easy when you’re listening… but impossible the moment a real person speaks? In this mailbag episode, we answer real listener questions about learning Mandarin in the real world. Textbooks vs real speech. Tones. Confidence. Speaking to in-laws. And why your brain sometimes just shuts down. We talk about: Why textbooks teach words nobody actually says Whether tones really matt...

We’re back. We both got hit with a nasty illness for a few weeks and lost our voices, so this one is low-energy and coughy. We talk about why we disappeared, why this Christmas felt “off”, a New Year’s Eve living-room campout with the kids, and how fast sickness can wipe you out. Then we look back at some 2025 goals, set fresh 2026 goals, and Tom admits he’s convinced Premium Bonds will make him a...

It’s our Christmas Special Mailbag. We answer listener questions about real Chinese greetings, why “Ni Hao Ma” sounds unnatural, fear of flying explained by a pilot, and how to type pinyin with tone marks properly. We finish with a fun Christmas quiz full of strange traditions and surprising facts from around the world. If you’re learning Mandarin and want natural Chinese, not textbook Chinese, th...

Ula explains why some dictionary and app translations feel unnatural, and shares a new Mandarin dictionary app recommendation. Then we mess around with a sound-guessing game, chat about school plays, and end with Tom quizzing Ula on the Life in the UK test. 00:00 Intro, episode 438, Wednesday energy 01:35 What subject do we look like we teach? 07:10 Midweek fatigue and kid sleep chaos 09:20 Why “d...

Why doesn’t “How are you?” really exist in Chinese? In this episode, we talk about how Chinese people show care without asking about feelings. Food, warmth, sleep, and daily life matter more than emotional check-ins. We also talk about sleep, anxiety, bilingual kids, accents, affection across cultures, and then completely lose control playing a sound guessing game. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/p...

Friday mailbag time. Chinese and English together, as always. Today you get listener stories about: • Stress gestures that looked like a love confession • Soft Mandarin that sounded like poetry underwater • Motivation, guilt, discipline and VR boxing • Ten minutes of bus auntie story with zero context • Scooter fails in Taiwan and panic Mandarin • Sounding fluent while saying nonsense • Noodle the...

A bilingual Mandarin and English episode filled with Christmas nonsense, food talk, and some heavier life planning. We talk about UK food labels, sugar overload, and why buying cheese feels like a health exam. Then we drift into real life. Stress. Pressure. Planning the next five to ten years. And why that feels very different when you have kids, bills, and responsibilities. Tom talks through movi...

Friday mailbag. Mandarin and English. Real listener questions. We start with a chat about long-term goals. Safety, peace, fun, love and connection. Where we want the kids to be in ten years. Where we want to live. How to build something bigger than “exercise more”. Then the mailbag. A night-shift worker in Leeds knows the vocab but freezes when building sentences. A Birmingham listener orders bubb...

This episode starts in the strangest way possible, then turns into a full life update. We talk about Kairi wanting to learn Chinese, Dragon Ball socks, why none of us sleep, work changes, and the chaos of parenting three young kids. We also get into • How bad nights ruin your brain • Why our youngest saves all his wee for nighttime • New directions in our work • Whether to make a movie at home • H...

We skip the small talk and jump straight into chaos. One of us wears noise-cancelling headphones with brown noise blasting. The other says sentences in Mandarin and English. The goal is simple. Lip read the line. No clues. No questions. The results are a mess. “You squeezed it before I was ready,” becomes cheesecake. 羊羹 becomes “some kind of rat.” Twice becomes twat. And a totally normal Chinese...

Wrong day, wrong week, right podcast. Today’s mailbag episode starts with that weird moment when your brain swears Friday arrived, but the calendar says otherwise, then drifts into lottery fantasies, nannies who only speak Mandarin, and baldness fear. Standard Mandarin Monkey energy. Then listener stories: • Daniel in Manchester used Mandarin to survive lockdown loneliness and asks how to practice...

We put on noise-canceling headphones, blasted brown noise, and tried to read each other’s lips in Chinese. Spoiler: “Are you the king of Mandarin Monkey?” turned into “Are you licking a mandarin monkey?”We also talk about Tom’s 3D-printed bust mini-movie, the “shi” tongue twister that broke him, and why bringing back the silly side of Mandarin Monkey might be the best idea yet. Send your stories f...

Mailbag time. Phoebe’s moving to China in a week, Jasmine’s torn between Simplified and Traditional, Mark nails his first all-Mandarin order, Anna shares tonal research, and Katie reminds us to slow down. We talk avoiding the foreigner bubble, finding a “language parent,” sleep habits, and why progress feels slow, until it doesn’t. Send your story: chat@mandarinmonkey.com Hosted on Acast. See acas...

Practice Mandarin listening with a native Taiwanese Mandarin speaker and English support. We cover cold-weather camping at 3°C, off-grid power, food, health, and planning a sensible motorbike tour through Europe. Great for beginners to intermediate, HSK prep, and heritage Chinese/Taiwanese learners keeping both languages fresh. You’ll learn: camping and travel vocab, opinion phrases, modal verbs f...

Today’s Listener Mailbag is stacked: Mandarin at the bus stop, writing a sky-lantern wish in Pingxi, ordering dinner in Kunming with zero English, the strange peace of visa lines with a podcast in your ears, and a market auntie gifting a spring onion for luck. Plus: dogs, Edinburgh place names, and whether American English secretly makes more sense. Perfect for immersive Mandarin listening practic...

Hump day chat with bilingual Mandarin + English listening practice baked in. We tackle a parenting standoff over toys at school, how “Thrill of the Fight” in VR turned into a 12-round sweat fest, whether gua sha helps or just hurts, Halloween safety (and trunk-or-treat), British politeness vs Taiwanese directness, and a surprisingly decent side hustle: cleaning garages for cash. Send us a story fo...

Ever tried to learn Mandarin while you sleep ? One listener did — and his girlfriend woke up to him whispering “māma” all night. In this episode, we read your wildest Mandarin stories: 🧠 Sleep-learning experiments gone wrong 🐟 The “train station” that turned into a pet shop 💔 The couple arguing about the third tone 🙊 Why Chinese speakers don’t say “bless you” and much more from our Listener Ma...

This one’s part London adventure, part Mandarin listening practice. Tom celebrated his birthday and 10-year anniversary with Ula — a surprise visit from Auntie Kara, a Studio Ghibli stage show (“My Neighbour Totoro”), London’s best steak at Steak & Company , and an escape-room fail that turned into a win… with only 18 seconds left on the clock. It’s a bilingual Chinese–English episode , so you...