Speak Chinese Using English (Quinn Cash's Better Chinese Now Book 6)

Chinese is consistently ranked as the hardest language for Westerners to learn. Previously a Chinese student myself, I know this to be true. I have spent over six years getting my Chinese to the level of fluency. But I believe that you don’t have to. Let me tell you a story…

Recently, my brother came to Taiwan to visit me (by the way, the contents of this book work both in Taiwan and Mainland China). I was happy to receive him, but at the same time could not entirely free up my schedule to be his tour guide of the island. My brother, the independent person he is, did well on getting what he wanted through pointing and meeting the rare English speaker, but eventually, for the things he wanted, realized he needed to have some basic communication. My brother doesn’t like to read textbooks or attend classes, so traditional Chinese learning methods were out of the question. He was forced to rely on English.

Until one day, when he and I were walking the streets of Taipei, I came upon a solution. At the time, my brother saw a girl that he thought was cute. He asked me what he should say to her. I responded, “Ching Whoa.” He walked over to the girl, said those words, and the girl scampered off shyly. My brother asked me what “Ching Whao” means. I told him it meant “kiss me.” The surprising part of this story, is that my brother remembered this phrase, and other phrases like it, as long as I related them to him in English (or close to English) words.

My brother, in the course of over one week built a Chinese vocabulary that would take the standard learner months to remember. The key was not in learning Chinese the traditional way, but in relating spoken Chinese to easily remembered English.