Mandarin Monkey Podcast

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, this episode is for you.Topics include • What to say instead of “Ni Hao Ma” • Casual vs polite Chinese greetings • Flying anxiety and turbulence explained • Typing pinyin with tones • Christmas traditions and triviaMerry Christmas and thank you for listening to Mandarin Monkey.

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 “dictionary Chinese” sounds unnatural 11:40 New app recommendation, 橘子漢語 (J-U-Z-I) 15:20 Free vs paid features, why it beats Pleco for usage 18:00 Nativity play recap, Bethlehem Bake Off confusion 24:35 Game time, People Places Projects sound guesses 25:55 Sound: vacuum cleaner 吸塵器 33:10 Sound: “personal trainer”, Schwarzenegger link 38:20 Sound: parking sensor, reversing beep 41:55 Next week schedule, last broadcasts, Christmas plan 43:20 Visa update and Life in the UK test quiz 48:15 Judiciary question confusion 50:55 Habeas Corpus question, 75% pass mark talk 58:50 Wrap

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.

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 theft in a Bristol flat • Turning passive vocab into active speechWe talk through:• How to describe emotions without strange vibes • Why quiet Mandarin feels impossible to decode • When to push through and when to rest • How confidence helps even if the vocab falls apartEmail your story for a future mailbag: chat@mandarinmonkey.comLessons, community, and all the good stuff: mandarinmonkey.com

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 moving to Taiwan with almost no plan. Ula talks about goals and why planning triggers old student stress. We look at how to balance enjoying the moment with taking care of future you.If you want to practise listening to natural Mandarin and English in a real conversation, this episode is perfect. You can book a free trial lesson at mandarinmonkey.com.Send your emails for the Friday mailbag to chat@mandarinmonkey.com.CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:33 Christmas, turkeys, and the turducken problem 2:20 Giblets, guts, and Taiwanese menus 3:40 UK Christmas decorations and candy canes 5:15 Sugar, food labels, and supermarket misery 7:30 Comparing food labels in Taiwan and the UK 8:20 Sleeping positions and being the big spoon 10:50 Christmas hats, hoodies, and decorating the house 11:24 The smoke machine debate 12:40 Christmas lights and buying more nonsense 13:48 Teaching our daughter Mandarin 14:50 Talking about old homes and old decisions 16:10 How planning shapes the next 10 years 18:00 What peace, fun, and goals mean 20:00 Moving to Taiwan with no plan 22:30 Making mistakes when you’re young 24:40 Why planning feels heavier as an adult 27:00 Arriving in Taiwan with total freedom 30:00 Mixing living in the moment with long-term goals 33:00 Having things to look forward to 35:00 December Hangouts and lesson schedule 36:00 How to book lessons and send mailbag emails

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 bubble tea in Taichung without the cashier switching to English. A software engineer in Dublin wants real conversations, not grammar workshops. A listener in Seattle can hear J, Q and X but cannot say them. A teacher in Wellington reads well but loses everything without subtitles.We talk about progress, language habits, relationships, pronunciation, listening skills and how to keep going even when it feels slow.Send your stories or questions to chat@mandarinmonkey.com.For lessons or hangouts, visit mandarinmonkey.com.

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 • How animation voiceovers actually work • Moving abroad and the career gap problem • New plans for Mandarin Monkey • Our goal to set up a separate studio and a new company • What’s coming next for usIt’s real, chaotic, and very us.

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 sentence turns into Argentina.If you enjoy Mandarin learning mixed with confusion, misread lips, and unearned confidence, this game delivers.Send your sentences or game ideas to chat@mandarinmonkey.com.

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 speaking when nerves block every sentence.• John in Southern California listened to the whole podcast three times and still wants more. Respect.• Debbie in Lagos started Mandarin because C-drama subtitles missed the point and now fights double audio and dodgy subs.• Olivia fell in from the short clips, forgets new words in days, and wants to keep going without burnout.• Vivi did “immersion” in Kaohsiung, made international friends, defaulted to English, and now only understands Mandarin with heavy context.We talk about:• Why tutors hear every mistake already and still support learners• How mirroring and shadowing native speakers trains tones and rhythm• Why motivation fades and discipline keeps progress alive• How to use scripts, news, and audio to train listening without subtitles• Single-channel brains, overwhelm, and why context helps more than people admitBilingual as always. Ula speaks Mandarin, Tom speaks English, you follow along.Send your story or question to:chat@mandarinmonkey.comor DM on Instagram / Facebook.Your email might show up in the next mailbag.