I know the title question seems really obvious to answer, but bear with me.   I have a passive vocabulary of approximately 20.000 words, as estimated by Chinese Text Analyzer. I can understand advanced comprehensible input videos like this one perfectly (in fact I would say that video is comfortably below my listening level); I am starting to understand radio news broadcasts (my listening comprehension is still maturing, but I feel confident this is a listening comprehension issue and not a vocabulary issue, since I can comfortably read most news articles about topics of interest to me). I recently watched the entirety of Avatar: The Last Airbender in Mandarin, and was able to comfortably follow every episode without subtitles --- though I did not understand every word of every dialogue. I have read novels in Chinese, both native material, and material that has been translated from other languages.    But yesterday, I tried to watch an episode of 百妖谱, and listening comprehension plummeted to near zero for large portions of the episode. I think even some of the most basic interactions would have been at zero percent comprehensible if I did not have the subtitles in front of me. It was incredibly demoralizing.   What is going on here? How can I watch episodes of 降世神通 and feel very comfortable without subtitles, but then watch 百妖谱 and understand almost nothing, even with subtitles?    Can someone give me any insight into this?

I found DimSum years ago (I installed it on Windows), it helped me to translate English to Chinese, but unfortunately the project is abandoned, the site is still there, but many links are broken. My problem is I have this tool installed on Linux now (it's a jar file), but the input of this "dictionary" instead of showing English alphabet (one type in English word or Pinyin and this app will find Chinese equivalent words), it just shows square (□) in the input, and on the site it says that it needed certain Chinese TTF fonts to work (the link is broken) and I have no idea which Chinese fonts I need to install. Anyone out there is using this tool or knows about fonts in Linux can tell me which Chinese font I need to install to solve this problem?

Any good chinese historical drama recommendations?

Any one of you love to read Jin Yong novels? I love to read Jin Yong's novels. My favourite is Xiao Ao Jiang Hu. I like Ling Hu Chong and Ren Ying Ying. If you read Jing Yong's novels, which are your favourite?

My favourite chinese history period will be the three kingdoms era. I like Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Zhuge Liang. I love to watch the three kingdoms drama and I like reading all about the three kingdoms. What is your favourite historical period?

  https://lioambinc.42web.io/ I create a chinese language website, that aim to provide free reading materials to the general public. The website has a Christian focus. Currently, there are only 2 stories in mandarin chinese, but they will increase as I update the site. I will be aiming to post at least 1 story a week. My website is targeted for HSK 1 users. I am a native chinese living in Singapore, who scored A1 for my 'O' level chinese examination.

I swear I've looked everywhere, and I can't find it. I know it exists---I saw clips of it way back when I first started learning Chinese.    I'm open to pirating or buying, but if I end up having to pay money for it, I'd want a digital copy, not a physical one (don't have a region-unlocked dvd player)

The Economist has a fascinating article about the English and Chinese wording of official communiques and the serious implications of nuances in translation: https://www.economist.com/china/2025/01/28/america-and-china-are-talking-but-much-gets-lost-in-translation   There may be a paywall on this article.  I have a subscription so I'm not sure.

Job Description: Part-Time English Teacher (Oral Training) We are looking for an experienced English teacher to provide oral English training for a small group of employees (about 6 people) in our Shanghai office. Job Details: •    Location: Our office in Putuo District, near Loushanguan Road subway station •    Schedule: 90 minutes per week (exact time to be discussed) •    Focus: Mainly oral English communication skills •    Class Size: Around 6 employees Requirements: •    Native or fluent English speaker with strong oral communication skills •    Previous experience teaching business English or conversational English preferred •    Ability to create engaging and interactive lessons •    Must be able to teach in person at our office in Putuo District How to Apply: If you are interested, please send your resume and teaching experience to pascalricklin@stricker.asia. We look forward to hearing from you!

It was a comedic wuxia movie, and all I remember was the main character told the (I think) bad guy, if you eat/drink whatever food/drink, it will cause your uh, appendage to shrivel and fall off, haha.  I still remember the tape lent to me had Full Contact (Chow Yun-Fat) movie right after, so it had to be probably early 90's.  Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.