Today, I would like to share a very useful app that you should download if you visit China. Before I moved to China, I was a bit confident that I would be able to read Chinese because Japanese also uses similar Chinese characters. But actually I was wrong. Simplified Chinese is widely used in Mainland China. Some of them look similar to Japanese, but some look so different from how Japanese write. I often get confused and can’t even figure out what things are written on a menu if there are no pictures.

But an app listed below, “Baidu Translate” will help you to be able to understand Chinese. If you have a plan to visit China, I highly recommend you to download this app in advance.

Baidu Translate App

The app has a voice function that translates what you want to say in your language and will translate it into Chinese. Also note, Google translation won’t work well in China.

Also, you can translate Chinese pictures with the camera function, and it will translate on the picture into or from Chinese.

It takes a little bit longer until the app translates it, but here in Shenyang, people are used to using this app. I feel bad to make them wait to just communicate a few words, but at the same time I feel so grateful that they are so kind and willing to wait for me and see what I want to try to say.

What I can say in Chinese right now: “a piece of …”, “good morning”, “Thank you”, “Yes”, “No”, “I don’t understand”, “Sandwiches”, “Chocolate” and “Grapes”, maybe there are more…. I also try to communicate people with a lot of body language, and try to write Japanese characters on a memo pad.

I really respect people who have moved to Japan from overseas for work, and are living there long term.

There are 3 different writing systems in Japan, which are Hiragana, Katakana and Kanjji. The culture is different and there are even rules on how to separate trash in different categories that are so complicated if you are living in Japan for the first time.

It will take time to understand the differences. But I think it is very important trying to understand and learn these differences, and supporting each other when people are having problems.

Thank you for reading my blog.