It is very important to use contractions in your speech. They are not informal, they are always required. I discuss this in today's podcast.

Teacher Joseph's Podcast

Contractions

以后(yǐ hòu) and 后来 (hòu lái) both include 后 this character , it means behind, in English they both could be translated as “later”, you can say they are the same in meaning, but not the usages, which make the 2 words very different, basically 后来 can only use in a past tense but 以后 can use in past or future tense, in this episode I will show you 5 example sentence to help you understand better

Learn Chinese with Jen

以后、后来

以前 (yǐ qián) and 从前 (cóng qián) both has 前, which means front, in English they can both be translated as before, they are even be exchangeable sometimes, however they are quite different in usage, comparing with 从前, 以前 has more usages, in this episode I will show you 7 examples to help you understand better

以前、从前

The Chinese 4 tones must be the most difficult part for most students. but it is also the most important part for Chinese language learning, a little change of the tones will change the meaning of the sentence, for example, wǒ wèn nǐ means I ask you, but if you say wǒ wěn nǐ, it will be I kiss you, that’s why we need to focus a lot on learning tones,  in this episode I will show you some useful tips to remember the tones quickly.

Four tones

The difference between 以前(yǐ qián) and 以后(yǐ hòu) is very clear from last episode, 以前 means before, so we often see it in a past tense sentence, and 以后 is the opposite, but have you ever wondered that does 以前 always refer to the past, and does 以后 always refer to the future?

以前、以后

以前(yǐ qián)、以来(yǐ lái)、以内(yǐ nèi)、以后 (yǐ hòu) are 4 common phrase we often use in Chinese, they all start with 以 and followed by 前(front)、来(come)、内(inside) and后(behind), do you know what do they mean and how to use it in a sentence or conversation?  In this episode I will show you some examples to help you understand better: