Of course, the difficult part about Chinese is the pronunciation. It’s a tonal language. The same word, for example “ma,” can mean widely different things depending upon the way it is said.

The words come out, and they are unexpected in both sound and tone: "hong se" - the Mandarin Chinese term for "red." In Nick Jr.'s new children's animated series, "Ni Hao, Kai-lan," the ...

On Thursday nights near the Brooklyn, N.Y., waterfront, an old firehouse turns into a schoolhouse, where the drills are in Chinese. The students are some of New York's bravest. About a dozen ...