agrand

Live demo: http://lba2remake.xesf.net/#scene=42

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Actually, you don't even need to use a verb here. 我很酷（Wǒ hěn kù）is enough. This is probably something you didn't learn yet. You should think of it as a sort of tarzan-talk: "Me very cool!". If you use 是, you actually put on emphasis on the sentence. Like: "You're not cool.", "I AM cool!".

And it's poorly taught because there is a lack of people who really master the two languages (Chinese + language X that is very different from Chinese), which is due to the fact that... ...the two languages are very different in the first place...

I wasn't sure were it came from (did a google image search for this one), should have been more careful. Fixed.

Skritter is not only more efficient than other methods of learning Chinese writing by orders of magnitude, it's also fun to use.

This, and the use of particles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence-final_particle

OP here. I think the reality is obviously more messy than what the article tends to portray. All natural languages are messy in their own idiomatic ways.

One of the goals of the article was to emphasize the structure in the Chinese language, because most people who are not familiar with it just assume it's just a big bunch of meaningless ideograms.

It's a "simple" introduction, not a thorough one. It's meant to tease people's curiosity. If you start with a negative bias towards Chinese, you won't be able to see where it shines.

Things that you express with tones in English, can be expressed with particles in Chinese. They can also be expressed in other modulations at the sentence level.

Some subtleties of English definitely can't be expressed in Chinese, but the reverse is equally true. And that's the point I want to stress. Chinese is very different, and where there is difference, there is richness.