Language tutor Bai Jie, aka Jessica Beinecke, takes Weibo by storm

Most of us are aware that learning a language is not easy, but who knew it could be such fun?

With followers in both the United States and China, Bai Jie, meaning "white and pure", is helping to take down the language barrier.

Bai Jie, aka Jessica Beinecke, is a 27-year-old bilingual American with 400,000 followers on Weibo whose online teaching videos, uploaded from her Manhattan apartment, have had 40 million views. Her resources? An iPhone camera, a bubbly personality and endless quirky ideas.

Appealing to a young audience, Beinecke delves into pop culture, tackling phrases such as "LOL cats", "frenemy" and "butt dial".

The videos last between 40 seconds and four minutes and are uploaded every weekday onto her YouTube accounts: OMG Meiyu, for English learners, and Crazy Fresh Chinese, for Putonghua instruction. Followers have so far learned that "twerk" in Putonghua is " dian tun wu" ("electric butt dance") and "fashionista" translates to " shi shang yu jie", literally "fashion imperial big sister".

Beinecke also does imitations: in one sketch, she dons a suit, a tie and a wig, and adopts a Southern drawl to become Frank Underwood, the notorious politician in Netflix series House of Cards ( Zhi Pai Wu).

"There are two types of vice-president. Doormats and those who cannot speak Mandarin," she says.