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Mandarin Chinese 2Reading Booklet&Culture Notes

Mandarin Chinese 2Travelers should always check withtheir nation’s State Department forcurrent advisories on local conditionsbefore traveling abroad.Booklet Design: Maia Kennedy and ‰ Recorded Program 2002 Simon & Schuster, Inc. Reading Booklet 2016 Simon & Schuster, Inc.Pimsleur is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio,a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Mfg. in USA.All rights reserved.ii

Mandarin Chinese 2ACKNOWLEDGMENTSVoicesAudio ProgramEnglish-Speaking Instructor . . . . . . . . . . Ray BrownMandarin-Speaking Instructor . . . . . . . . . . Qing RaoFemale Mandarin Speaker . . . . . . . . . . Mei Ling DiepMale Mandarin Speaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yaohua ShiReading LessonsFemale Mandarin Speaker . . . . . . . . . . . Xinxing YangMale Mandarin Speaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jay JiangAudio Program Course WritersYaohua Shi Christopher J. GaintyReading Lesson WritersXinxing Yang Elizabeth HorberReviewerZhijie JiaEditorsJoan Schoellner Beverly D. HeinleProducer & DirectorSarah H. McInnisRecording EngineersPeter S. Turpin Kelly SauxSimon & Schuster Studios, Concord, MAiiiiii

Mandarin Chinese 2Table of ContentsIntroductionMandarin. 1Pictographs. 2Traditional and Simplified Script. 3Pinyin Transliteration. 3Readings . 4Tonality. 5Tone Change or Tone Sandhi. 8Pinyin Pronunciation Chart. 10Lesson One. 14Translations. 15Lesson Two . 16Translations. 17Lesson Three. 18Translations . 19Lesson Four. 20Translations . 21Lesson Five. 22Translations. 23Lesson Six. 24Translations . 25Lesson Seven. 26Translations . 27Lesson Eight. 28Translations . 29iviv

Mandarin Chinese 2Lesson Nine. 30Translations. 31Lesson Ten. 32Translations. 33Lesson Eleven . 34Translations. 35Lesson Twelve . 36Translations . 37Lesson Thirteen. 38Translations . 39Lesson Fourteen. 40Translations . 41Lesson Fifteen. 42Translations . 43Lesson Sixteen . 44Translations. 45Lesson Seventeen . 46Translations . 47Lesson Eighteen . 48Translations . 49Lesson Nineteen . 50Translations . 51Lesson Twenty . 52Translations. 53v

Mandarin Chinese 2To learn a language is to have one more windowfrom which to look at the world.Chinese proverbvi

Mandarin Chinese 2MandarinMandarin Chinese, also known as StandardChinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, is the soleofficial language of China and Taiwan, and one of thefour official languages of Singapore. Although thereare eight major Chinese dialects, Mandarin is native toapproximately 70% of the population. Chinese whoare educated through at least the primary gradesspeak Mandarin as well as the local dialects. However,due to the size of China and the ethnic diversity ofits inhabitants, hundreds of other dialects are spokenin different areas. The dialects spoken today arebased more on geography than on ethnicity. Forinstance, residents of Shanghai will speak Wu, andin some parts of China, particularly the central andsouthern areas, official business is transacted in thelocally dominant language. Although people fromdifferent parts of China generally do not understandone another’s spoken language, they all use Mandarincharacters (hanzi) for writing.Today’s Mandarin is closely based on “northernspeech” which was the lingua franca of the rulingclass, spoken in Beijing, the capital during the Mingand Qing Dynasties. After the Nationalists overthrewthe Qing Dynasty in 1912, government officials atfirst considered creating a new “national language”by adopting a mixture of dialects, but in the end itwas decided to retain Mandarin as the “NationalLanguage.” The Communists, who defeated the

Mandarin Chinese 2Nationalists in 1949, continued this policy, but theychanged the name and coined the term pu tonghua, or “common speech,” for “Mandarin.” This isthe word for Mandarin used throughout mainlandChina. In Hong Kong, however, as in Taiwan andmost overseas communities, guo yu, the older term,continues to be used.Pronunciation of the national language differsslightly geographically, and there are some significantregional vocabulary differences. The Nationalists,whose capital was the southern city of Nanjing, wereinfluenced by southern dialects, primarily Cantonese.The Communists, whose capital is Beijing, wereinfluenced by “northern speech.”PictographsIt is commonly thought that every Chinesecharacter is a picture, or “pictograph,” but only afew hundred of the several thousand characters aretrue pictographs. However, most of these are nowwritten in such a way that it is difficult to immediatelyguess their meaning. There is also a very small groupof characters called ideographs or ideograms, whichrepresent ideas or objects directly. All other Chinesecharacters are combinations of these pictographsand basic ideographs.2

Mandarin Chinese 2Traditional and Simplified ScriptIn 1949 China’s new government consideredinstituting an alphabet in place of the traditionalcharacters, as a refutation of traditional or “feudal”culture.Instead, they decided to simplify theexisting characters by reducing the number ofstrokes necessary to create them. By 1964, a list of2,200 simplified characters was created for use asa modified script. Further simplification was brieflyadopted, then abandoned, at the end of the CulturalRevolution in 1977.Presently, simplified characters are used inmainland China and Singapore, although thereis a movement for the restoration of traditionalcharacters, especially in southern China. Hong Kong,Taiwan, and many overseas Chinese communitiescontinue to use the traditional characters.Pinyin TransliterationIn this Introductory Reading Program you willcontinue learning to read Hanyu Pinyin – pinyin forshort. It’s the official phonetic system for transcribing pronunciations of the Chinese characters intoa Latin alphabet, and will give you a way to “read”an approximation of the sounds in written form.In China it’s often used in elementary schools asa first step toward learning to read. It is also used3

Mandarin Chinese 2to alphabetically order dictionary entries, and it isused for entering Chinese text into computers aswell as communicating via email and text messaging. In many large cities, street signs are often displayed in both Chinese characters and pinyin to aidforeign visitors.ReadingsThere are twenty Reading Lessons in all.Although the pinyin alphabet may appear similarto the Latin alphabet, the sounds of some letters inpinyin are quite different. You will learn to soundout the pinyin starting with individual letters, thenletter combinations, words, then word combinationsand short phrases, building in length until you willbe sounding out complete sentences. Keep inmind that learning to read pinyin is not the sameas learning to read hanzi, the Chinese characters.These lessons are designed to give you an easy wayto “read” the Chinese sounds, and the SimplifiedChinese characters are displayed as well.Feel free to repeat each Reading Lesson untilyou feel comfortable proceeding to the next. Witha little effort, you will be astonished at how quicklyyou are able to sound out the Mandarin words. Apronunciation chart is included which is for reference4

Mandarin Chinese 2only, however, as all the information you need to dothe readings is contained in the audio.Although translations are included, the meaningsat this point are secondary, and we recommendthat you look at them only after first attempting tosound out the phrases with Mandarin pronunciation.Each item has been selected especially to give youpractice in the tones, the sounds, and the soundcombinations. You should read aloud, as directed,which will help to lodge the sounds in your memory.Before long you will be reading pinyin aloud withoutan American accent.TonalityChinese is a tonal language. This means that inaddition to the sounds of the consonants and vowels,the tone with which a syllable is pronounced helps todetermine its meaning. The Chinese languages arealmost exclusively made up of one-syllable words,composed of an initial consonant sound followed bythe syllable’s main vowel, sometimes in combinationwith another consonant or vowel. Longer words doexist, but almost all are compound words, formed bycombining one-syllable words.5

Mandarin Chinese 2The tone is determined by the pronunciationof the syllable’s main vowel. Each tone has a namewhich describes the motion of the sound: falling,rising, or even. With the tones, several meanings canbe assigned to any one syllable. For example, whenpronounced using a falling-rising tone, the word narmeans “where.” However, when pronounced withjust a falling tone, it means “there.”There are four main tones used in speakingMandarin - high, rising, falling-rising, falling - anda fifth, referred to as a soft or neutral tone. This lasttone is used for the second syllable in a set of doubledcharacters, as well as for the final syllable (or questionword) at the end of a query. This neutral tone doesn'thave a marker. For example, in the questions, ni ne?(How about you?) and hao ma? (OK?), the syllables neand ma are pronounced using this soft, falling sound,as if the sound is fading away. Here is an example ofone word with different meanings depending on thetone with which it is pronounced: 1st tone: highshī (poem) 2nd tone: risingshí (ten or time) 3rd tone: falling-risingshĭ (history) 4th tone: fallingshì (to be)6

Mandarin Chinese 2There are four tonal markers to indicate the tonesof the vowels. In these lessons, we will include themfor the four tones above the vowels they affect. Payclose attention to t he markers because they canchange the meaning of a word completely. It maytake a while before you hear the differences, andwe encourage you to repeat each lesson as often asnecessary, in order to both familiarize yourself withthe Mandarin sounds represented by the letters andto practice the tones.All tonal markers are placed above the singlevowels (a, o, e, i, u, ü). The chart that follows uses thevowel “a” as an example.Tone #English Name1.High-level tone - Starts withnormal vocal range of thespeaker and stays even.Rising tone - Starts atnormal vocal range, thenrises up.Falling-rising tone - Startsat normal vocal range, thenfalls down and rises up.Falling tone - Starts atnormal vocal range, thenfalls down.2.3.4.7Markershown with “a”āáǎà

Mandarin Chinese 2In Mandarin the absence of a tonal marker above avowel, as in "a," indicates a neutral tone. This neutraltone starts with a slightly soft sound and is shorterthan the sounds of the tones listed above.Tone Change or Tone SandhiAlthough each Chinese syllable standing alonehas a specific tone, in the flow of speech the tone ofa syllable can change depending on the tone of thefollowing syllable. In some Chinese dialects, tonechange is common, and there are complex rulesgoverning it. In contemporary Mandarin, however,it is less common than in other dialects, and thereare only a few rules to remember. The first governsfalling-rising or 3rd tones when they are spoken insequence:1. When two falling-rising or 3rd tones occurtogether, the first falling-rising tone becomesa rising, or 2nd tone. The second remains afalling-rising or 3rd tone. For example, “very”and “good” are both falling-rising, 3rd tones bythemselves, but when spoken together as henhao, the first word changes to a rising or 2ndtone, while the second keeps its original fallingrising, 3rd tone.8