Chinese Language Mandarin - Live Lingua

Chinese LanguageMandarinHosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / China3/29/2007The script accompanies the following 15 audio tracks:CN Mandarin Lesson 1CN Mandarin Lesson 2CN Mandarin Lesson 3CN Mandarin Lesson 4CN Mandarin Lesson 5CN Mandarin Lesson 6CN Mandarin Lesson 7CN Mandarin Lesson 8CN Mandarin Lesson 9CN Mandarin Lesson 10CN Mandarin Lesson 11CN Mandarin Lesson 12CN Mandarin Lesson 13CN Mandarin Lesson 14CN Mandarin Lesson 15(Time 3:39)(Time 14:52)(Time 4:45)(Time 2:07)(Time 3:14)(Time 4:22)(Time 3:01)(Time 3:37)(Time 1:24)(Time 1:50)(Time 1:19)(Time 1:12)(Time 2:41)(Time 1:01)(Time 1:25)Chinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / China(File Size:1.5MB)(File Size:6.1MB)(File Size:1.95MB)(File Size:873KB)(File Size:1.3MB)(File Size:1.8MB)(File Size:1.24MB)(File Size:1.49MB)File Size:576KB)(File Size:757KB)(File Size:544KB)(File Size:497KB)(File Size:1.1MB)(File Size:420KB)(File Size:588KB)Page 2 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / China3/29/2007Table of ContentsLesson 1 Introduction to Chinese LanguageP4Lesson 2 PhoneticsP5Lesson 3 Basic GrammarP9Lesson 4 GreetingsP11Lesson 5 IntroductionsP12Lesson 6 Numbers/PricesP14Lesson 7 Food & DrinkP16Lesson 8 Some Chinese DishesP18Lesson 9 Useful PhrasesP19Lesson 10 Sickness and EmergencyP20Lesson 11 Direction and PlacesP21Lesson 12 Clothes and ColorsP22Lesson 13 TimeP23Lesson 14 FamilyP25Lesson 15 Home ItemsP26Appendix: Measure words in Chinese (no audio)P27Chinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / ChinaPage 3 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / China3/29/2007Lesson 1 Introduction to Chinese LanguageMandarin is the official language of the People’s Republic of China. It is the dialect spoken in thecapital, Beijing. It is taught in all schools and is used for television and broadcast. Almost theentire population understands Mandarin. The language taught in Pre-Service Training (PST) forPeace Corps trainees is Mandarin.Chinese is a language with a large number of words with the same pronunciation but differentmeanings; what distinguishes these ‘homophones’ is their ‘tonal’ quality – the raising andlowering of pitch on certain syllables. Mandarin has four tones – high, rising, falling-rising andfalling, plus a fifth “neutral” tone. To illustrate, look at the word ma, which has four differentmeanings according to �mother’‘hemp’ or ‘numb’‘horse’‘to scold’ or ‘swear’Writing SystemChinese is not a phonetic language and the characters do not bear any resemblance to actualpronunciation. Chinese is often referred to as a language of pictographs.There are about 56,000 characters, but the vast majority of these are archaic. It is commonly feltthat a well-educated, contemporary Chinese might know and use between 6,000 and 8,000characters. To read a Chinese newspaper you need to know 2,000 to 3,000, but 1,200 to 1,500would be enough to get the gist.Each Chinese character represents a spoken syllable, so many people declare that Chinese is amonosyllabic language. Actually, it’s more a case of having a monosyllabic writing system. Whilethe building block of the Chinese language is indeed the monosyllabic Chinese character,Chinese words are usually a combination of two or more characters. You could think of Chinesewords as being compounds.Phonetic system – PinyinIn 1958 China adopted a system of writing their language using the Roman alphabet. It's knownas Pinyin. It is used in this course.GrammarChinese grammar is much simpler than that of European languages. There are no articles(a/an/the), no tenses, and no plurals. The basic point to bear in mind is that, like English, Chineseword order is subject-verb-object. In other words, a basic English sentence like “I (subject) love(verb) you (object)” is constructed in exactly the same way in Chinese.Chinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / ChinaPage 4 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / China3/29/2007Lesson 2 PhoneticsThere are 6 basic vowels and 21 consonants in Mandarin Chinese. A syllable always consists ofa vowel (V) or a consonant with a vowel (CV), such as ba, fo, ne. Consonant clusters, two ormore consonants used in succession, are not permitted in Chinese. Syllabic combinationscommon in English such as VC (up, at), CVC (big, pat, map), CCVC (bred, dread, stone), CVCC(mask, best, sand), CCV (fly, blue, grow) CCCV (screw, spray, stray), VCC (old, and, ink), VCCC(Olds, ants, amps), CCVCC (brand, trains, swings), CVCCC (tests, tenths, lunged), CVCCCC(thirsts, texts, worlds), CCVCCC (slurps, prints, flirts), CCCVC (street, squat, strut), CCCVCC(struts, squats, sprained), and CCCVCCC (scrimps, sprints, squelched) are not possible inChinese. CVC, on the other hand, is possible in Chinese, but the final C can only be the nasalsounds -n and -ng and the retroflex –r, such as jing, nan, yong and er. Consonants are oftencalled initials because they invariably appear initially in a word with the exception of the final -n, ng or r, which can appear finally. Vowels are also called finals because they appear medially orfinally in a word. Vowels can stand by themselves when no initial consonant is present.Let’s learn the finals (vowels) first:MANDARINaeiouüSIMILAR ENGLISHSOUNDFatherfurseeorfluteGerman ‘für’EXAMPLE (PINYIN& CHARACTER)bà 爸cè 测dì 地pó 婆bù 不Lǜ 绿aiflynăi 奶aoeiiaieiuouua enowdayyardyesyolklowwahyou atehăo 好měi 美xià 下xiè 谢liù 六lóu 楼huā 花yuè onbrokentownehngheryenyahnginnhuì 会zuò 做yào 要kuài 快màn 慢wèn 问fáng 房pèng 碰èr 二diăn 点liáng xié 凉xīn 心Chinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / ChinaNOTEWritten as ‘u’ whenappearing after ‘j q x’‘ e’ stands for a syllable byitself, so it is written as ‘yue’,with the 2 dots droppedPage 5 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / Chinaingiongonguanunuang an neengyohngsongwandwhenwongyou anyuen3/29/2007tīng 听yòng 用dōng 冬guān 关hūn 昏huáng 黄quán 全jūn 军Now the initials zCcSsZhzhSIMILAR kidhighjeanscheeseshockkidscatssirjoyEXAMPLE (PINYIN& CHARACTER)bà 爸pó 婆mā 妈fā 发dà 大tā 他nǐ 你lè 乐gè 个kè 客hé 和jiě 姐qián 钱xiū 休zuò 坐cā 擦sān 三zhăo 找ChchShshRrVvWwchildshoeredvisitwhitechuáng 床shuō 说ruăn 软Yyyearyǒu 有wǒ 我NOTEthe lips do not protrudethe lips do not protrudeNot an equivalent in Englishpronounced without roundingand protruding the lipsSee aboveSee aboveSee aboveOnly to spell foreign wordsIs actually ‘u’ when ‘u’ standsfor a syllable by itselfIs actually ‘i’ (see above)Some sounds are especially difficult for English speakers to remember, and have similarpronunciations. The sound q, for example, sounds a little like ch. Similar pairs are x and sh, and jand zh.Please listen and repeat the following words:zi ci si zhi chi shi ri ji qi xiChinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / ChinaPage 6 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / China3/29/2007TonesHigh high, flat, continuous toneRising rising tone similar to the intonation used in the question ‘What?’Falling-rising ˇtone that falls then rises. You'll hear many Mandarin speakers ‘swallow’the rising sound, only giving it a clear falling-rising pattern for emphasis.Fallingfalling tone, similar to the one used when yelling ‘Darn!’١To help you get close, here's a brief try at tones, transcribed in English. Consider the syllable‘mmm’ (a non-syllable in Mandarin). Then, The high level tone is what you might say in English if you were asked a question, andyou had to think about it before answering. It's high, and it's a constant tone: “Mmm, sixteen, Ithink.” The rising tone is like a question: “Mmm? I didn't catch that.”ˇThe low level tone is what you might say in English to express doubt, or disbelief:“Mmm.I don't know about that.”١The falling tone is like an interjection: “Mmm! Well, I'll be!”Chinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / ChinaPage 7 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / China3/29/2007Listen and repeat:first toneāmātāngqīngyānguōsecond toneámátángqíngyánguóChoose the syllables you heard：1.dìdiănbāobiăndìtănbăopiàn2.third jiāngzhāngcāngshāngChinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / Chinafourth toneàmàtàngqìngyànguòròuzǒuxuănjuănPage 8 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / China3/29/2007Lesson 3 Basic GrammarMandarin grammar is relatively straightforward. There are no verb conjugations, no plurals, noarticles (a/an/the), and no gender or tenses. At an elementary level, sentence order is similar tothat of English: subject-verb-object. For example, the sentence “I study Chinese” follows exactlythe same word order in Mandarin:I study Chinese.Wǒ xué hànyǔ。(lit: I study Chinese)Let’s learn a few words first:Thiszhèthatnàto ion particle mānobùwhatshénmeThen you can talk about objects:This is tea.Zhè shì chá。That is rice.Nà shì fàn。This is a cup.Zhè shì bēizi。That is an egg.Nà shì jīdàn。Note: ‘Shì’ is ‘to be’. It is generally followed by a noun which defines the subject/topic. It is notnormally followed by an adjective on its own.How to form a question?A very simple way to form a question in Chinese is by putting a question particle “ma” at the endof a sentence that would otherwise be a plain statement. English counterparts of these questionsare usually formed by syntactically more complicated “transformational” processes such asmovement of the verb to the beginning of the sentence.Is this tea?Zhè shì chá ma?Yes./ No.Is that rice?Shì / Bú shì。Nà shì fàn ma?Yes. /No.Is this a cup?Shì / Bú shì。Zhè shì bēizi ma?Yes./No.Is that an egg?Shì / Bú shì。Nà shì jīdàn ma?Yes. /No.Shì / Bú shì。Chinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / ChinaPage 9 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / China3/29/2007Note: The word “bù” is the negative word. It precedes the verb to indicate that something doesnot happen. Here its tone changes from the fourth to the second because it is followed by a fourthtone. You will learn the rule in the future.So how do you ask what something is?‘什么 Shénme’ is the interrogative word “what.” The most important feature about Chineseinterrogative pronouns is that, unlike English practice, which shifts all interrogative pronouns tothe beginning of the question, Chinese keeps them in the position in the sentence where theanswers would be expected.What is this?Zhè shì shénme?This is tea.Zhè shì chá。What is that?Nà shì shénme?That is a cup.Nà shì bēizi。Chinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / ChinaPage 10 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com

Peace Corps / China3/29/2007Lesson 4 GreetingsVocabularyyou (singular)I, megood, all rightgood �nzăozăoshàngxiàwǔwănshàngDialogue 1Greetings in all circumstancesA: How are you?A: N[ǐ hăo。B: How are you?B: Nǐ hăo。A: Good bye.A: Zàijiàn。B: Good bye.B: Zàijiàn。Note: Nǐ hăo. This is a common, slightly formal, greeting. Literally it would translate as “You aregood,” or if conceived of as a question, “Are you fine?” However, it is not really a question. Theresponse is usually simply Nǐ hăo again. Other common greetings used among friends oracquaintances are:Dialogue 2:Greet people in the morningGood morning.A: Zăo。（or Zăoshàng hăo。）Good morning.B: Zăo。（or Zăoshàng hăo。）Note: You can change the morning, zăoshàng, to afternoon, xiàwǔ, or evening, wănshàng, andadd good, hăo, to greet people in different times of a day.Chinese Basic Lessons for Invitees, Peace Corps / ChinaPage 11 of 26Hosted for free on livelingua.com