Lesson 8: Expressing Wants/Desire for something or to do Something

In English, we use "want" to express our need and desire to do something or for something. In Chinese we use 要 yào or 想 xiǎng. There are not much different in the usage. However, when you use 想 xiǎng, it shows more desire than just wanting for something. Also 想 xiǎng can only be followed by verb.

For example: I want to drink

we can say...

我要喝水

wǒ yào hē shuǐ

or... we can also say...

我想喝水

wǒ xiǎng hē shuǐ

As for this sentence: My younger brother want a bowl of rice.

We do not normally say:

我的弟弟想一碗饭

wǒ de dì di xiǎng yī wǎn fàn

we will say...

我的弟弟要一碗饭

wǒ de dì di yào yī wǎn fàn

When it comes to the negative form, we use "does/do not want" and translated as 不要 bù yào or 不想 bù xiǎng (which meaning is leaning towards: "do not feel like ..."

For example:

I do not want to drink

我不要喝水

Wǒ bù yào hē shuǐ

When you say:

我不想喝水

Wǒ bù xiǎng hē shuǐ

It means that "I do not feel like drinking water", slightly different meaning from "I do not want to drink water."

How about the following sentence?

My mom doesn't want a bowl of rice

Yup, because mom wants "something - noun" and NOT wants "to do something - verb", that's why it is more appropriate to use bù yào, instead of bù xiǎng

我（的）妈妈不要一碗饭

Wǒ (de) mā ma bù yào yī wǎn fàn

Try translating the following sentences:

1. I want to see your teacher

2. My elder brother wants a bike

(remember to include the measure word for bike! Identify it on Pleco)

3. Dad and mom want to go out tonight 

(Note: In Chinese, Adverb of time is used in the beginning of the sentence) 

4. My younger sister wants to eat spaghetti

5. My dog wants that ball!

Answer to be revealed in next post!

Regards,
Linda Tan

Answers to Lesson 6

In Lesson 6, we learn about telling day and date. There are some exercises given at the end of the post. Check your answer here:

1. What date is the day after tomorrow?
hòu tiān shì jǐ hào?

2. The day after tomorrow is August the 4th
hòu tiān shì bā yuè sì hào

3. What day is yesterday?
 zuó tiān xīng qī jǐ?

4. Yesterday is Sunday
zuó tiān (shì) xīng qī rì

5. What date and month is 2 days ago?
qián tiān shì jǐ yuè jǐ hào?

6. 2 days ago was 31st of July
qián tiān shì qī yuè sān shí yī hào


Listen to the following

Practice it everyday! Wake up in the morning and tell yourselves that:
Today is Monday, Yesterday is Sunday, Tomorrow is Tuesday, 2 days ago is Saturday, and the day after tomorrow is Wednesday.

Also... Today is Aug 2nd, Tomorrow is Aug 3rd, Yesterday is Aug 1st, and so on...

It will not take long, do it while you are showering, etc... In a month time, you will be very fluent in asking and telling day and date as well as in numbers! :)

Happy Weekend,
Linda Tan

Lesson 6: Day and Date in Mandarin (A)

If you first visit this blog, you should know that it will only be useful if you know how to read hanyu pinyin (the phonics in Chinese), so feel free to learn in our first post!

For those who have been following, how is the learning going? So far, we have covered the following:

1. Numbers

2. Greetings

3. Addressing Family Members

If you have committed every 20-30 minutes to review the lessons for the past month, you should be able to greet your family member and people around you in General.

Here is some example:

Moving on, let's learn about date:

Here is a few words that you need to know to be able to tell day and date in Mandarin.

星期           Xīng qī               .... day

1. Monday               Xīng qī yī             星期一

2. Tuesday              Xīng qī èr             星期二

3. Wednesday         Xīng qī sān           星期三

4. Thursday             Xīng qī sì             星期四

5. Friday                  Xīng qī wǔ           星期五

6. Saturday              Xīng qī liù            星期六

7. Sunday                Xīng qī tiān/rì      星期天 / 星期日

However, when we say;

一个星期          yī gè xīng qī            One Week

How about date???

In English we will write Date as the following:

1st Aug 2016 or Aug 1st, 2016

In Chinese, we have to start from the year, then month, then end with date. Here are a few words you will need:

1. 日                rì                       Date (use only in writing)

2. 号               hào                     Date (use in spoken language)

3. 月               yuè                      Month

4. 年               nián                    Year

How to say 2nd of Aug 2016?

2016年    8月    2日

        nián    yuè      rì

OR

二O一六年  八月   二 日

               nián    yuè        rì

In spoken language... we say:

Simple right?

Here is a few words that you should know to be able to form a full sentence in telling day/date.

Today (Hari ini)                                  今天              jīn tiān 

Tomorrow (Besok)                             明天              míng tiān

Yesterday (Kemarin)                          昨天              zuó tiān

Day after tomorrow (Lusa)                后天               hòu tiān 

2 days ago (2 hari lalu)                       前天              qián tiān 

verb to be, is/am/are  (adalah...)        是                  shì 

Asking amount (berapa)                    几                   jǐ     --> It can also means "a few" or "some"

So you can form a sentence to say:

Today is Tuesday, 2nd of August

今天是星期二，八月 二号

jīn tiān shì xīng qī èr, bā yuè èr hào

Tomorrow is Wednesday, 3rd of August 2016     

明天是星期三，2016年  八月  三号

míng tiān shì xīng qī sān, èr ling yī liù nián bā yuè sān hào

To form a negative sentence, we use 不是 bù shì

For example:

Today is not Friday.

今天不是星期五

jīntiān bùshì xīngqīwǔ

When you need to ask QUESTION, here is the example:

What date (and month) is today?
今天是几月几号？
jīn tiān shì  jǐ yuè jǐ hào?

What if you are would like to ask for a date only (assuming you are aware what month we are in now)?
Yup! You can say:

What date is today?
今天几号？
jīn tiān jǐ hào?

What day is tomorrow?
明天星期几？
míng tiān xīng qī jǐ?

Listen to the following:

Please translate the following:
1. What date is the day after tomorrow?
2. The day after tomorrow is Thursday.
3. What day is yesterday?
4. Yesterday is Sunday
5. What date and month is 2 days ago?
6. 2 days ago was 31st of July

(Answer to be revealed in next post by the end of this week)

Happy Tuesday,
Linda Tan

Lesson 5: Family Members & Addressing People (A & C)

This is intended for both adults and children. There are many ways to address a family member in English (Dad, Father, etc) and Bahasa Indonesia (Papa, Ayah) , so does Chinese.

Knowing what to address someone properly is important. From here, you will know how the relation between one person to another. This is the unique thing about Chinese, which also makes it a bit complicated. However, personally I would like to keep this tradition in my own family.

Here I will only show you the most common one :)
Father                             爸爸            bà ba
Mother                            妈妈            mā ma
Older Sister                    姐姐            jiě jie 
Younger Sister               妹妹            mèi mei 
Older Brother                 哥哥            gē ge
Younger Brother            弟弟            dì di 
Paternal Grandpa           爷爷             yé ye 
Paternal Granma            奶奶             nǎi nai
Maternal Grandpa          公公             gong gong 
Maternal Grandma         婆婆             pó po 
Uncle (from Dad's side, older than your dad)                 伯伯             bó bo 
Uncle (from Dad's side, younger than your dad)            叔叔            Shū shu
Uncle (from Mom's side)                                                舅舅             jiù jiu
Aunt (from Dad's side）                                                 姑姑             gū gu
Aunt (from Mom's side, older than your mom)              姨妈              yí mā
Aunt (from Mom's side, younger thatn your mom)        阿姨              ā yí
Niece                                侄女                    zhí nǔ 
Nephew                            侄儿 / 外甥        zhí ér / wài shēng

There are still more actually, like your uncle's wife is not just "aunt", but there is a proper way to address her, depending on whose wife she is. However, enough for now. It will be to overwhelming if I were to introduce all at once.

The purpose of knowing the above is that so that you can teach your children a proper way of addressing people. Together with this, introduce to her the greeting that you have already learnt before. So the next time they see their grandpa, they can say: “公公，早上好”  

gōng gong, zǎo shàng hǎo or “爷爷， 早上好” yé ye, zǎo shàng hǎo (Good Morning, Grandpa)。

Or teach them how to say thank you. When your husband's older brother buys a present for your childen, teach them to say “伯伯，谢谢” bó bo, xiè xie (Thanks, Uncle)

Another tips to address friends. If it is a female friend, we like to address them as “阿姨”   ā yí,  we assume she is a sister to us (wife). However, if it a male friend, we teach our kids to address him as “叔叔” shū shu , we assume he is a brother to our husband, if your male friend is older we use “伯伯”, bó bo.

Teaching kids how to address people properly is still something conventional yet part of teaching them good manner, at least for the Eastern. In our family, it is something that is important. When our parents are talking to their friend, even if we do not know them, we will have to address that uncle/aunt. We do not just stand there quietly or walk away without greeting them. Raised in that kind of family, I expect a lot from the kids nowadays too.

What if we meet someone about our age or not in a "Personal" context, working environment, for example. It might not be too appropriate to call your boss (who you assume from their appearance is older than you) as 伯伯. For this purpose, we have the following:

Mr.     先生     xiān sheng     

                   e.g. Mr. Lee       李先生        lí xiān sheng

Mrs./ Madam  (Married woman)        女士       nǚ shì     

                  e.g. Madam Kwan     关女士         guān nǚ shì 

(Note: If we know exactly that woman is married to Mr. Li and she takes after his surname, we can then use 夫人 (fū ren).

Addressing them as: 李先生 & 李夫人       lí xiān sheng & lí fū ren        Mr & Mrs. Li)

Ms.     小姐      xiǎo jiě 

                   e.g. Ms. Chen          陈小姐     chén xiǎo jiě

Try to apply this as much as possible and you will get use to it before you know it. :)

Your kids can call me,

Linda 阿姨   (Aunt Linda)

Tips!

I normally do not memorize the meaning, I will use it in one situation where I know for sure it is correct and always refer back to the use of each word in that situation to get the meaning.

For example: I have many uncles whom I address as 舅舅 jiù jiu. Therefore, when I need the meaning of the word "舅舅", I will always refer back to that person. And start thinking, "who does the person relate to?" Then, I know that he is my mother's brother. Thus I got my answer 舅舅  jiù jiu refers to uncle from mother's side, can be older or younger.

Lesson 3: New Vocabs + Greetings (A)

In this post, I would like to start with exercise. I want you to find the meaning for the following basic vocabs. If it is possible, you can try to recognize the Chinese characters too. Although speaking might be your goal in learning the language, however recognizing words (know how to read and the meaning) will come handy one day. It also helps you to understand it better.

Here is the example on how to do this to get the maximal benefit, write it down on a piece of paper, better if you have a book dedicated for this:

E..g 人 rén  human/people

1. 头

2. 目

3. 口

4. 嘴巴

5. 耳朵

6. 足 / 脚

7. 大

8. 小

9. 多

10. 少

This will give you the chance to practice using Pleco too :)  And of course, do not forget to pronounce it out loud when you have found the pinyin and the meaning. And stop for a while and digest the new vocab before you move on.

Next, I want you to translate from English to Chinese (you can choose to write the characters or just stick to the pinyin)

1. Sun

2. Moon

3. Mountain

4. Field

5. Rock

6. Water

7. Fire

8. Soil

9. Wood

10. I / Me

11. You

12. We /Us

13. He/She/It (same pronunciation different characters)

14. They / Them

Try finish the above, read your answer out loud so that it sticks. Revisit them regularly :)

Now, I am going to introduce you to some simple greetings in Chinese.

The most universal greeting that we use is Hello/Hi. In Chinese we say:

“你好” nǐhǎo   Hello

This literally means "you are good." It is something like saying I wish you good / good things.

Just the same as when how we response to "Hello." We say "Hello" too in return.

A: “你好”                  nǐ hǎo 

B: “你好”                  nǐ hǎo 

More specific greeting, depending on the time of the day:

1. Good Morning                            早上好            zǎo shàng hǎo       OR  早安   zǎo ān 

2. Good Noon (12PM - 1PM)         中午好            shàng wǔ hǎo       OR 午安    wǔ ān

3. Good Afternoon                          下午好            xià wǔ hǎo           OR 午安    wǔ ān    

4. Good Evening                             晚上好            wǎn shàng hǎo

5. Good Night                                 晚安                wǎn ān 

Another reminder, video can only be played on a desktop or laptop.

To avoid confusion, you can just try to memorize one version, for now. However, you have to know both, because certain countries, like Singapore and Taiwan like to use zǎo ān  /  wǔ ān / wǎn ān, while Mainland Chinese like to use the first that end with ... hǎo. So at least when someone say it, you know what they means. Most of the time, we reply to someone's greeting with the same version that they use. However, it is not wrong too when someone says: "zǎo ān", you reply with: "zǎo shàng hǎo." It is acceptable.

Apart from  the above, here are a few more phrases that beginner should know

1. Thanks                                        谢谢                   xiè xie

2. You are welcome                        不客气              bú kè qì

3. Sorry                                           对不起              duì bu qǐ

4. No worries / No problem            没关系              méi guān xi

5. Goodbye / See you again             再见                 zài jiàn

If you are on you handheld and can't play the video, you can always practice the correct pronunciation with the help of recorded audio on Pleco! =)

Again no need to rush to finish, revisit lesson 1 when you have time and before you know it, you will have them all on your fingertips :)

xiè xie,

Linda Tan

Answer for Exerises in Lesson 1 (A)

Here is the answers for the 2 exercises on lesson 1 (A)

Exercise 1

The missing numbers are:

Fifteen (15)                 shí wǔ              十五

Sixteen (16)                shí liù               十六

Seventeen (17)            shí qī                十七

Eighteeen (18)            shí bā                十八

Nineteen (19)             shí jiǔ                十九

Exercise 2

Twenty Four (24)         èr shí sì               二十四

Twenty Five (25)         èr shí wǔ             二十五

Twenty Six (26)           èr shí liù              二十六

Twenty Seven (27)      èr shí qī                二十七

Twenty Eght (28)        èr  shí bā               二十八

Twenty Eight (29)       èr shí jiǔ               二十九

Thirty One (31)          三十一          sān shí yī

Thirty Two (32)          三十二         sān shí èr

Thirty Three (33)       三十三          sān shí sān

Thirty Four (34)        三十四           sān shí sì  

Thirty Five (35)         三十五          sān shí wǔ

Thirty Six (36)          三十六           sān shí liù

Thirty Seven (37)      三十七          sān shí qī

Thirty Eight (38)       三十八          sān  shí bā     

Thirty Nine (39)        三十九         sān shí jiǔ

If you notice, the only character that is changed is the first, When we are in 20ish, all start with 二 (èr), when we are in 30ish then we change it to 三 (sān).

I believe you can do the 40 - 99 yourself by now.

We will stop at 100 which is 一百 （yī bǎi）

Hope you get all your answer right. :)

Happy Counting,

Linda Tan

Lesson 1: Basic Numbers (A)

For me, teaching Chinese for adults and kids are different. The way of teaching is definitely different, the order of things that I teach is different too. I have the background for both, but coming from a city where Mandarin is something common and nothing exclusive, I used to have high expectation to the learners. Moving to Bali, I have to lower my expectation towards the learners (both kids and adults) and slow down my pace of teaching.

For every coming post in the future I am going to label them “Chinese for Adults” and “Chinese for Children”. Also, I will put (A) for adults and (C) for children within the title. So, you can refer to the relevant posts easily.

Today, I am going to start the lesson for adult. Like language in general, we start from numbers!

Zero - Ten in Chinese

Here is the basic numbers 1 – 10, in Chinese

一   yī             One (1)

二   èr            Two (2)

三   sān         Three (3)

四   sì             Four (4)

五   wǔ          Five (5)

六   liù           Six (6)

七   qī            Seven (7)

八   bā           Eight (8)

九   jiǔ           Nine (9)

十   shí          Ten (10)

Apply your knowledge on the Chinese phonics here (from now on, you will get to practice that often!). If you need help to confirm the pronunciation, key in the pinyin above and look for the correct character on Pleco and listen to the pronunciation.

Get a hold of 1 - 10 above,  Master them first, before continuing. Moving on I would like to introduce 10 - 100 to you, that comes in exercise. Try your very best not to peek the above. You must be able to recall "nine" as "jiǔ", "six" as "liù", and so on without referring to your note...

Let's start:

十一     shíyī           Eleven (11)

十二     shíèr           Twelve (12)

十三     shísān         Thirteen (13)

十四     shísì            Fourteen (14)

：           :                    :

二十     èrshí            Twenty (20)

Can you see the pattern above?

Exercise 1: I want you to fill the missing numbers between 14 - 20

Answer can be jotted down in the following 3 ways:

1 . You say it and record it down with your phone, so that you can check your answer later on and also this allows you to compare your pronunciation to the correct pronunciation, OR

2. You can write down the pinyin, to practice on your hanyu pinyin (the phonics), OR

3. You can write down the Chinese characters, if you wish to learn to write and read the Chinese characters, remember there is order of strokes that you have to follow, check this on bihua site. If you have forgotten how to use the site please refer to the previous post, OR

4. You can do 1, 2, and 3 all together

Finish the above before continuing... You can stop if you think you have enough for this one session and continue the following later.

Moving on. The last number that we learnt was 二十 (èr shí) Twenty (20)

二十一        èr shí yī        Twenty one  (21)

二十二        èr shí èr        Twenty two (22)

二十三        èr shí sān      Twenty three (23)

     ：                   :                  :

三十            sān shí yī        Thirty (30)

三十一        sān shí èr        Thirty one (31)

：                      :                    :

四十            sì shí               Forty (40)

五十            wǔ shí             Fifty (50)

六十            liù shí              Sixty (60)

 ：                      :                    :

 ：                      :                    :

九十             jiǔ shí              Ninety (90)

 ：                      :                    :

一百             yī bǎi               One hundred (100)

As you can see there are many missing numbers from 23 - 100.

Exercise 2: Please fill in the missing numbers by looking at the pattern from the numbers that are shown. Numbers in Chinese is quite easy no changes in writing or whatsoever like in English (forty not fourty, twelve not twoteen, thirty not threety, and so on).

Answers to be revealed in a separate post!

Please Note: 

In Chinese, the number "2" that is usually written as "二" and read as "èr" will change to 两 (liǎng) whenever it it is used to measure things, like 2kg (weight), 2 o'clock (time), 2 dollars (money), etc.

We say:

2 kg            两公斤       liǎng gōng jīn

2 o'clock     两点           liǎng diǎn

2 dollars     两块            liǎng kuài

Happy Numbering!

Linda Tan

P.S. For your knowledge

Pinyin should be written without space if they are one phrase.
For example: gōng jīn means kilogram. It is ONE word in English and it represented with 2 Chinese characters, they are gōng and jīn, thus, gōngjīn is supposed to be written WITHOUT space. However, for easy reading for beginner, I would like to separate all the pinyin from one another.

Hanyu Pinyin - Part 4 - More Phonics

 Here are the phonics that you have been introduced before:
Single vowels: a, o, e, i, u, ü and
Consonants: b, p, m, f, d, t, n, l, g, k, h, j, q, x, zh, ch, sh, r, z, c, s, y, w

Other than the above, there a few more that you have to know and understand. As you can already see in the pinyin chart on Yabla's site, there are many of the remaining that I haven't covered. In fact, I am not going to cover all. I will show you the other basic pinyin that is formed by combining the 2 vowels, that is known as 双韵母 (shuāngyǜnmǔ) and sounds that come out from your nostril, known as 鼻韵母 (bíyǜnmǔ )

Let's first look at 双韵母 (Shuāngyǜnmǔ). It literally means double vowels. Here they are:

ai    ei    ui   

ao   ou

iu    ie    üe    er

Tips on pronouncing the above:

1. Pronounce the first alphabet (remember it is more to Bahasa Indonesia ABC than English ABC) and without stopping (no gap), followed by the pronunciation of the second alphabet.

2. Repeat the sound in a faster pace.

3. Again, it sounds almost the same like Bahasa Indonesia pronunciation. You do not have to memorize them all. Just try to pronounce it with the trick above (no. 1 & 2) and you should be able to get the correct pronunciation. Again, NO memorizing)

Let's see the video below (I am sorry, that you can only view this on your desktop).

Here is the implementation in spelling a word:

Remember! The spelling of the 2 vowels must be pronounce continuously without stopping. Treat "ao", "ei" as One phonic, not 2 separate phonics. Here is the difference if you spell it one by one with a gap in between, and this is not the right way to do it!

Here is how you use it in spelling a word!

More Example:

Try spelling the following on your own:

1. k - āo
2. x - i - ǎo (try spelling word with 3 syllables)
3. t - uō
4. l - uò
5. j - üé
6. m - ài
7. q - iē
8. l - óu

The last one from phonics is to know that there are certain phonics which sounds are produced from our nostril, known as 鼻韵母 (bíyǜnmǔ ). Here they are:

an  en  in  un   ün 

ang, eng, ing, ong

Let's see how to use it to spell a word:

With this, the basic things that you should know about Chinese Phonics are all covered. Here are a few important rules that you should know:

1. I mentioned that vowel is the one that should carry the symbol of intonation on top of them. It will be easy if there is only one vowel in a word. If there are more than one, such as in the word "shuoI", then you have to know where to appropriately place the small symbol for intonation.

In the first part of Hanyu Pinyin post, I asked you to memorize the vowel in the given order: a, o, e i, u, ü. It is for a reason. That order helps to decide who is going to wear the "crown".

Here is the rule:

a. If you see an "a" in the word, then "a" should definitely wear the crown (E.g. hǎo)

b. If you don't see an "a" then either "o" or "e" should wear it. "o" and "e" has never come together in a word (E.g. xiè, shōu)

c. However, if "u" and "i" come together, whichever that place a the back, then it should wear the crown. (E.g. shuǐ, xiū)

2. When 2 words with 3rd tone comes one after another, the first word should be pronounced as 2nd tone (while the writing have to be kept as 3rd tone "v")

Listen to the following:

3. When you see a word that comes without an intonation symbol, it is known as 轻声 (qīngshēng), literally means soft tone. It has to be pronounced softly and keep it short! See the following:

There are more rules that we should (not MUST) know, but I am not going to explain all of them here. It will be ongoing process. I will explain them when we see them during our learning. 

Now, you can practice reading the following sentences yourself:

1. wǒ shì Linda                         I am Linda

2. wǒ xué hàn yǔ                       I am learning Chinese

3. tā shì shuí?                            Who is he/she?

4. nǐ hǎo                                     Hello

5. wǒ de mā ma                          My mother

6. nà shì shén me?                     What is that?

7. Ní hǎo ma?                             How are you? / Are you good?

8. Wǒ xǐhuān chī pángxiè          I like to eat Crab

For the past 2 months you have been introduced to the tools and the very basic of Mandarin that will allow you to explore more yourselves. I want you to revisit every post about Pleco and Bihua.com to refresh your memory and also starting practicing the hanyu pinyin (Chinese phonics) from the single phonics to the one that we learnt above. 

To perfect your Chinese phonics, you can do the following:

Pick the things (noun) / activities (verbs) that you would like to know and translate them in Pleco. DO NOT play the speaker for now, look at the pinyin and start spelling and pronouncing them. Then for comparison, you can check the recorded audio to see if you have pronounced it right. Do not look at the sample phrases or sentences for now. If you get 80% of this right, then you might want to pick up a Mandarin book that comes with hanyu pinyin. And start reading short article. Best is to use the primary school kids' books (P1 or P2 books). Not only reading, you can start translating the short article to English and see if the story makes sense to you. :)

Happy Trying,

Linda Tan 

P.S. Here is the answer to the previous post exercise:

xī         mǎ       tā         chē      hé