Answer: Showing Direction

Here is the answer for the previous post on how to show direction to others who asked:

1.  from here, go to that corner, you will then see the place

Cóng zhèr, zǒu dào nà zhuánjiǎo, nǐ jiùhuìkàndào nàgè dìfāng le

2. from here, turn right and then just go straight, when you see a bookstore, turn right again and the police station is there. 

Cóng zhèr, yòuguǎi ránhòu zhízǒu, rúguǒ nǐ kàndào shūdiàn, zài yòu guǎi, jǐngchájú jiùzài nàr.

3. from here, go up to second floor, room 239 is on your left side. 

Cóng zhèr, shàngqù èrlóu, 239 fáng zài nǐ de zuǒbiān

 4. At that corner, there is a police station, just walk pass it and then turn right, and you will arrive at ABC school.

 

Zài nà zhuǎnjiǎo, yǒu yīgè jǐngchájú, zǒuguò nàgè jǐngchájú ránhòu yòuguǎi, nǐ jiù dàole ABC xuéxiào.

 

Listen to the following, notice the gap between each instruction:

 

Watch out for next post on Question Words,

Linda Tan

 

Lesson 4: Activities for Kids (C)

How is your counting activity with your child for the past week? Can they count 1 - 3 already? or maybe more...? Keep up the good work. No matter how slow the progress is, make sure you keep moving! Consistency and commitment is the key.

Again, I suggest verbal counting only to younger kids below 4 years old, while you can point or show them the Chinese character while counting.

By doing this there is chance that your child might be able to read the words in the long run. However, if they can't now, do not get frustrated.  It is okay. Focus on counting fingers. Lead by example! You have to show them how to count using your fingers as assistants. They will copy you for sure. This helps the fine motoric skill for the young :)

Anyway... Always find the chance to practice the counting, anytime and anywhere.

You can even do it in 2 or 3 languages.

yī, one, satu
èr, two, dua
etc...

Moving on..

One of the most important part in learning language is to know as many vocabularies as you can. Same thing applies here. Since we are not rushing for anything. You can mix the Chinese lesson with some art. The most basic art that anyone can do is COLORING. Coloring (with crayons or any other wide tip coloring pencil) may also help children to train the strength of their grip, this will come useful when it is time for them to really hold pencil and write letters/words. If you are asking why and how? Try to hold a pencil now, do you need strength to do it? Yes, you do, we all do. That's why we get tired of writing sometimes. If your hand is weak, you can't even hold the pencil properly, let alone trying to form shapes of alphabets. That's why and That's how Coloring may help your little ones.

So, what I used to do with my preschool (age 3 - 5) is ask them to color 1 or 2 things in every session. KEEP the final result and FILE them. DO NOT chuck it away. One item a day means one new vocab every day. Imagine doing it everyday for a month. Voila!

Here is the thing that you need:
1. Blank Paper (A4 is fine), always use the same size for neat filing.
2. Crayon or coloring pencil of your choice (don't choose the thin/slim type, choose the crayon which is "fat", wider in diameter (easy to hold) and wide tip (finish coloring faster, since most kids get bored fast, or rather have shorter attention span)
3. Printer (you may need or not need this). I used to hand draw the items. Keep it SUPER simple. Not too much detail on the thing:

Here is the sample of the page that you need to create for your kids before let them start the coloring:

Write the Chinese Character, the Pinyin, the English/Indonesia on the paper with the picture

The reasons for keeping are:

1. You can use them like a flash card (just bigger in size)

2. With the Chinese character written on the paper, they will get exposure to the shape of the character, every time you "flash" this paper to them. One day you will be surprise to know that your child is reading the character in addition to recognizing the object.

I usually start introducing the vocabularies that are going to be used often in our daily life. In classes, they will have lots of encounter with books, pencils, bags, tables, chairs, etc. So learn those words first. Remember to stick to NON abstract object, something that you can actually show. "Table" is easy to show, but "kind" is not, "Pencil" is tangible, while "heavy" is not. So stick to common nouns for now.

Here are 5 words that I want you to create for your child:

1. 书         shū                     Book / Buku

2. 笔         bǐ                       Pencil / Pensil

3. 书包     shū bāo              Bag / Tas

4. 椅子     yǐ zi                    Chair / Kursi

5. 桌子     zhuō zi                Table / Meja

Aim for them to master this in a week along with the counting. :)

So this is how you do it:
1. First day:
- Let them color a book and then ask them to say the word "shū"
- When they are finish coloring, show them the final product and ask them to say the word "shū" again

2. Second day
- Before start, show the book picture that they colored yesterday and then say the word in Chinese. If they forget, help them!
- Then let them color pencil and teach them the word in Chinese. Ask them to repeat after you or repeat after the audio in Pleco. :)
- When they are done, show them the pencil and ask them to say it in Chinese. Then, refreshing memory on book + pencil.
They now know 2 new words :)

3. Third day
- Refresh memory of "pencil" and "book"
- Color a bag (remember to keep the drawing simple) and not too big. Something that they can finish in 10 - 15 mins max. You know your child best! If they are the type who get bored easily, aim for something super simple! :)
- Show them the picture and ask them to say the Chinese word for "bag"
- Refresh "book" + "pencil" and "bag"

4 & 5. Fourth & Fifth day
Apply the same things.

So each day, they will have more "flash card" to recognize and read from.

If you would like to add more words, since your kids is a fast learner and not able to wait for my next lesson for children, then, please feel free to find the words in Pleco. :)

Drop a comment or email me if you need printable materials that you can use for the above activities.


Fun Learning,
Linda Tan

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

Hanyu Pinyin - Part 3 - The 4 Tones

Moving forward, once you know how to spell the combination of phonics, then you have to get to know and master the 4 tones known in Mandarin.

Tone is known as 声调 ( shēngdiào ) in Chinese. There are 4 tones in Chinese and they are symbolized by the 4 small lines on top of one of the vowels.

To avoid confusion between the second and fourth sound (slash and backslash look alike), you can try to link the four lines to form letter "M" with the tail in front. If you can't form an M with the 4 lines, you have definitely written the second and fourth lines wrongly.

Each line represents how a word sounds.

The first line is flat, thus the sound produced by word with the first tone is flat, just like when a dentist ask you to open your mouth and say "ahhhh".

The second line has to be written from the left bottom to the right top (going up), because the sounds that are produced by words with second tone is going up.

The third line looks like letter 'v'. I always relate this to the sound of burping (short one!).

The fourth line has to be written from the left top to the right bottom (going down), because the sound it produces would be like the "aw!" sound that you make when a friend hit you, high pitch to low pitch.

Please listen to the following:

Listen to the second sound, I purposely drag it longer so that it is clear how the sounds go from lower to higher pitch. However, when we speak we normally do not drag the sound.

Let see how we use it in the spelling:

More sample spelling...

You should first work on perfecting the 4 tones for the 6 individual vowels.

āáǎà

ōóǒò

ēéěè

īíǐì

ūúǔù

ǖǘǚǜ

Then, you can start spelling a word that consists of 1 consonant + 1 vowel. You can try the following combination of phonics that form a word:

nā   ná   nǎ  nà

bō   bó   bǒ  bò

dē   dé   dě  dè

qī   qí   qǐ  qi

kū   kú   kǔ  kù

xǖ   xǘ   xǚ  xǜ

Match your answer with the spelling on this page

Tips and Trick!

Pronouncing the 3rd tone can be a bit tricky. Personally I think changing it a little works just fine. You can try to imitate the sound that you make when you burp (short one!) Listen to the (burping) sound in the video below and how we use it to pronounce actual words.

We are going to finish up pinyin, in my next post. As mentioned, pinyin will help you to read the translated English word in Pleco or any other dictionaries and maybe read books that come with pinyin (most beginner books do have pinyin). Also, once you know how to read/pronounce certain words or when you hear someone say something and able to spell the pinyin out, it will enable you to look up the meaning of the words in Pleco much faster. All in all, pinyin is the basic tool that will allow you to explore more about the language yourself.

Try the following, write down the pinyin and the tone of the word that you hear. Answer will be revealed in the next post.

Feel free to comment or ask questions!

Happy Spelling,

Linda Tan

P.S. I have not found a way to make the video work on hand gadget (on my iPhone), so the videos above can only be viewed on a desktop or laptop.
For first timer, please go back to the very first post to start learning Mandarin. Here it is. It is to get to know what you need along the way.