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

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.