Learning the Tones - this is the first thing you should do!

Tones

Mandarin Chinese has four pitched tones and a "toneless" tone. The reason for having these tones is probably that the Chinese language has very few possible syllables -- approximately 400 -- while English has about 12,000. For this reason, there may be more homophonic words , words with the same sound expressing different meanings, in Chinese than in most other languages. Apparently tones help the relatively small number of syllables to multiply and thereby alleviate but not completely solve the problem. Learning Chinese in context, therefore, is very important.

For example, the Chinese use only one syllable "da" and yet can tell the difference between "to hang over something" ( da1 ), "to answer" (da2), "to hit" (da3), and "big" (da4). The answer in the tones.

The numbers after each of the syllables indicates the tone. In normal text this is indicated as . In the diagram below you can see the tones.

Tone	Mark	Description
1st		High and level.
2nd		Starts medium in tone, then rises to the top.
3rd		Starts low, dips to the bottom, then rises toward the top.
4th		Starts at the top, then falls sharp and strong to the bottom.
Neutral		Flat, with no emphasis.

This diagram helps visualize the pitches of the four tones:

The tone of a syllable may change in some situations. For example, these are the characters for "mother" . As separate characters each is pronounced as "ma," but when put together, the second "ma" becomes toneless: . Rules like this are, however, very few and very easy to remember.

Casual Talk (Part 1)

Just between friends...

你怎么样？ Nǐ zěn me yàng? How are you? (informal)	你好吗? Nǐ haǒ ma? How are you?
我想念你. Wǒ xiǎng niàn nǐ. I miss you.	好久不见。你好吗？ Hǎo jiǔ bú jiàn. Nǐ hǎo ma? Long time no see. How are you?
你身体好吗？ Nǐ shēn tǐ hǎo ma? How's your health?	要注意身体啊。 Yào zhù yì shēn tǐ ā. Take care of yourself.
你家人好吗？ Nǐ jiā rén hǎo ma? How's your family?	我只想问好. Wǒ zhǐ xiǎng wèn hǎo. I just want to say hello.
如果你忙,我不会麻烦你了. Rú guǒ nǐ máng, wǒ bù huì má fan nǐ le. If you're busy, I will not bother you.	再见，有空联系。 Zài jiàn. Yǒu kòng lián xì. Bye. Contact me when you are free.

Introducing Myself (Part 2)

(Note about Pinyin: Wo3 is Wo in the 3rd tone; ming2 is ming in 2nd tone, etc.)

在美国我住了二十五年.
Zai4 Mei3 guo2 wo3 zhu4 le er4 shi2 wu3 nian2.
I lived in America for 25 years.

我出生在菲律宾.
Wo3 chu1 sheng1 zai4 fei1 lu4 bin1.
I was born in the Philippines.

我毕业于加州大学.
Wo3 bi4 ye4 yu2 jia1 zhou1 da4 xue2.
I graduated from the University of California.

我有硕士学位.
Wo3 you3 shuo4 shi4 xue2 wei4.
I have a Master's Degree.

我主要是电脑科学.
Wo3 zhu3 yao4 shi4 dian4 nao3 ke1 xue2.
My specialty (or major) is Computer Science.

我公司是美国软件公司.
Wo3 gong1 si1 shi4 Mei3 guo2 ruan3 jian4 gong1 si1.
I work for an American software company.

公司总经理.
Wo3 gong1 si1 zong3 jing1 li3.
I am the director (or general manager).

我的办公室设在天津.
Wo3 de ban4 gong1 shi4 she4 zai4 Tian1 jin1.
My office is located in Tianjin.

Ni hao! 你好!

你好 ! Ni hao ! Hello!

That's my first post and our first lesson! Hi, I'm Vincent and I've been living and working in China for almost 2 years now. Unfortunately, I haven't been too diligent with my Chinese lessons so I'm still pretty inadequate at it. I work for an American software company's engineering office here and English is still the standard language at work. I hang out with expatriates and English-speaking locals so that doesn't help either.

Recently, I've decided to get really serious at learning the language because I've decided to stay in China for a long, long time! Lots of challenges, lots of entrepreneurial opportunities and lots of new things to learn out here. First step, if you want to settle down here for quite some time, is to learn the language.

That's what this blog is for: my online notebook for learning Chinese and journaling my lessons. So come learn with me or share your knowledge with me! It's Mandarin time!!

欢迎 ! Huan ying ! Welcome!