Learning Chinese

[cangor 0]

So, yeah, I'm learning Chinese and thought I would share a bit of my knowledge with everyone else...

Note that some things may not appear unless you have the Chinese language pack on your computer.

Anyways, in chinese everything's written in Chinese Characters, (like this: 你好) so you have to learn all the characters, along with how to say each word. 你好 is an expression that means hello.

So, anyways, I'll use it as an example...

The first part is the 你. This is pronounced Nǐ. It means "You" and the little thing above the "I" is the tone mark. The hardest part of chinese is the tones. Basically, You have to make the tone of your voice follow the mark. Here's a website which has a spiffy little applet that pronounces tones:
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

The second part of the word, 好, is pronounced Hǎo, and means good. The "a" has the same accent mark as the "i" in Nǐ. This accent mark means pronounce with a falling, then rising tone... But anyways, that can be kinda confusing... Here's the shorthand version:

你好 = Nǐ Hǎo = Hello

And one last thing... The pronunciation written in roman characters (the "Nǐ Hǎo") is called pinyin. The rest of the words I have are written in Pinyin.

So, here are some more phrases.

Chinese Classroom Expressions

Nǐ Hǎo Hello, or literally You GoodLǎo Shī Hǎo Hello, teacher, or literally Old Teacher Good
Shŕng Kč Class begins
Xiŕ Kč Class ends
Dǎ Kāi Shū Open your Books
Wǒ Shuō, Nǐ měn Tīng I say, you listen
Kŕn Hēi Bǎn look at the blackboard
Duě bu Dui right or wrong?
Duě right
Hěn Hǎo very good
Qǐng Gēn wǒ shuō please repeat what I say
Zŕi shuō yí cě say that again
Dǒng bů Dǒng do you understand?
Dǒng Le I understand
Zŕi jiŕn Goodbye (see you again)

Survival Chinese

Duě bú qǐ Excuse me, pardon me, sorry!Qǐng wčn may I ask
Xič xie thank you
Zhč shi shénme what is this?
Wǒ bů Dǒng I dont understand
Qǐng zŕi shuō yí biŕn please repeat that
Zhōng guó huŕ zěnme shuō how do you say in Chinese?
shī shčnme yě si What does mean?
Qǐng nǐ gěi wǒ - Please give me
Qǐng nǐ gaň su wǒ - Please tell me
Duě bú qǐ, nín shi shuō? Sorry, are you saying? (nín = you polite)

v These are all the possible vowel characters in pinyin.Chinese Pinyin Vowels Chinese Numerals
AĀŔÁǍaāŕáǎ One 一 - yī Seven 七 - qī
EĒĚČÉeēčéě Two 二 - čr Eight 八 - bā
IĪǏĚÍiīěíǐ Three 三 - sān Nine 九 - jiǔ
OŌǑŇÓōňóǒ Four 四 - sě Ten 十 - shí
UŪǓŮÚūůúǔ Five 五 - wǔ
ÜǕǗǛǙüǖǜǘǚ Six 六 - liů

Uh, since this is really complicated, please ask any questions...

Oh, and since a lot of characters might not show up in the forums, I attached a file with the stuff in it.

Notice from jlhaslip:

edit to add quote tags.
Lists should be quoted, regardless of the language

Edited November 9, 2006 by jlhaslip (see edit history)

[master_bacarra 0]

i can't seem to read most of the characters that you typed (it only shows questionmarks in my monitor), but just as the same i think learning the language is cool. i know someone (who was a contestant in one of the known reality shows in US) who can speak fluent mandarin because he grew up in vietnam i think and then his family transferred to america when he was a kid.my mom encourages me to study it "just in case" i go work in china or something to that effect.

[darran 0]

My mother language is chinese so I guess I can provide some helpful tips for you guys. But I figured a lot of Americans learning chinese so that they can appreciate mandopop

[cangor 0]

:)Anyways, it's a cool language to learn, and it'll probably come in handy someday.

[quakesand 0]

LOL, I'm a chinese...The hardest part is actually the words, because they don't have abc or nothing, they only have the 部首 A.K.A "hands" lol...also, every word is not same...Pinyin is so easy, as well as the tone...mostly because i was born in a hakka(speech only language, no words) family, but my mom is cantonese(also speech only) so does my sisters, that's why I speak cantonese, chinese and english at home. I know and also speak chinese(a.k.a mandrin but also part of hakka and cantonese, but this one has words) at school because i learn chinese at school, and also learn Malay and English.They are all chinese people's languages :lol:P.S. tell you something funny: I forgot how to talk hakka!!! I only remembered some...lolEDIT: I'm not from China but Malaysia, also an asian

Edited October 29, 2006 by quakesand (see edit history)

[Plenoptic 0]

I am sure it must be a challenge going from more of an alphabet to symbol like writing. I have always thought about learning a language like Chinese or Japanese but don't really have the time, or money right now. I'm learning spanish but that's easy to learn once you get the hang of all the verb tenses and pronunciating is pretty simple as well. Good luck on your Chinese studies. It can be really handy to know a second language like that, you can make a lot of money as a translator.

[johnnyg30 0]

Hi could someone tell me what these mean

Edited November 9, 2006 by johnnyg30 (see edit history)

[deLe 0]

Well, I know:French,English,Spanish (been studying it for 2 years now)and a bit of German.I don't think I'd be able to learn a language such as Japanase or Chinese as it is harder (I think) to learn symbols than to learn an alphabet. Also, as I've heard, it looks pretty hard to pronounce words in Chinese

[cangor 0]

Hi could someone tell me what these mean

The first character in the second one means hero or heroic... Other than that, I can't really read much. I recognize some of the radicals but I don't know what the words mean.

[darran 0]

On the 1st word (Ao Qi Ding), not really sure what it meansOn the 2nd word (Jie Da), basically I have not seen this combination beforeBut the first character means something out of the ordinary and the second means reaching. So I can only deduce, it means reaching to something out of the ordinary.

[arnz 0]

I know a bit of French and Tagalog (filipino). Learning Chinese would be an interesting challenge, but I'd definitely would not learn writing the symbols... it'll probably take a while to remember imo!

[quakesand 0]

Hi could someone tell me what these mean

Is'nt those human names?

[gameratheart 0]

Cool to hear someone is studying writing and speaking in Chinese. It's a very good language to know. I'd like to do that myself, but with Japanese. I don't have good memory though.

[greentea-pocky 0]

omg im taking mandarin next sem its gonna be incredibaly hard. I cant wait ^o^

[cangor 0]

Well, good luck. I just finished first quarter with an A, but that's mostly because our teacher is nice. He makes us work our @$$es off, but he grades easily. I got a 117% on the last test. :blink:The tones are really hard to remember, I think. I prefer to learn the characters, but that may only be because of how our teacher teaches.