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Chinese Words
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Chinese Words
What makes the Chinese language special and easy to learn？
1 Hanzi (characters) are invented to record the language
The Chinese characters originally came from the simplified drawings of living things. And some of those drawings were also borrowed to imply some abstract ideas.
In most cases, the character can tell us the meaning it carries by identifying the radicals (components), which are put together in different positions to make a character, and sometimes, roughly, it can also tell us its pronunciation. About half of the Chinese characters are a blending of meaning and sound.
One Chinese character is basically equal to one syllable of an English word. And like English, it can be a word by itself, but mostly two characters are used to make a word. More than half of the Chinese words are made up of two characters. There are also Chinese words made up of three or more characters.
2 It's a tonal language.
There are basically five tones for each sound (four fixed, one relatively flexible) in Chinese. Different tones of a sound mean definitely different things.
3 The Chinese grammar is very simple; therefore, the context is quite important to understand a word meaning. The main purpose is to avoid too much repetition.
l It's not reflexive. There are no changes in a word form for different genders, numbers and tenses etc.
l The concept of tense is not stressed, instead, the completion, progression and result of an action are narrated by adding certain particles like "le" "zhe" "guo4" after the action word.
l Basic word order in a sentence is like this:
Subject + point of time + place + action 1+object+action 2+object +length of time…
* The word order in a question stays the same as that in a statement.
l All modifying words or even a sentence (a clause) are usually put before the noun that is modified by adding the particle "de" in between.
l In a dialogue, "I" or "we" and "You" are not usually mentioned, because they are implied.
l The topic word is usually put at the beginning of a sentence, even if it works as an object in a sentence. We call that a "topic sentence." This is very popular in a conversation.
l Each noun has got a measure word to go with.
l While we mention a place or time, we usually follow the order "from big to small".
l In Chinese, there is no simple "Yes" or "No" to answer a simple question. What we usually do is to answer by repeating the verb or adjective (predicate in a sentence),etjc with a "bù"( no for present/future) "méi(no forpast/complete)" before it.
4 Greeting habits
Besides "Nǐhǎo (hello at any time) or Zǎo (hello in the early morning)", Among acquintances, and sometimes, even to strangers, Chinese people often say what they see as greetings. e.g. "Nǐ chīfàn a （You are eating.）", "Nǐ chūqù a (You are going out?)" or "Chī le ma?(Did you eat? at about meal time)". It's just normal concern we show for the others.
About the Author
Ling is a language admirer. The unique beautiful sound of every single language is the first drive for her to become a language learner. And now, she's a mandarin Chinese language instructor. Teaching, reading, writing, cycling, babysitting and cooking are almost her normal daily life. She does these out of pure love and respect for life. Know more about her, please visit her personal website: www.hanzhidao.com. Thank you!
What is the best website out there to help an english speaker with Chinese words?
I am taking my young son to mandarin Chinese classes and I would like to supplement the class with our own lessons. To do that, I need to better understand the pronunciation of the words. Are there resources available that can help, like a website where the words are spelled out phonetically in English? Thank you
Hi, I am Helen Zhang, a professional Chinese language teacher from China.
I recommend you to visit www.echineseonline.com. It provides Chinese learners with professional Chinese Pinyin lessons systematically. Besides the video lesson, it also provides additional materials, such as exercises, PDF documents and audios. It can help your kids to master Chinese Pinyin firmly with videos, diagrams, flashes, and so on. Besides, it also publishes a Free newsletter for Chinese learning. It covers many interesting topics like Chinese stories, Chinese songs for kids, Chinese cultures, and popular daily used expressions. The materials are given with Pinyin, Chinese and English, MP3. If you have any questions about Chinese, you can also communicate with professional teacher at Communities at eChineseOnline.
If you are interested in learning Mandarin, please take Free Trial video lessons at
http://www.echineseonline.com?eco=ptEEyh040801
If you have more questions about learning Mandarin Chinese, please email me at
helen.zhang@echineseonline.com, I am very happy to hear from you.
Basic Chinese Words