Lesson 6: Traditional vs. Simplified

你好！China has two systems of writing Mandarin: traditional and simplified.  Like implied by their names, simplified is a shorthand way of writing traditional.  In the 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese government encouraged the use of simplified characters in order to increase literacy rates in the country.  Today, mainland China uses simplified characters predominantly and Taiwan uses traditional.

Which one is better to learn?

Since mainland China has a larger influence on the rest of the world and since these are seemingly simpler and easier to learn, simplified Chinese has become the choice of many people.  Yet, I would advocate that it be best to learn both since there is rarely a large difference between the two and such knowledge allows you a tremendous amount of flexibility.

To simplify these characters, certain radicals were changed, not the entire word (what are radicals?).  So if you know those radicals, you should be able to decipher most words that have variations.

An example of such a variation is as follows (do you recognize the words?):

Simplified: 请, 谢谢

Traditional: 請, 謝謝

As you can see, the only difference is in the radical on the left.  Can you still see some similarity between the two radicals, though?  The radicals still mean the same thing (speech), despite their differing appearances.

Another great thing: not all Chinese words have a form for each system.  So words like 我(wo3) and 你(ni3) are the same in both systems!

On this blog, I will use only simplified Chinese, since it is the most widely spoken and commonly used, especially if you plan to visit mainland China at some point.

I hope that was helpful.  This can be a confusing topic so if you have any questions, just leave a comment below.

Keep up the great work!  再见！

Lesson 5: Radicals

你好！So what are these radicals?  They have nothing to do with politics, rest assured.

A radical (in Chinese terms) is just a part of a character.  Some characters are made up of only one radical, while others are made of four!  Yet what's great about these radicals is that they help break up characters so that they are easier to understand and remember.

Each radical has a meaning that has somehow led to the formation of that character.

The following video gives a great explanation and examples of radicals.  Make sure to check it out!

If you are having trouble playing this video, click here to go directly to it.

How was that?  Was it helpful?  Another great thing about this video is that it shows the best way to learn characters: by visualizing things.  I believe this is the only way to learn Chinese characters fast and effectively.  A fantastic website that I have been using which teaches you vocabulary in this manner is Memrise.com.  I highly recommend it.

再见！

Lesson 3: Tones

Here are all the tones:

1st Tone: Your voice is level and stays on a single note for the whole syllable.  People often do the mistake of setting this note too high, making it harder to pronounce that it really is.  This should feel like a comfortable tone.

2nd Tone: Your voice rises.  This is often compared to in English when you raise the pitch of your voice at the end of a question like in this instance: "You went to be at 2 o'clock?"  A common mistake is to start too low that the sound becomes really hard to make with the amount of breath that you have.  

3rd Tone: Your voice lowers, then rises.  This can be one of the trickiest tones, along with 2nd tone for many learners.  It will start level, then go down, and then back up like 2nd tone.  There is more emphasis on the "going up" half.

4th Tone: Your voice cascades down.  Ever heard that Chinese sounds like people are constantly getting angry with each other?  This tone is where it come from!  In fact, the word 爱 ai4 means "love" and is in this tone!  So when saying this tone, think of saying something as if you were angry.

5th Tone: This tone does not have a way of pronunciation.  I think the best way to explain this is that you rush the syllable or just breathe it out.  This tone is usually seen at the end of a sentence or expression such as with 太贵了! (tai4 gui4 le5) "too expensive" or 你好吗? (ni3 hao3 ma5) "how are you?"  This is the tone with which you have the most freedom.  Since it usually comes at the end of the phrase or sentence, whatever breath you have left is just let go for this tone.  

A good tip when you are first trying to practice tones is moving your finger in the way you want your voice to go.  For instance, to say 你好, your finger would go down, up, down, and up.  Keep in mind that the "lines" you make with your finger don't need to be "connected."  Otherwise, consecutive 2nd tones or 4th tones would be really hard to make!  Just start fresh with each new syllable.

A question I often get asked is how to distinguish 2nd tone from 3rd tone since they end in the same way, and like I said earlier for 3rd tone, the emphasis is on the part that rises, making it nearly identical to 2nd tone.  The best way that I've found to look at this problem is that 3rd tone takes a lot longer to say, it almost sounds like two syllables, while 2nd tone is just like one and goes by quickly.  For 3rd tone, you need to make a conscious effort to go down and up.  

Practice! Try saying these sentences with the best tones that you've got so far.

你好 (ni3 hao3) hello

我爱你 (wo3 ai4 ni3) I love you

太贵了 (tai4 gui4 le5) too expensive

好久不见 (hao3 jiu3 bu2 jian4) long time no see

很好 (hen2 hao3) very good

Wow, that was a lot!  Make sure that you put this knowledge to use as soon as possible since it is very important in learning Chinese.  Try to detect tones in this video.  Good luck and have fun!  再见！

Lesson 4: Pronouns

你好!  Pronouns, if you aren't already aware, are words like "I, you, he, she, etc."  Kind of important.  So let's get right to it!

我

我 - (wo3) I / me

你 - (ni3) you (singular)

他 - (ta1) he

她 - (ta1) she

它 - (ta1) it (typically animals)

我们

我们 - (wo3 men2) we

你们 - (ni3 men2) you (plural)

他们 - (ta1 men2) they (at least one male in group)

她们 - (ta1 men2) they (all female)

它们 - (ta1 men2) they

You probably noticed that he, she and it have the same pronunciation, just like the plurals of these forms: they.  So how on earth are you expected to discern between each in spoken language?  The answer is found in context.  In English, you don't just start a random conversation talking about "He ate a whole bag of chips the other day."  You'd be wondering who is this "he?"  Instead, you would start with something like "My brother ate a whole bag of chips and he went to the gym the next day."  Chinese is similar in this sense.

If you spend time around Chinese people speaking English, you may have heard them accidentally referring to a girl as a "he!"  This mistake most likely comes from this part of their language.  It all adds up now, doesn't it?

If in spoken language the 他(ta1)，她(ta1)，and 它(ta1) are the same, then what about in written language?  In that case you need to make sure that you address the gender properly.  A good rule of thumb is that masculine takes it all: if there is one man amongst a hundred girls and you want to refer to them all (as "they"), then you will use 他们(ta1 men2) instead of 她们(ta1 men2).

You also may have noticed that to all the plural pronouns, we added 们 (men2) to the end of the singular pronoun to make it plural.  Doesn't that make Chinese a lot easier?  Yipee!

Practice: Try to make sense of these sentences:

她 is my girlfriend.

我们 want to eat out as a family.

你 just ran a marathon!

你好吗？(look back to Lesson 1 if you need a hint)

谢谢你 (look back to Lesson 1 if you need a hint)

Lesson 2: Intro to Tones

One of biggest reasons why people shy away from Chinese is because of its tones.  They hear terrifying stories you can accidentally call your mother a horse if you are not careful.

According to my adventures, tones really are not to be too feared for three important reasons:

1. Context: Don't you think you would know whether you were referring to a horse or your mother? 
2. Like anything, it is entirely possible to train your ear and mouth to say them well with enough practice and dedication.
3. Plus, there's already so much to worry about in life, and tones should not add to that pile.

So even if at first you have some trouble with your tones, your listeners will be forgiving for both the first reason and the fact that it is to be expected that a beginner will have a hard time with tones.  So make sure that you keep working on tones, but don't let that discourage you.  

Alright, Chinese has five tones.  They look like this (some people say this looks like a ride along a mountain):

_  /  \/  \

Notice that I only drew 4 lines instead of 5.  The reason is because fifth tone is considered a "neutral tone." I will explain later.  Until then 再见！

Lesson 1: The Essentials

你好！(Hello!)  I'm so glad that you want to learn this great language! So let's get started!

Below are a list of basic conversational phrases that you can start using from day 1.  Try to practice these as often as possible, as that is the only way to get better.  Here we go: your first Chinese words!


你好 - (ni3 hao3) hello

你好吗？ - (ni3 hao3 ma5) how are you?

我很好 - (wo3 hen2 hao3) I am very good

请 - (qing3) please

对不起 - (dui4 bu4 qi3)

谢谢 - (xie4 xie4) thank you

不客气 - (bu2 ke4 qi4) you are welcome

认识你很高兴 - (ren4 shi4 ni3 hen2 gao1 xing4) nice to meet you

再见 - (zai4 jian4) goodbye


Phew!  That was a lot!  Don't worry if it seems overwhelming at first.  Trust me, it will soon make sense.

Congratulations!  You just got through your first lesson of Chinese!  If you can, the next time you see a Chinese person, walk up to them and say "你好!"  I guarantee you they will be very impressed and really happy to hear that someone is trying to learn their language.  I would say that is the best part about learning Chinese––since it seems so foreign, it is very quickly very rewarding.  Saying "谢谢" is a lot more cool than saying "Gracias."

Keep up the great work! 再见！