Lesson 8: What is Your Name?

你好！ Finally we're getting back to the language.  Are you ready?

Today we will learn how to introduce ourselves.  It's quite simple.  Here is what you say:

我叫(your name)。
(wo3 jiao4_____.)

That's it!  Just two words followed by your name.  As we already know, 我(wo3) means "I."  叫(jiao4) simply means "to be called" and is a verb.

If you want to look at the second character based on its radicals, you can observe the 口(kou3) or mouth on the left of it.  You use your mouth to call someone, so it makes sense to have this radical there!

Literally, you are saying, "I am called _____."  Simple, right?

If you want to ask someone their name say this:

你叫什么名字？
(ni3 jiao4 shen2 me5 ming2 zi5?)

This is a little bit more complex, but let's break it down.  We already know that 你(ni3) means "you" and that 叫(jiao4) means "to be called."  什么(shen2 me5) means "what," so can you guess what 名字(ming2 zi5) means?  Name!  That's right!

You are literally saying, "You are called what name?"

Hopefully that makes sense.  Here is a good video you can look at. Try to understand as much as you can.  Good luck and 再见！

Chinese New Year - Vocab

新年快乐！ (xin1 nian2 kuai4 le4)  Here are some great words and phrases to know for Chinese New Year!  Let's begin!

春节 - (chun1 jie2) Chinese New Year

新 - (xin1) new

年 - (nian2) year

快乐 - (kuai4 le5) happy

红 - (hong2) red

火 - (huo3) fire

年兽 - (nian2 shou4) the name of the new year monster

鞭炮 - (bian1 pao4) firecracker

灯笼 - (deng1 long2) lantern

红包 - (hong2 bao1) red envelopes

庆祝 - (qing4 zhu4) celebrate

You probably noted that 新年快乐 is literally "New Year Happy."  In fact, this order goes for most wishes for holidays.  To say, "Happy Birthday," you actually say 生日快乐 (sheng1 ri4 kuai4 le4).  Can you guess what the word for birthday is?  生日 (sheng1 ri4)!  Good job!  

Why doesn't 春节 include the word 年 or 新?  That's a very good question.  The word literally means, "spring festival."  (春 = spring, 节 = festival/holiday)  

新年快乐！ I hope that way helpful!

Chinese New Year - The Story Behind It

新年快乐！(xin1 nian2 kuai4 le4) Happy Chinese New Year!

This is probably the most important festival in China.  It goes according to the lunar calendar, so if you were wondering why it did not fall on January 1st, that' why!  

This festival also has a very interesting story that can explain a lot about Chinese culture.  Here we go!

According to legend, there was a terrible monster that would come out of the sea on New Year's Eve to bring terror to the nearby villages.  It would eat and kill children and adults alike.  So the Chinese would go up to the mountain top to stay safe.

One year, an old woman refused to go up the mountain.  She was too weak to go and was approaching the end of her life anyway.  Reluctantly, the villagers left her behind and set off for the mountain peak.  

As the sun was setting, the old woman started to get cold, so she built a fire and huddled by it.  The gentle crackle of the flames reassured her.  

Then the old woman heard a sound.  When she looked up to see where it came from she laid eyes on the monster.  He was approaching and he had spotted her.  

Chinese people buying fireworks

Yet when the monster arrived near her, it pounced away and disappeared back to where it came from. The old woman was puzzled.  She certainly could not have frightened it.  As she looked back at the fire, she realized that it had frightened the monster away.  

She had discovered the three things that the monster dreaded: light, crackling sounds, and the color red.  This is why to this day, Chinese people like the color red so much.  On New Year's Eve, the tradition is to put as much red everywhere as possible.  They also light many fire crackers and keep the lights on all night to frighten the monster.  

Chinese couplet
Can you read what it says?

Another thing done is to place something called "couplets" on your door.  You will typically have two and sometimes three.  You place one on each side of the door going down vertically and if you have a third one, it will go horizontally go on top.  The couplets are usually 4 characters long each.  

Hopefully this holiday makes more sense now!  新年快乐！

Lesson 7: Pinyin

好久不见！你好吗？(hao3 jiu3 bu2 jian4!  ni3 hao3 ma5?)  Are you ready for another lesson?  Great!

Pinyin is the system of writing Chinese in letters that westerners can pronounce, also know as romanization.  It tells you how to pronounce a character.  For instance, the Pinyin for 你好 is ni3 hao3.

Typically the tone for the syllable will be written over the vowel that it impacts (when there is more than one vowel like in "hao").  However, I am not able to do that on this blog, so I will indicate tones at the end of the syllable by the number that follows it.

For the most part, the letters you see are pronounced that way, but once in a while you have exceptions.

Whenever you see a "c" in Pinyin, it is pronounced like a hard "ts" sound.  So "菜 cai4" would be pronounced "tsai4" and NOT "kai4."

A "z" in Pinyin is pronounced like a "dz" in English.  So the "zai4" in 再见 is literally pronounced "dzai."

The sounds for "q" and "ch" are just like the "ch" in the English word "chew," but the vowels are pronounced differently for each.  For example, "qi" is pronounced "chee" like "cheese," but "chi" is pronounced "chir," like "fir tree."

There are two "u" sounds in Chinese: one is like in the word "sue" and the other is like the French "u" sound and is depicted by a ü in Chinese.  So if you see "u" pronounce it like "oo" and if you see "ü" pronounce it like the French "u".  There is however, one exception to this: if a "u" follows a "y" or a "q" in Chinese, it will be pronounced like a French "u".

There are other such exceptions, but for the most part, it is straightforward.  If you have any trouble pronouncing a word, look up the pronunciation on Google Translate or you can leave a comment below and I will do my best to explain.

Good luck! 再见！