Lesson 12 - How Are You?

好久不见！(Hao2 jiu3 bu2 jian4) Long time no see!

Today we are going to learn about how to carry out the most common starting point when learning any new language.  Here are a few phrases:

你好吗？ (ni2 hao3 ma5)  How are you?

Literally you + good + ? is the most common way to ask about someone's well-being.  You may have noticed that unlike what we would expect, 你 is not 3rd tone, but 2nd.  The reason is since it's just too hard to pronounce two third tones in a row.  So the first word will instead use second tone, while the latter word will keep its third tone.

好久不见 (hao2 jiu3 bu2 jian4) Long time no see.

The same rule applies here with the consecutive third tones, as you can see.  What is interesting here is that the English translation is the same as the Chinese literal translation, word for word.  It is important to note, however, that 久 is often used to refer to a longer span of time.

我很好，你呢？ (wo3 hen2 hao3, ni3 ne5?)  I am very good, and you?

呢 is an interesting particle in that it roughly translates to  "and what/how about this/you (or whatever the subject being referred to is)."  There is no direct equivalent in English, and yet this particle is essential to know in asking questions, as we will see later on.

我很累  (wo3 hen2 lei4)  I am very tired.

我很饿 (wo3 hen2 e4) I am very hungry.

我很高兴 (wo3 hen2 gao1 xing4)  I am very happy.

In case you noticed, there is a reason why I put 很 on nearly every single expression.  In fact, it sounds weird to natives if you don't put it there.  Other than that, I don't think there's any big reason for it's usage.

Hopefully these basic expressions will help you find your way around some basic Chinese conversations and allow you to showcase your skill in Chinese.  

So get out there and practice!  加油！(jia4 you3)  Good luck!

Lesson 11 - How to Type in Chinese

Ever wondered how Chinese people type?  Do they have strange keyboards with keys for each stroke?  Not at all!  It's actually easier than you might think.

Chinese people use the exact same keyboard as in America, as opposed to other countries (like France where the keyboard is called "AZERTY" instead of "QWERTY").

To type Chinese characters, all you really need to do is to type the pinyin.  The options for which character you want to include come up below and you select your option.

If you don't already have Chinese available to you easily on your computer, you can follow the easy steps on this site (it shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes to set it up).

For Windows:
http://www.wikihow.com/Add-Another-Language-to-Your-Computer-Keyboard

For Mac:
http://www.wikihow.com/Change-the-Keyboard-Language-of-a-Mac

Here is an example of what you would do to type 你好.

Something to keep in mind is that typing a spacebar selects the highlighted option.  If you want, say, option number 4, you can do several things.  You can use the arrow keys to move to the side or you can type "4" on your keyboard and it will be selected.

What if your option is not in the first 9 characters?  All you need to do is press on the "down" arrow key to go to the next "page" of characters below.

Another great thing about typing in Chinese is that you don't need to worry about those tricky tones!  You just need to know how to spell the word.  You still need to know tones for conversation purposes, so don't completely ignore them, but this cuts you some slack.  

Say you want to write a long sentence.  Do I have to select each word individually?  Nope!  If your are lucky, you can type an entire sentence with only one selection.  Here's an example:

Can you remember what this means?

Like always, the best way to learn is to practice, so make sure you practice using this once in a while to get the hang of it.  At first you may be really slow, but worry not!  You are sure to get much faster.

Exercise:

Try typing this in Chinese with your new keyboard settings.

- My name is 小王 (xiao3 wang3).

- My dog's name is 小黑 (xiao3 hei1).

- How are you?

Best of luck!

Answers to exercise (no peeking!):

- 我叫小王。

- 我的狗的名字是小黑。

- 你好吗？

Family

Family members are sort of important, wouldn't you agree?  So let's learn how to talk about them!  Let's start off with some basic vocab:

家庭 jia1 ting2

family

爸爸 ba4 ba5

dad

妈妈 ma1 ma5

mom

哥哥 ge4 ge5

older brother

弟弟 di4 di5

younger brother

姐姐 jie3 jie5

older sister

妹妹 mei4 mei5

younger sister

爷爷 ye2 ye5

father's dad

奶奶 nai3 nai5

father's mom

外公 wai4 gong1

mother's dad

外婆 wai4 po2

mother's mom

You probably noticed that there are different words for grandparents depending on whose parents they are.  China is one of those countries with tons of names just for family members, although you don't need to know all of them in order to get by.  Just knowing the ones above is enough.

Another important thing to notice is that often, the names are repeats of the same word, only the second time, the tone becomes neutral.  Chinese people realize it is hard to say the same tone twice in a row (especially third tone!).  So they have agreed that the repeated word would use the neutral tone to make it easier to pronounce instead of whatever other tone it may be using.  

In fact, since this is the correct way to pronounce these words, don't try to overachieve, since native Chinese speakers will look at you funny.  (Exactly what happened to me!)  If you want to sound more like a native, make sure to use the neutral tone.

Want a cool exercise?  Try to name all the members in the families in the pictures above!  See if you can do it again, but this time while covering the list.  Can you do it?  

If you want how to address someone I didn't mention here, check out this fun website!

http://www.mandarintools.com/family.html

再见！

Lesson 10: Possessives

How would you say, "This is mine," or, "Don't touch that, it's his!"?  You can only say sentences like these with the use of possessives.

Just to clear things up a little, possessives are all the words that say that something belongs to someone, like "mine," "his," "theirs," and so on.  They do not include the verb "to have."  That will be for a later lesson.

In English, possessives can be quite confusing, since the word "me," when changed to the possessive (mine) looks almost nothing the original!  Even weirder is that there is a completely different rule for each pronoun.  So you can't say "theine" for the possessive of "they."

Thank goodness it's much easier in Chinese.  Are you ready for it?  All you do is you use your pronoun followed by the character 的 (de5).  There's got to be more to it.  It can't possibly be that easy.  Nope, that's just about it.  Ready for some examples?

这是我的猫。

zhe4 shi4 wo3 de5 mao1

This is my cat.

狗是他的。

gou3 shi4 ta1 de5

The dog is his.

这是我家。

zhe4 shi4 wo3 jia1

This is my family.

Notice something strange?  There is no 的 (de5) in this sentence!  What happened?  Whenever you want to talk about family, you don't use the word 的 (de5).  You just skip it.  If you were to say 这是我的家 (zhe4 shi4 wo3 de5 jia1), it would mean this is my house (house and family are the same word).  So just remember that whenever you want to talk about family, you need to omit that word.  Here's another example:

她是我妹妹。

zhe4 shi4 wo3 mei3 mei5

She is my younger sister.

Does that make sense?  If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.  I hope that was helpful!

Lesson 9: Plurals

Do you want to hear some great news?  Chinese has no distinction for plurals!!!  That means that whether a word is singular (dog) or plural (dogs) makes no difference!  For instance:

狗 - (gou3) dog

is the same thing as

狗 - (gou3) dogs

This is what I mean when I say that Chinese grammar is really not that bad!  How wonderful is that?

So how do you tell whether you're talking about only one dog or a group of dogs?  That's when your pronouns come in real handy.  (Check out this page to refresh your pronouns)  

Assuming I'm still talking about dogs, if I say: 

它叫小狗 - (ta1 jiao4 xiao3 gou3) His name is Small Dog.

am I referring to one or many dogs?  How about here:

它们是我的 - (ta1 men2 shi4 wo3 de5) They are mine.

It's really not that difficult after all!  You can now shove that burden off.  Woohoo!