A tip for Mandarin Chinese learners
Tuesday, 23. May 2006, 05:26:58
The Chinese Languages
Spoken in People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, Singapore.
The written language
Mandarin is the dialect that forms the basis of the standard written language, uniting the many dialects of spoken Chinese, which can be as different from each other as French and Italian are. The examples in this section refer to Mandarin.
Mandarin uses compact ideographs, not an alphabetic script, so readers are used to processing more information with a shorter eye span. One and a half lines of a Chinese text might require more than ten or fifteen lines when translated idiomatically into English.
Sentence structure and word order
No difference between word order in statements and questions: *When they will arrive? 32a.
Very little inversion of subject and verb: *She is leaving and so I am. 32a.
Conjunctions occur in pairs: *Although she is rich, but she wears simple clothes. 46d.
Equivalent of adjective clause (relative clause) precedes the noun it modifies: *He gave me a too difficult for me book. 42.
Nouns and pronouns
Nouns do not have plural forms: *He has three sister. 62a.
Pronouns can be dropped (he, she, and it have the same sound), and no distinction is made between subject and object forms: *He stored [his] furniture. *I gave the forms to she. 41 e.
A noun will often have the same form as an adjective: *She is very beauty woman. 43a; 43b.
Verbs and verbals
Chinese has no inflections for singular and plural, tense, or verb form. Most words in Chinese have just one form, often just one syllable, so changes reflecting number, tense, part of speech, or agreement cause difficulty: *The house was painting last month. *The singer have a big band. 38; 45.
Little differentiation between a base form, an -ing form, and a past participle: *I was very confusing. *They decided moving to Baltimore. 45
In Chinese, an adjective can include the sense of the verb be, so the form of be is frequently omitted in English: *She always cheerful. 35c; 38b; 43c.
Adjectives and adverbs
Adjectives such as easy, hard, and difficult apply to how a person feels, not only to the nature of the task: *I am easy to program a computer. 48e.
Articles
No articles in Chinese: *I bought book.
Spoken in People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, Singapore.
The written language
Mandarin is the dialect that forms the basis of the standard written language, uniting the many dialects of spoken Chinese, which can be as different from each other as French and Italian are. The examples in this section refer to Mandarin.
Mandarin uses compact ideographs, not an alphabetic script, so readers are used to processing more information with a shorter eye span. One and a half lines of a Chinese text might require more than ten or fifteen lines when translated idiomatically into English.
Sentence structure and word order
No difference between word order in statements and questions: *When they will arrive? 32a.
Very little inversion of subject and verb: *She is leaving and so I am. 32a.
Conjunctions occur in pairs: *Although she is rich, but she wears simple clothes. 46d.
Equivalent of adjective clause (relative clause) precedes the noun it modifies: *He gave me a too difficult for me book. 42.
Nouns and pronouns
Nouns do not have plural forms: *He has three sister. 62a.
Pronouns can be dropped (he, she, and it have the same sound), and no distinction is made between subject and object forms: *He stored [his] furniture. *I gave the forms to she. 41 e.
A noun will often have the same form as an adjective: *She is very beauty woman. 43a; 43b.
Verbs and verbals
Chinese has no inflections for singular and plural, tense, or verb form. Most words in Chinese have just one form, often just one syllable, so changes reflecting number, tense, part of speech, or agreement cause difficulty: *The house was painting last month. *The singer have a big band. 38; 45.
Little differentiation between a base form, an -ing form, and a past participle: *I was very confusing. *They decided moving to Baltimore. 45
In Chinese, an adjective can include the sense of the verb be, so the form of be is frequently omitted in English: *She always cheerful. 35c; 38b; 43c.
Adjectives and adverbs
Adjectives such as easy, hard, and difficult apply to how a person feels, not only to the nature of the task: *I am easy to program a computer. 48e.
Articles
No articles in Chinese: *I bought book.
WIDGETIZE
Anonymous # 26. September 2006, 12:05
hi i'm jeong ah lee my friend is asking about chinese and i dont know some thats why i went here to this website
Anonymous # 10. April 2008, 16:53
Try ME!!!
In Huangshan (黄山) southern Anhui province in Eastern China, Fu Shou-Bing
logs on to the computer in the public library near his village. Since
discovering ECpod.com (http://www.ECpod.com), the retired High School
Chemistry teacher has been logging on almost every day to the
English-Chinese teaching website. Sometimes he cycles the 25 miles home,
cooks himself a simple lunch of rice and stir-fried vegetables with salted
fish, often returning once again to the library and his new hobby in the
evening.
ECpod.com boasts an educational website that teaches members
conversational English or Chinese (no “this is an apple” stuff here) via
video clips contributed by other members. After a vetting and often
transcribing process by language tutors commissioned by the site, the
clips are available free of charge in YouTube fashion. The twist? Members
film each other in everyday activities, hoping other members will learn
not just their native tongue, but also cultural innuendos lost in
textbooks and more conventional means of language learning.
“One member filmed himself cooking in his kitchen. We got a few emails
asking what condiments he used,” says a bemused Warwick Hau, one of the
site’s more public faces. One emailer even wanted to know if she could
achieve the same Chinese stir-fry using ingredients from her regular CR
Vanguard (华润超级) supermarket. “We often forget our every day activities may
not be as mundane to people on the other side of the world,” Hau adds.
Another such clip is “loaches” - a Chinese mother of 3 filmed her children
and their friends playing with a bucket of loaches - slippery eel-like
fish the children were picking up and gently squeezing between their
fingers.
Lately the members have also begun to make cross-border friends and
contacts. The ECpal function works much the same way sites like
Facebook.com and MySpace.com work - members can invite each other to view
their clips and make friends. And it has its fair share of juvenile humor
as well. “Farting Competition” features two teenagers and graphic sound
effects. Within several days, the clip was one of the most popular videos
that week, likely due to mass-forwarding by the participants’ schoolmates.
For other members keen to learn more than the fact juvenile humor is
similar everywhere, there are many home videos featuring unlikely little
nuggets of wisdom. “The last thing I learned from the site is why you
never find green caps for sale in China”, says Adam Schiedler one of the
English language contributors to the site. Green caps signify cuckolded
husbands, particularly shameful in China as they are a huge loss of face.
Adam vows not to buy any green headgear for his newfound friends.
The subject matter of the videos often speaks volumes about its
contributors. Members choose their own content and film the clip wherever
they please, some of their efforts drawing attention to rural surroundings
and the quaint insides of little homes otherwise not seen unless you
backpack your way thru the tiny dirt roads and villages along the Chinese
countryside.
Idyllic countrysides and cooking lessons aside however, ECpod marries the
latest video sharing technology with the old school way of teaching a
language - from the native speakers on the street. It’s a modern, more
convenient alternative to spending 6 months in China. And why not let the
Chinese teach you?
Visit us at http://www.ECPod.com
Anonymous # 12. November 2008, 09:50
There is a new language learning software for Mandarin which I like a lot. They offer a free download on their website: http://www.l-ceps.com/en/chinese-mandarin/learn-chinese-mandarin-ptrainer.html
Anonymous # 25. June 2009, 05:47
Hi..
I came across one online learning school and its very interesting as it provide FREE trial and prices too.
http://www.chinesesphere.com
Anonymous # 6. November 2009, 11:06
If you are looking to start reading some more serious literature then I recommend you check out this book on Amazon!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0984276203/ref=nosim?tag=captuchine-20