Chinese Language ---Lesson 1 (Introduction)
Hello, everyone! Welcome to Baixue’s Chinese
language learning program.
Please let me
introduce myself.
你好！我是白雪。很高兴认识你！
(Hi, I am Bai
Xue. Nice to meet you!)
I don’t know how you think about learning Chinese
language. Many of my American friends said that learning Chinese language is
very difficult and confusing. But just like an old saying says:”You can eat a
whole elephant, one bite at a time.” Well, you can do the same thing with
Chinese language learning.
The first
two bites we are going to take for learning Chinese language are pinyin which includes Consonants and Vowels and tone which has four types.
Pinyin and tone are the two basic and also the
most important components of Chinese mandarin pronunciation. Chinese language learning
is all about pronunciation. So at the beginning of Chinese language learning,
we are going to learn Pinyin and tone. We still have to take one bite at a
time. That is why we need 8-9 lessons to finish the learning of Pinyin and Tone.
What will
happen after Pinyin and Tone learning?
After learning Pinyin and tone, Chinese language
is no longer difficult and confusing and you will be ready to learn words,
sentences, reading and anything else you want to learn. Isn’t it cool?
Ok, let’s begin with Pinyin now.
What is Pinyin? Pinyin, short for Hanyu Pinyin, is the official
phonetic system for pronouncing standard Chinese Mandarin Characters.
Pīn Yīn （Spell, Sound）
拼 音
Pinyin is often used to teach Standard Chinese and
spell Chinese names in foreign publications and may be used as an input method
to enter Chinese characters (汉字;
hanzi) into computers. (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin)
Why do you
need Pinyin(拼音)?
For example, you don’t have any idea how to
pronounce the following characters from what they look like.
你 好 (Hello!)
You Good
If I put Pinyin for them, you will know how to
pronounce them. That is why you need Pinyin for help.
nǐ hǎo
你 好
Before we start learning, there are two things
you need to know about Pinyin.
First, Pinyin is not English.
I know that from the Pinyin table, you know all
of the letters in the table. But they are totally different from how you read
in English.
For example: How do you pronounce the following Chinese
characters?
My name is: bái
xuě (white snow)
白 雪
zǎo shàng hǎo (early,above,good)
早 上 好 (good morning)
早 上 好 (good morning)
Second, Chinese character has only 1 syllable.
And each
syllable has three parts. For example:
nǐ
(你)：
Initial (n)+Final (i)+ Tone(v)
hǎo
（好）：
Initial (h)+Final (ao)+ Tone(v)
Initial is consonant and Final is vowel.
Ok, let move on to tone. I will only explain the
definition of tone today. We will learn the details of tone in our later class.
All right, Tone. There are four
types of tones in Chinese language.
Why are
tones so important?
Different tones with the same syllable can have
different characters and different meanings. Let me give you an example:
Mā
with the first tone is 妈
which means mother; má
with the second tone is 麻
which means hemp; mǎ
with the third tone is 马
which means horse; mà
with the fourth tone is 骂
which means scold.
Ok, more examples of tone can really tell why tones are
really so important in Chinese language learning.
More examples of Tones
— 1. wǒ kě
yǐ wèn nǐ
yī xìa ma?
我 可 以 问 你 一 下 吗？
Can I ask you a question?
wǒ
kě yǐ wěn nǐ
yī xìa ma?
我 可 以 吻 你 一 下 吗？
Can I kiss you?
— 2.
xiǎo jǐe, shuǐ jiǎo yī wǎn duō
shǎo qián?
小 姐 水 饺 一 碗 多 少 钱？
How much is it for a portion
of dumplings?
xiǎo jǐe, shuì
jiào yī wǎn duō shǎo
qián?
小 姐 睡 觉 一 晚 多 少 钱？
How much it will be if I sleep with you for one night?
Isn’t it funny?
How are you feeling now about the Chinese
learning?
— Funny?
— Still confusing?
— Freak out?
When you get used to Pinyin
and tones, you will learn Chinese language very fast. Trust me.
That is all for today! We
will learn consonants and vowels in our next class.
— xìe xìe (Thanks!)
谢 谢
— zài
jiàn (Bye! Or See you next time!)
再 见
