China- Language

Written Language

Instead of an alphabet with symbols representing different sounds, as in most Western languages, Chinese writing is composed of pictographs (hanzi)-- more complex symbols that stand for whole words or ideas. Chinese contains about 60,000 characters, and most Chinese don't know them all. For everyday usage, knowledge of about 3,000 characters is necessary; college graduates typically know 6-7,000 characters. Obviously, a majority of Chinese symbols are never used at all, but they're still around, eh! I mean, a pictograph is a terrible thing to waste.

Spoken Language

There are two major spoken Chinese languages: Mandarin and Cantonese. Both are still widespread, but Mandarin is more common, so most of my information will deal with Mandarin.

Tones

Mandarin is a tonal language, which means the way pitch (going up or down) is altered affects the meaning of words. This is different from English and other non-tonal languages, where we alter pitch to signify emphasis or stuff.

First Tone: High and even
Second Tone: Rising tone (similar to the way the voice rises when asking a question in English)
Third Tone: Falls, then rises. (Sometimes it only falls)
Fourth Tone: Sharply falling tone similar to the end of a sentence with an exclamation point in English!
Light Tone: very unemphasised, short, light

Grammar

In grammatical structure, Chinese is basically similar to English. Sentences follow a subject-verb-object order; for instance, the Chinese phrase for "I love you" is wo ai ni; wo is "I," ai means "love," and ni means "you".

Pronunciation

Aaah! Chinese is hard to pronounce! Here are some basic rules for pronouncing Pinyin (the most common romanisation of Chinese), anyway.

j is pronounced "j"! (hey, it gets harder!)
q is pronounced "ch"
x is pronounced like a mixture between "s" and "sh"
zh is pronounced "j"
ch is pronounced "ch"
sh is pronounced "sh"
z is pronounced "dz"
c is pronounced "ts"
s is proununced "s"
a as in father
e as in silent
i as ee in whee!!
o as in flow
u as in rudimentary
ao as "ow" in beautiful flower
ei as "ey" in hey you crazy kids

Useful Phrases

English	Chinese- Syllable(tone)
Hallo!	ni(2) hao(3)
Sup?	ni(2) hao(3) ma(light)
Bye bye!	zai(4) jian(4)
Nighty night!	wan(3) an(1)
Dude, thanks!	xie(4) xie(4)
My name is Big Joe!	wo(3) jiao(1) Big Joe(17)!
I be American, yo!	wo(3) shi(4) mei(2) guo(3) ren(2)
Where is the towel?	Towel(42) zai(4) na(3) li(light)
Who are you?	nin(2) gui(1) xing(4)
How shall I address thee, o thou great sir or madam?	ni(3) jiao(1) shen(2)me(light) ming(2)zhi(light)
Do you speak English? (subtext: I am SO lost)	Ni(3) hui(4) jiang(3) ying(1)yu(3) ma(light)

Site and contents Š2001 Rachel R***** unless otherwise specified. Best viewed in 800x600 resolution or greater with 16 million colour display. Graphics composed in Paint Shop Pro 6.0.