Please correct these four phrases for me

[digmen1]

Hi guys

I am a native English speaker

I am teaching myself to write Chiniese

These are my first phrases after 4 weeks of studying on the net.

I have also bought the Lonley Planet Phrase book.

I find Writing Chinese very hard as you have to handle English, Chinese characters, pinyin, pinyin tones and pronunciation systems.

Here are my phrases

Dear Sir (as in a business letter)

亲 深

Dear Madam

清 呢 是

How are you today ?

讷俄 好吗津贴

Have a nice day

好顺流太太

Are these correct and if not could you give me the correct pinyin tones ?

Thank you

Regards

Digby

New Zealand

[Weronika]

Hi digmen1.

I think lonely planet phrase book not the best for studying chinese. Better is Teach yourself - Chinese (for example.)

What you wrote I don't know if those are correct but the "how are you today" is simple 你好吗？Ni3 hao3 ma?

Others who speaks better chinese will tell you that those are correct or not.

[skylee]

No, they are not correct.

You may wish to note that in many cases you cannot directly translate English to Chinese (or vice versa). We do not use "Dear sir" or "Dear madam" in a business letter, for example. "How are you" is simply what Weronika says. And I can't think of a direct translation of "Have a nice day".

[adrianlondon]

I can't think of a direct translation of "Have a nice day".

manmar zou

[skylee]

You mean "Walk slowly" is a direct translation of "Have a nice day"?

[imron]

I think adrianlondons meaning is not so much that it's a direct translation, but that it's sometimes used in similar situations (hence you can use it directly instead of). I.e. You've just bought something in the shop, and as you're leaving the shopkeeper says mànzǒu. Where as in English (though perhaps more American English) they might say "have a nice day".

Also, Digmen, I don't know where you got the Chinese characters from, but they're completely wrong.

Sir might sometimes be 先生 xiānshēng, but never 亲深 qīnshēn

When writing a formal letter, often 尊敬的 zūnjìngde (respected) is used for "Dear", followed by the recipient's surname and title. So, if you were writing a letter to Mr. Wang, you might write something like:

尊敬的王先生：Zūnjìng de Wáng xiānshēng. (literally: Respected-Wang-Mr.) If you knew Mr. Wang was a manager, you might write something like: 尊敬的王经理 Zūnjìng de Wáng jīnglǐ etc.

If you don't know the title of a female, an appropriate translation of Madam might sometimes be 女士 nǚshì (but never what you wrote 清呢是 qīngneshì, which doesn't make sense).

讷俄 好吗津贴 nèé hǎo ma jīntiān. Here it looks suspiciously like you're just choosing the first characters that come up in the IME, but using an approximation of English sounds rather than correct pinyin (i.e. nee instead of nǐ ). Unfortunately typing in Chinese is not as simple as this. If you're using a Pinyin IME, you need to use correct Pinyin and you also need to make sure you choose the correct character that corresponds to that Pinyin. Different characters with exactly the same Pinyin will have completely different meanings. Anyway, I believe the correct characters of what you were trying to write should be: 你好吗今天 nǐ hǎo ma jīntiān, but as others have said, this is also not correct. You should leave off 今天 jīntiān and just say 你好吗 nǐ hǎo ma?

Also, if you've bought the most recent version of the Lonely Planet phrasebook, then that's probably the source of your problems because they decided NOT to use Hanyu Pinyin for their romanisation system, but rather, came up with their own form of romanisation. If you are typing this "pinyin" into a Pinyin-based IME, then of course you will get complete incorrect Chinese characters. Their reasoning for doing this is that their target customer is an English speaking traveller who isn't interested so much in learning the language, but rather in being able to get a close approximation to the Chinese pronunciation for a given phrase during their travels - something that might not really happen if a native English speaker tries to speak Pinyin with English pronunciation. Their older phrasebooks used to use Pinyin, and personally I think they would have been better off sticking with that, but I guess their phrasebook isn't really targeted at people studying the language formally.

[digmen1]

Thank you guys

That was very helpful.

Sorry about the typing erros in my first post, but I always type in a hurry and this forum does not allow editing of posts ! I will have to check my typing before I post !

Thank you very much for the detailed replies.

I agree with you about the Lonely Planet book. After reading it a bit more and its introduction it is indeed as you say, a phrase book only for travelers trying to speak to Chinese people. Its version of pinyin is not correct pinyin, but as you say a way of helping English speaking people be able to pronounce Chinese words. But I want to be able to write Chinese !

I will throw it away !

I will add more to this thread tomorrow as I have a bit to say on Chinese dictionaries.

Kind Regards

Digby

[HashiriKata]

this forum does not allow editing of posts !

That's not true, digmen1. If you read enough of posts you'll see many of them are edited. So, if you're logged in, you'll see the word "Edit" on the right-hand bottom corner of your posts. Click on it and there you are, you can edit to your heart's content!

[imron]

I will throw it away !

I wouldn't necessarily throw it away, because it has lots of useful phrases in it, and if you stick with your plans to learn Chinese, eventually you'll be able to either a) read the characters, B) look up the characters in a dictionary to find the correct pinyin.

It's still an ok tool, and you will find lots of useful vocab in there, but you just need to be aware of its limitations.

[kudra]

you should be aware that a letter template is introduced in the 3rd semester book David and Helen. IMO you should not try to write a letter until quite some time into studies. I suggest spending a few weeks figuring out what method of self study might work for you. There are posts here about texts used at universities, and posts about 'best study tools.' Use the search function to see what worked for others. Don't waste time trying to reinvent the wheel.

[digmen1]

Quote

That's not true, digmen1. If you read enough of posts you'll see many of them are edited. So, if you're logged in, you'll see the word "Edit" on the right-hand bottom corner of your posts. Click on it and there you are, you can edit to your heart's content!

Thanks for that, I did not see the Edit button (silly me)

Regards

Digby