The basics of the Chinese Language and choosing the right learning technique

[j_spencer]

I wanted to get some of the fundamentals of the Chinese Language before I actually started learning it. This is what I have as the basis of my learning. In my second post I'd like to ask some questions that I have, as the post is too long to for both!

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Speech sounds

A syllable may consist of a single vowel, compound vowel (A combination of two or more words that function as a single unit of meaning, such as barefoot), or a vowel preceded by a consonant. A compound vowel may consist of two vowels, which is treated as one unit.

Consonants are called initials and vowels are called finals. See book for pronunciation of initials and consonants.

Tones

There are 4 different tones, 5 if you include the neutral tone. Different tones = different words. For example ma with the first tone means Mum but ma with the third tone means horse. The tone is indicated above the vowel or main vowel if it is a compound vowel. The main vowel is the one that comes earliest in this list: a, o, e, u, I, u.

• The first tone (symbol = -) is pitched high at 5 and remains at that pitch.

• The second tone (symbol = ’) is a high, rising tone. Pitch at 3 and raise quickly to 5.

• The third tone (symbol = v) is a falling and rising tone. Start below 3 and drop it near the bottom and then raise it to about 2.5.

• The fourth tone (symbol = ‘) is a falling tone. Start at 5 and drop all the way to the bottom.

Neutral tones are used in the following cases:

(a) Grammar words such as le and de.

(B) The second syllable in some compound words.

© The second syllable which is a repetition of the first one: for example, mama.

(d) The measure word ge when it is not emphasised: for example, san ge yue.

Tones change depending on the adjacent tones and meaning groups. Some of the basic rules of tone change are as follows:

(a) When a third tone is followed by another third tone and they are in one meaning group, the first one changes to the second tone. For example, ni hao (both with v), changes to ni (’) hao (v).

(B) When three third tones occur one after the other in the same meaning group, the second one changes to the second tone.

© In some compound words, although the second syllable, which is a third tone when used separately, has become neutral, it still carries enough weight to change the preceding third tone to the second tone.

(d) The first third tone remains unchanged if (a) the second third tone belongs to the next meaning group, and (B) if a third tone is followed by a neutral tone and then followed by a third tone.

(e) When the negation word bu, which has the fourth tone, is followed by another fourth tone, bu changes to the second tone.

(f) When the number word yi (one) is used in isolation or follows other syllables, it has the first tone; but when it precedes first, second and third tones, yi usually changes to fourth tone, except when it also precedes fourth tones, where it changes to second tone.

Word order

Chinese characters are called zi. A zi is a character which consists of one syllable. Some zi have meanings on their own (e.g. wo(3) means I/me) and others have to be used with others to form meaningful expressions (e.g. de does not meaning anything on its own, but it can be used to form other words such as wo(3)de, meaning my/mine). The former are words whilst the latter are called particles or grammar words.

English note: A noun is a:

person: man, woman, teacher, John, Mary

place: home, office, town, countryside, America

thing: table, car, banana, money, music, love, dog, monkey

idea: Freedom

Verbs are sometimes described as "action words". This is partly true. For example, words like run, fight, bring, read, do and work all convey action.

But some verbs do not give the idea of action; they give the idea of existence, of state, of "being". For example, verbs like be, exist, seem, live, soak, stand and belong all convey state.

A verb always has a subject. (In the sentence "John speaks English", John is the subject and speaks is the verb.) In simple terms, therefore, we can say that verbs are words that tell us what a subject does or is; they describe:

action (Ram plays football.)

state (Anthony seems kind.)

When asking a question in English, the question word comes first (e.g. where are you going?). In Chinese, you use the normal word order; the question word comes last (e.g. you are going where?). In English we also put the most important information at the end of sentences (e.g. it is very expensive to telephone China). In Chinese, the important information or the topic of a sentence comes first (e.g. to telephone China very expensive). Finally, in English, time phrases occur at the end of a sentence (e.g. I’ll finish my work at 6 o’clock). In Chinese, time phases always occur before the verb. Thus you say ‘I 6 0’clock finish work.’

Grammar

(a) nouns in Chinese are neither singular nor plural. Thus you say ‘one book’ and ‘three book’.

(B) Because of (a), verbs (i.e. doing words) have only one form. Thus you say ‘I be Chinese’ and ‘You be British’, ‘I go China’ and ‘He go China’, etc.

© Verbs do not indicate past, present or future. Tenses are indicated by extra grammar words (or ‘particles’), time phases or context. Thus you say ‘I go + grammar word + library’, ‘I yesterday go + grammar word + library’, ‘ I tomorrow go library’, etc.

(d) Prepositions such as “at’, ‘in’, ‘on’ are not used before time phrases. Thus you say ‘My mother Tuesday arrive’.

(e) The largest unit, be it time or place, always comes first. Thus you say ‘He January the 11th arrive’, ‘We from China Beijing come’.

(f) There is something called the measure word to be used between a number and a noun. Different measure words are used for different nouns. Thus you say two + ben + book, but two + ge + people. Chinese measure words indicate the unit of measurement of some object just as their English counterparts in phrases like "three cups of water" or "a pinch of salt". However, unlike English, where many objects can be used without specifying the unit, (e.g. "three persons" or "four pencils"), Chinese objects always require a measure word when one or more instances are involved. When you have to specify a certain number of something, you combine the number itself with a measure word, followed by the noun.

Radicals

The basis of the traditional Chinese writing system is 214 elements often referred to as radicals. Radicals are the semantic root of Chinese characters, and give an indication as to the meaning of a character.

Radicals can also give phonetic information. For example, this radical (马) contains the word ma. Different tones however give a different meaning of this radical. For example ma1 means mother. In characters, this is represented by this semantic radical (女 – the female radical). To write mother therefore you write 女马. You do not necessarily need more than one radical for a phonetic to be present. For example 马 on its own is ma3, meaning horse.

A radical can have both a phonetic and semantic component, but not when used in the same character. For example this character (皮) is pi2, meaning leather. It indicates the notion of skin and can be the semantic for 皲, jun1, meaning skin chaps (skin is irritated, splits, becomes rough or sore). Also 皱, zhou4, meaning wrinkled. It can also have phonetic meaning. For example 疲, pi2, tired, and 披, pi1, wrap around.

Radicals sometimes can give neither the semantic or phonetic meaning. For example (外), wai4, meaning outer/outside, is formed of this radical (夕), xi1, meaning sunset, and this radical (卜), bu3, meaning divination. Radicals can simply be part of characters without giving a semantic or phonetic meaning.

Radicals can be used both independently (most radicals have a meaning when used in isolation), or as part of more complex characters. There is a change in shape and stroke count that occurs in some radicals when used as a component to form more complex characters.

Despite being familiar with a relevant radical and character, when both are combined, chances are you will not understand the new character. The components may give you hints, though this is not enough; you need to memorise each character individually to successfully read and write in Chinese. Similarly, there is no way of knowing whether a radical is giving the phonetic or semantic, it comes from practice and familiarising yourself with the characters.

Individual characters themselves – each of which in general represents a single syllable of the spoken language – may occur in combination with other characters to denote Chinese words and expressions of two or more syllables.

I also have a section on pronunciation, which I scanned from one of my Chinese learners books.

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I have some questions below that I would greatly appreciate any response to!

[j_spencer]

:help :help :help :help

Do you think this provides an adequate grounding for me to now go on and start learning the language? Or would you recommend I familiarise myself with other concepts of Mandarin before proceeding?

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How do you think I should proceed with learning. I think I have two options:

1) Follow one of my books and start learning Chinese conversations. I.e. learning the pinyin. In this book characters are also provided. So I can learn pinyin and speaking as well as characters.

Benefits: all round learning, i.e. pinyin, reading, writing and speaking

Disadvantages: not actually learning one discipline intensively

2) Focus specifically on the characters. In other words acquire a book with a list of radicals and characters and begin learning them off by heart as well as the meaning pronunciation.

Benefits: Learn characters faster; learn to read and write faster in the proper form as opposed to pinyin

Disadvantages: Don't learn to speak as quickly; might not get a grasp of the grammar as quickly

In the second option, learning characters and radicals, would you reccomend doing it from a dictionary, or a book that lists and explains the chacters and radicals? Also, in these books and dictionaries, how do they account for the fact that some radicals are different when used in isolation than when used with another character? Will they have a little note next to the full radical, saying what it looks like when used in combination with another character? Or will a radical, used when in combination, be in a different part of the list to the same radical when it is used in isolation? Similarly, in lists of radicals and characters, will it just show you what each individual character or radical stands for? Or will it list the words that are formed when characters and radicals are combined?

Or should I merge the two? Learning the pinyin and characters of conversations, and at the same time slowly work my way through the characters and radicals?

Finally, can someone please recommend a good English-Chinese dictionary? I'm looking for the biggest and best one! Thanks a lot. I realise there is a lot there to work through but I'd hugely appreciate any help on the matter!

[trien27]

just learn the language already. Most of what's in English doesn't make sense either. People still take time to learn it. Grammar is grammar. It's good that you do a lot of research. Now just learn the language. You already know the basics. There's no such thing as a right or wrong learning technique. You're either willing to learn or not.

[imron]

Regarding which vowel to place the tone on, you should follow this rule:

The rules for determining on which vowel the tone mark appears are as follows:

1. If there is more than one vowel and the first vowel is i, u, or ü, then the tone mark appears on the second vowel.

2. In all other cases, the tone mark appears on the first vowel

(y and w are not considered vowels for these rules.)

If you follow the order you listed, then you'll get it wrong for some syllables. For example, in correct pinyin the tone mark appears over the i in duī, but over the u in diū. By following the rule you gave, it would appear over the u in both syllables, which is incorrect.

Other advice I would give is not to think of a syllable as 'sound' + 'tone'. Try to recognise them as whole units that are not separate from each other. This simplifies things, because you don't have to 'remember' the tones because this information is being encoded in the syllable as you memorise them. I would also recommend spending time at the beginning really working on your pronunciation, making sure that you can mostly distinguish and pronounce the different tones and syllables. If you give yourself a good grounding in this respect, it will make things much easier later on.

As for dictionaries, Plecodict seems to be the general favourite around here.

Also, you should try searching the forums for some of the topics you've listed. There are already many posts detailing different people's opinions of how best to approach learning Chinese, from several different aspects (pronunciation, reading, writing, listening etc).

Finally, I would add that while knowing all of the theory you've listed is good, I wouldn't get too hung up on it in the beginning because you don't have the practical knowledge to associate it with. Many of the things you listed aren't hard and fast rules, and if you try to apply what you are learning to these rules, you might run into occasional conflicts. Now I would recommend just getting stuck into learning. Most of the things you've listed will become obvious/apparent once you've been learning for a while.

[OneEye]

Agreed, just start learning. Some of these concept won't make sense until you learn the language.

I've tried several courses out there (Pimsleur, FSI Standard Chinese, Practical Chinese Reader, China Panorama, and more), and my favorite course is China Panorama. It's good to do some of the FSI lessons (P&R module, and maybe Unit 1), but after that the course got boring and taught things that I didn't find useful ("I work in the military attache's office," for example). China Panorama is more relevant and not nearly as boring, plus it has the added benefit of being able to see the language being used (it's a video course).

I use the videos for listening/understanding, and I use the MP3 CD that comes with it for chorusing and learning to speak, and I put all the characters into Supermemo for learning to read. I've written a good deal about the method I'm using on my blog, so I won't write an epic-length post here, but give it a read. It's working very well for me and my native Mandarin-speaking co-workers tell me my pronunciation is very good.