2013年7月22日星期一

Chinese Word Order



In the Chinese grammar, the word order is very basic and important. Word order will let people know what happen.

We start from basic Mandarin word order is

SVO: subject + verb + object

From this sentence structure, it is easily to find that Chinese word order is very similar to English . ^^

Example:              喜欢   她(他)
                    Subject+  Verb +  object
Pinyin :         wo xihuan ta
English:        I like her/him


Example:              中国人
              Subject+  Verb +  object
Pinyin:    ta shi  zhong guo ren
English:  He is a Chinese

Negative Sentences:  subject + 不(bu verb + object

In Chinese grammar, when people impress negation in the sentence, there is one word,(bu),to be added before the verb.

Example:               喜欢    她(她)
subject+ 不(bu  Verb +  object
Pingyin:    wo bu xihuan ta
English:    I do not like her/him

Example:                     中国人
subject+ 不(bu  Verb +  object
English He is not a Chinese.

Adverbials: time, action and place

 Subject+ time+place + action


If we want to make the sentence more information, such as time, action and place, the word structure is a bit complicate. Now, there are much different between Chinese and English.

Example:           昨天    在图书馆       读书 ( I yesterday at the library studied)
Subject+ time+ place + action
Pinyinwo zuitian zaitushuguan dushu
English:  I studied at the library yesterday.


Example: 我        明天   在公园  等你 ( I tomorrow in the park meet you)
   Subject+ time+ place + action (verb+object)
Pinyin:  wo mingtian  zai gongyuan dengni
English: I will meet you in the park tomorrow

2013年7月14日星期日

Personal Pronouns





Personal Pronouns are very import part of Chinese Grammar. When the learn start to study Chinese, the Personal Pronouns always appear in basic conversation. To Compare with English Grammar, very straightforward and have the same form regardless of being subject, object, indirect object, etc



There are two groups of personal pronouns, which are singular Personal Pronouns and Plural Personal Pronouns



Singular Personal Pronouns




In English personal pronouns are (I, you, he, she, it,), and (me, you, him, her, it,), In Mandarin, the personal pronouns are :  (wo ), (ni ),(ta), 她(ta,(ta),和它(ta

(wo )I and Me
Example:我叫Dora  (subject)
Pinyin: wo jiao Dora
English:  I am Dora


Example:  他喜欢我   (Object)
Pinyin:  ta yihuan wo

English:  He like me




(ni ): you
Example: 你是哪国人?  (subject)
Pinyin:  ni shi na guo ren ?

English: What is your nationality?


Example:  我爱你 Object
Pinyin:  wo ai ni
English: I love you



他(ta: he and him
Example:  他是男孩 subject
Pinyin:   ta shi nan hai
English:  He is a boy



Example: 我认识他 Object
Pinyin:  wo ren shi ta
English: I know him very well




她(ta : She and her
Example:  她是女孩
Pinyin : ta shi nv hai
English: She is a girl



Example: 我在教她汉语
Pinyin:  wo zai jiao ta hanyu
English: I am teaching her Chinese.


它(ta: it – no human
Example: 它是一个梦.
Pinyin: ta shi yi ge meng
English: it is just a dream


Plural Personal Pronouns


As stated above, plurals are made by adding the ending 们(men



我们 ( women)  we and us

Example: 我们是同学

Pinyin: women  shi  tongxue 

English: We are classmates.



你们 (nimen)  you

Example:  你们找到工作了吗?

Pinyin: ni men zhao dao gong zuo le ma?

English:  Do you find jobs?



他们tamen they and them

Example:  他们去上学了

Pinyin:  ta men qu shang xue le

English: They go to school.

2013年7月3日星期三

Mandarin and Chinese



When we talk about Learning Chinese, mostly people study Mandarin. There are some differences between ‘Mandarin’ and ‘Chinese’. Mandarin is one type of Chinese. People in China use Mandarin as office language. In China, there are many kinds of dialects, such as Cantonese and Shanghaiese.


Pinyin

When people study Mandarin, they always start from Pinyin. What is Pinyi?
Pinyin : a set of phonetic symbol which make the every Character to be pronounced. Without pinyin, we can not speak single word.

A Pinin syllable is usually composed of an initial, a final and a tone. The consonant that starts a syllable is called the Initial, and the part after the initial is the final. The mark on top of the final is tone.

Chinese is a tone language. Different tomes may results in different meaning. There are four basic tones in Chinese, which are called the 1st tone, the 2nd tome, the 3rd tone, and 4th tone.



Hanzi

Chinese characters (hanzi) developed from a pictographic writing system in use a few thousand years ago. Now, people write Hanzi in two ways which is Simplified characters and traditional characters. In mainland China and Singapore, people prefer to use the simple character in writing, and in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, people use the traditional word in Writing.




2013年6月25日星期二

Introduce yourself (介绍自己)



I am..

I am called…

Nice to meet you

Nice to meet you, too

When you stay in China, you can meet many new friends or colleagues. How to let them know who you are?  How to express yourself in Chinese? there are many ways to do that, however, here I would like to share with you two simple and easy ways.

You can start from the phrase : 我是” or “我叫” + [ Your Name ]


I am Dora (my name)

The Phrase
Dora
Pinyin
Wo shi Dora
Grammar
Subject ()+ Verb ()+ Noun(Dora)

Words:
我: I
是: to be

There is another way to express by using “” instead of “
I am called Dora 



The Phrase
Dora
Pinyin
Wo jiao Dora
Grammar
Subject ()+ Verb ()+ Noun(Dora)


Words:
叫:to be called.

Nice to meet you

The Phrase
很高兴认识你
Pinyin
Hen Gao Xing ren shi ni
Grammar
Adv (很高兴)+ Verb (认识)+ object()


How to reply? You can use the word “” which is inserted the above sentence.

Nice to meet you,too

The Phrase
(我)也很高兴认识你
Pinyin
Hen Gao Xing ren shi ni
Grammar
Adv (很高兴)+ Verb (认识)+ object()