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[edit] Table of contents

[edit] Text / 课文

[edit] Introduction / 介绍

About Chinese
中文是什么？

How to use this textbook
如何使用这本教科书

How to study Chinese
如何学习中文

[edit] Pronunciation

Pinyin Pronunciation Basics

Pronunciation of Initials

Pronunciation of Finals

Possible Initial-Final Combinations

Using Tones

[edit] Lessons / 课程

Lesson 1: Hello!
第一课：你好！

Lesson 2: Are you busy today?
第二课：今天你忙不忙?

Lesson 3: An introduction to particles
第三课：助词

Lesson 4: Word order and Verbs
第四课：词序和动词

Lesson 5: Measure words
第五课：量词

Lesson 6: More on interrogatives
第六课：疑问助词

Lesson 7: What's this?
第七课：这是什么?

[edit] Text / 课文

[edit] Introduction / 介绍

[edit] About Chinese

中华人民共和国 (中国)	中華民國 (臺灣)	新加坡共和国 (新加坡)
People's Republic of China (China)	Republic of China (Taiwan)	Republic of Singapore (Singapore)
The Chinese cultural sphere of influence

The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語 or 中文; Pinyin: Hanyu, Huayu, Zhongwen) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. About one-fifth of the world speaks some form of Chinese as its native language, making it the most common natively-spoken language in the world.

There is great internal variety within Chinese, and spoken Chinese languages such as Standard Mandarin (Putonghua), Shanghainese (Wu) and Cantonese are not mutually intelligible. Nevertheless, there is a single standardized form of Chinese known as Standard Mandarin, which is based on the dialect of Beijing, which in turn is just one dialect within Mandarin, a large and diverse group of Chinese dialects spoken in Northern and Southwestern China. Standard Mandarin is the official language of the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, one of four official languages of Singapore, and one of six official languages of the United Nations. Standard Mandarin also corresponds to the modern standard written Chinese language used by people speaking all forms of Chinese from all corners of China, including Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, Hakka, Min-nan, and so forth. This textbook will teach Standard Mandarin, both spoken and written.

Chinese grammar is in many ways simpler than European languages (for example, you will see no tenses, plurals, or subject-verb agreement), but there are also plenty of pitfalls that will trip up the unsuspecting beginner (for example, you will encounter tones, measure words, and discourse particles, which do not feature as strongly in European languages.) In addition, the complexity of the writing system often daunts newcomers, as Chinese is one of the few languages in the world that does not use an alphabet or a syllabary; instead, thousands of characters are used, each representing a word or a part of a word. The government of China has developed a system of writing Standard Mandarin pronunciation in the Roman alphabet, known as Hanyu Pinyin or pinyin (汉语拼音/漢語拼音, "spelling according to sounds"). Hanyu Pinyin is used to write out Chinese words phonetically in an effort to help learners of Chinese with their pronunciation. This wikibook will teach you Hanyu Pinyin first, before any actual sentences. All examples and new vocabulary will always be given together with Hanyu Pinyin.

There are two character sets: Simplified Chinese characters (简体字/簡體字, Pinyin: Jiantizi) and Traditional Chinese characters (繁体字/繁體字, Pinyin: Fantizi). Traditional characters trace their lineage back through thousands of years of Chinese history, and continue to be used in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and among many overseas Chinese. Simplified Chinese characters were the result of reforms carried out in Mainland China to increase literacy rates and is now used there and in Singapore. The two systems share many of the same characters unchanged or with systematic predictable reductions in stroke; however, some changes are not as formulaic. As a result, most native Chinese speakers are able to write in only one of the two systems, though they can usually read both. You are recommended to do the same. It is considered easier for people who learn Traditional to read both sets than people who learn Simplified only, but Simplified characters may be less intimidating for beginners. In this wikibook, all examples and vocabulary are given in both systems, and you are encouraged to choose one system and stick with it throughout.

Chinese characters have also been used in the past by other neighbouring Asian countries, and are still being used by some of them today. Older Koreans still know how to read and write Chinese characters, though the younger generation has been taught almost exclusively to write in the Korean script, hangul. The Japanese still preserve many Chinese characters (which they call kanji) today and use them to write the Japanese language.

[edit] Expectations

This textbook will assume that you have no prior knowledge of Chinese, but are willing to take Chinese as a serious subject of study. Each lesson contains a combination of new vocabulary and new grammar in a gradual progression, building on previous lessons.

Each lesson should be appropriate for a week's worth of daily classes, so don't feel overwhelmed by the amount of material per lesson. Learning to write new characters will probably be your limiting factor, so split up the memorization of a lesson's characters over two or three days and use class time mostly for work on grammar and speaking skills.

[edit] Lesson Sections

Each lesson consists of five parts:

1. Dialogue. Here you will see a dialogue carried out by two or more people. All texts are given in 4 versions: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Hanyu Pinyin, and an English translation.
2. Grammar. This section breaks down all of the new sentence structures introduced in the dialogue and shows example sentences to reinforce them.
3. Vocabulary. New vocabulary for the lesson, with translation and pronunciation. Every newly introduced character will be linked to an image or animation showing its stroke order.
4. Examples. A page of sentences and phrases giving more examples based on the lesson material.
5. Exercises. Questions and activities to test comprehension of the material. May be used as homework or as review material for lesson exams.

[edit] Speaking and Pronunciation

• Learn pinyin. Not only is it used throughout this book to explain proper pronunciation, it is needed to look up words in dictionaries and for typing in Chinese.
• Pay attention to the tones. Since there are so few syllables in Chinese, there are many homonyms, making attention to tones very important. Learning to write the pinyin with correct tones at the same time as you learn the characters will improve your pronunciation and your listening comprehension.
• Read the text aloud. Speaking (and hearing yourself speaking) will help reinforce the text in your memory. Exaggerating the tones can help you remember them.
• Find a language partner. There may be a Chinese Language club in a nearby city or university. There are also free sites on the internet that can help set you up with a language exchange using Skype or other VoIP programs. Two examples are The Mixxer and E-Tandem.
• Listen to Chinese media. A wide variety of multimedia options exist for exposing your ears to native Chinese speaking. Internet radio stations and newscasts can be found in Chinese, as well as an increasing number of Chinese movies and television shows.

[edit] Reading and Writing

• Practice writing. A lot. When you learn, write each character at least ten times every day until you can remember it. Quiz yourself periodically to test your memory and to find which characters you need more practice on. As you write, think of the sound and meaning of the character, or say it out loud. Check out the East Asian Orthography wikibook for more help with Chinese writing. Learn the right stroke order initially and write carefully, looking at the printed character each time before copying.

A radical highlighted in 3 characters

• Look for radicals. Radicals are components of Chinese characters that you will see repeated over and over again. Learning the meaning of radicals will help you to see the connections between similar categories of words. Many characters are comprised of radical-phonetic pairings, where the radical is the "root" that hints at the meaning of the word, while another part of the character hints at the sound of the word. Learning to spot radicals is also useful as they are used when looking up unfamiliar words in Chinese dictionaries.

• Buy a dictionary. Useful for looking up new words or just browsing. Get a beginner's dictionary so that you can have a larger font, usage examples and Pinyin pronunciation, all of which are sometimes missing in comprehensive dictionaries. Get a second dictionary later on if you can't find every word you need. A good choice that provides many example sentences and phrases would be The Starter Oxford Chinese Dictionary (sorry, Simplified version only).

[edit] Suggested Reading Materials

• Children's story books (the characters are easier, many include pinyin or zhuyin for difficult or even all characters)
• Take a look at various condensed dictionaries to get a feel for the characters

[edit] Pronunciation

[edit] Pinyin Pronunciation

This lesson shows the pronunciation of pinyin, the standard Romanization system used for Mandarin Chinese and the one that will be used throughout the textbook. While most of the letters are the same or very close to the English usage, there are some important differences.

[edit] Pronunciation Basics

Mandarin Chinese may sound strange, but is actually relatively easy for English-speakers to pick up—much easier than it is for Mandarin-speakers to learn English. A large part of the reason is that Chinese has a very limited syllabary, meaning there are not many sounds in the language, and hardly any new ones if you already know English. On the other hand, that means Chinese-speakers trying to grasp English must learn to create dozens of entirely new sounds—remember that as you proceed through these first lessons on pronunciation!

One very different aspect of Chinese is its use of tones. Because of its limited syllabary, pitches of voice are used to help differentiate words. While some dialects of Chinese have up to nine tones, Mandarin is comparatively easy with only four. It's often difficult for beginners to distinguish the tone of a word, especially when not sure of the context. Even if you have perfect pitch, it may be hard to follow or reproduce what can seem like a rollercoaster ride of tonal transitions. Don't worry though, as you'll improve with practice. These lessons will describe how to understand and reproduce all the syllables and tones of Mandarin.

[edit] If you know another Romanization system or the IPA

If you are familiar with Zhuyin (bopomofo), Tongyong Pinyin, or the Wade-Giles system of Romanization, Wikipedia has an equivalency chart comparing the different systems. Learn to use Hanyu Pinyin—the most common Romanization system for Chinese, which will be used for the rest of the text.

The IPA, or International Phonetic Alphabet, is a standard set of symbols that can be used to write any sound from any human language. If you know the IPA, it will be listed below to show the sounds of pinyin.

[edit] The Mandarin syllable

There are three parts to all syllables in Mandarin; the initial, the final, and the tone. In pinyin, the tone, initial, and final are represented as follows:

[edit] Tone

The tone is represented by a tone mark placed on top of the syllable. There are exactly four tone marks: ˉ, ˊ, ˇ, and ˋ. The two dots on ü (like a German umlaut) do not have to do with the tone, so if you see ǖ, ǘ, ǚ, or ǜ, the symbol above the dots represents the tone.

[edit] Initial

The initial is:

• at the front of the syllable
• a consonant (not including y, or w)
• usually one letter, except for:zh, ch, sh

[edit] Final

The final is made up of the letter(s) after a syllable's initial, not including the tone mark. A final:

• begins with a vowel
• can be made of 1-4 characters
• ends with a vowel, n, ng, or r

[edit] Exceptions to initial-final combinations in syllables

Some syllables have no initial or no final. In Pinyin, this is shown as follows:

• For syllables with no final:
  • an unpronounced i is added to the end of the syllable
  • Occurs only with the following initials:zh, ch, sh, r, z, c, s
• For syllables with no initial:
  • if the final begins with an i, it is replaced with a y
  • if the final begins with an u, it is replaced with a w
  • if the final begins with an ü, it is replaced with yu
  • Exceptions to the above:
    • i alone is replaced by yi
    • iu is replaced by you
    • in is replaced by yin
    • ing is replaced by ying
    • u alone is replaced by wu
    • ui is replaced by wei
    • un is replaced by wen
    • ueng is replaced by weng

One other exception:

• when combined with initials j, q, x; any ü in a final is changed to u.

Please note that the pronunciation of these syllables are not according to the English pronunciation of the letters. The next few pages give examples of how initials and finals are pronounced, put together, and how to use tones.

[edit] Pronunciation of initials

[edit] Pronunciation of finals

[edit] Using Tones

Relative pitch changes of the four tones

Every syllable in Chinese has a clearly defined pitch of voice associated with it to distinguish characters with the same sound from each other. Unfortunately, there is no indication of the tone given when reading a character, so the tones for words must be individually memorized. To help with this, pinyin uses four easily-remembered diacritical marks to tell you what the tones of words are. The diagram to the right shows the pitch changes of the four tones on a five-bar scale going from lowest (1), to highest (5), while the four tone marks are:

1. First tone ( ˉ ), high level.
2. Second tone (ˊ), middle rising.
3. Third tone ( ˇ ), low dipping.
4. Fourth tone (ˋ), high falling.

There is also a neutral, so-called "fifth tone", which is unstressed and usually goes unmarked.

Tone marks are always placed over vowels, never consonants. If there is more than one vowel in the syllable, the mark goes, in order of preference, over the a, e, i, o and u respectively (alphabetical order). Hence it is māo, never maō; tóu, never toú. The only exception to this rule is when a syllable with "iu" needs a tone mark, in which case the mark is placed over the "u", not the "i"; so it's xiù, not xìu.

[edit] Pronouncing the tones

Each bar of this musical staff represents the relative pitch changes when saying tones 1, 2, 3 and 4

Say the first tone as if you were singing a high note. The second tone is pronounced like a question in English, with your pitch rising at the end of the syllable. Third tones are low and extended, noticeably longer than the other tones because of the dip. The fourth tone is said abruptly and forcefully, like a curt command in English. The neutral tone's pitch depends on the tone that precedes it. It is described more fully below, but in general, they are pronounced quickly and softly. The classic example used to show the difference tones make is:

妈(mā) 麻(má) 马(mǎ) 骂(mà) 吗(·ma) (Being "mother", "hemp", "horse", "scold" and a question particle, respectively.)

mā má mǎ mà (file info) A sound sample of the four tones Problems listening to the file? See media help.

The shape of the 3rd tone when before 1st, 2nd and 4th tones

In many cases, several characters can have the exact same syllable and tone. For example, along with 马, the characters 码 and 蚂 are also pronunciation exactly the same (mǎ). 马 can be used alone to mean the animal "horse." It can also be combined with other characters for new meanings. 马上mǎshàng-immediately; 马球mǎqiú-polo; 马路mǎlù-street; etc. Other characters with the same pronunciation will be used differently as well. 数码相机shùmǎ xiàngjī-digital camera; 蚂蚁mǎyǐ-ant; etc. Since these characters alone sound exactly the same in conversation, the only way to distinguish them is through context.

[edit] Tone changes

The third tone, with its dip-and-rebound, is hard to fit into a continuous sentence. This is why the third-tone changes depending on its environment. There are two rules:

1. If a third tone comes before another third tone, then it is pronounced as a second tone.
2. If a third tone comes before any other tone, then it only dips, and doesn't rebound and is called a half-third tone (see image).

Because of these broad rules, the majority of third tones you encounter will be spoken as second tones or half-third tones. Be mindful of this because the written tone marks remain unchanged despite the differences in actual pronunciation.

[edit] Neutral Tones

Some syllables don't have a tone and carry no tone mark. They are not stressed, and they take their tone from the syllable before them:

1. If it follows a first- or second-tone syllable, then the toneless syllable is mid-range.
2. If it follows a third-tone syllable, then the toneless syllable is high, as if the dip-and-rebound of the third-tone continues right into it.
3. If it follows a fourth-tone syllable, then the toneless syllable is low, as if the fall of the fourth-tone continues right into it.

[edit] Test and Review

Mandarin One: Lesson One