Thursday, August 30, 2007
Learn Mandarin Phrases to Travel China
By Anna Yuen
Aloha, Ciao – when you visit China, you should start with ‘ni hao’ (how are you). Whenever traveling a place, it is always good to learn a couple of local phrases. Not only to add extra fun, but to communicate better with local people and get to know what they are talking about.
2008 Beijing Olympics is going to attract thousands of visitors to China. Are you visiting China soon? Let’s have an orientation on the Chinese language – Mandarin.
Before we get to learn Mandarin phrases to travel China, let me introduce some basics of the Chinese language.
1. One Word One Syllable
2. Pinyin (Phonetic) System
The Government of The People’s Republic of China has standardized Mandarin pronunciations and adopted the Pinyin system in 1979. Speak Mandarin and learn Mandarin is made easy for Chinese as well as foreigners.
Each word has a beginning and ending sound. Combine them together and form one syllable. Some words have only an ending sound. Each combination has four tones. Different tone has different meaning. You have to be very carefully with tones or it could mean something else and could be embarrassing.
For some reason, the four different tone symbols don't show up on this page. I have therefore indicated their tones against each word.
1 macron
2 acute accent
3 caron
4 grave accent
Nothing – light tone
In this article, I am going to introduce 10 easy-to-learn phrases for everyday use. Please practice them before landing in China.
Don’t worry about the pronunciation for now, at the end of this article, I’ll show you a fast track to learn speaking.
EVERYDAY
ni(2) hao(3) - regards
This is the non-question version of ‘how are you’. You won’t expect an answer as you are just sending regards. You can say this whenever seeing someone.
ni(2) hao(3) ma - how are you?
You would expect someone say ‘I'm fine, thank you’ in return.
hen(2) hao(3) - I’m fine
lao(2) jia(4) - excuse me / please / thank you
Usually use to start a conversation, especially when you want to get someone’s help. It can also mean ‘thank you’ when you receive a little favor.
zao(3) shang(4) hao(3) – good morning
xie(4) xie – thank you
When you buy something, the salesman will say xiè xie to you. You can also say this when receiving a gift.
shi(1) fu – a respectful way to call a driver
Shi fu is someone good at something. Beijing people call drivers Shi fu which is some kind of a compliment meaning he is good at driving. Tourists deal with drivers quite a lot, so it is good to know why drivers are called shi fu.
AT A RESTAURANT
mai(2) dan(1) – give me my bill please
This is a funny Cantonese phrase originated from Hong Kong. It is now widely understood in restaurants in Beijing and other major China cities. You’ll hear this very often in restaurants, especially Hong Kong.
SHOPPING
duo(1) shao(3) qian(2) - how much?
da(3) zhe(2) ma – do you offer discount?
pian(2) yi(2) dian(3) - cheaper please
Learn the pronunciation of these phrases is easy. I am going to give you some quick tips here.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong has a website which helps us to learn Mandarin online. As all instructions are written in Chinese, please click on to this learn Mandarin page first. It will give you short and precise English instructions and follow the link to the CUHK website to listen to the pronunciation. You’ll just take minutes to learn these phrases. Learn today, speak Mandarin tomorrow. Happy China travel!
2008 Beijing Olympics is going to attract thousands of visitors to China. Are you visiting China soon? Let’s have an orientation on the Chinese language – Mandarin.
Before we get to learn Mandarin phrases to travel China, let me introduce some basics of the Chinese language.
1. One Word One Syllable
2. Pinyin (Phonetic) System
The Government of The People’s Republic of China has standardized Mandarin pronunciations and adopted the Pinyin system in 1979. Speak Mandarin and learn Mandarin is made easy for Chinese as well as foreigners.
Each word has a beginning and ending sound. Combine them together and form one syllable. Some words have only an ending sound. Each combination has four tones. Different tone has different meaning. You have to be very carefully with tones or it could mean something else and could be embarrassing.
For some reason, the four different tone symbols don't show up on this page. I have therefore indicated their tones against each word.
1 macron
2 acute accent
3 caron
4 grave accent
Nothing – light tone
In this article, I am going to introduce 10 easy-to-learn phrases for everyday use. Please practice them before landing in China.
Don’t worry about the pronunciation for now, at the end of this article, I’ll show you a fast track to learn speaking.
EVERYDAY
ni(2) hao(3) - regards
This is the non-question version of ‘how are you’. You won’t expect an answer as you are just sending regards. You can say this whenever seeing someone.
ni(2) hao(3) ma - how are you?
You would expect someone say ‘I'm fine, thank you’ in return.
hen(2) hao(3) - I’m fine
lao(2) jia(4) - excuse me / please / thank you
Usually use to start a conversation, especially when you want to get someone’s help. It can also mean ‘thank you’ when you receive a little favor.
zao(3) shang(4) hao(3) – good morning
xie(4) xie – thank you
When you buy something, the salesman will say xiè xie to you. You can also say this when receiving a gift.
shi(1) fu – a respectful way to call a driver
Shi fu is someone good at something. Beijing people call drivers Shi fu which is some kind of a compliment meaning he is good at driving. Tourists deal with drivers quite a lot, so it is good to know why drivers are called shi fu.
AT A RESTAURANT
mai(2) dan(1) – give me my bill please
This is a funny Cantonese phrase originated from Hong Kong. It is now widely understood in restaurants in Beijing and other major China cities. You’ll hear this very often in restaurants, especially Hong Kong.
SHOPPING
duo(1) shao(3) qian(2) - how much?
da(3) zhe(2) ma – do you offer discount?
pian(2) yi(2) dian(3) - cheaper please
Learn the pronunciation of these phrases is easy. I am going to give you some quick tips here.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong has a website which helps us to learn Mandarin online. As all instructions are written in Chinese, please click on to this learn Mandarin page first. It will give you short and precise English instructions and follow the link to the CUHK website to listen to the pronunciation. You’ll just take minutes to learn these phrases. Learn today, speak Mandarin tomorrow. Happy China travel!
Anna is a Hong Kong Chinese. She loves traveling, especially China travel. Her website is all about the top tourist cities in China.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Anna_Yuen
by Camille Viajero at 3:55 PM |
2 Comments:
Thank you for this article.
It's very helpful.
You have a nice Mandarin Phrasebook here.
Something else, you can convert pinyin with number to pinyin with mark (http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/converter-pinyin-unicode.html) or directly use the pinyin editor.
Cheers.
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