Learning Mandarin with Greg

When first learning Mandarin, there are two significant challenges. First is obviously learning a whole range of new words, but the second is learning to understand the large number of characters. Unlike English, where we basically use 26 letters from our alphabet, Chinese is estimated to have anywhere up to about 30,000 characters. Fortunately, only about 2,500 of those are in common daily use.

To avoid the challenge of learning both a new set of words, and a new set of writing at the same time, a common starting point is to use what’s called 拼音 (Pīnyīn). The first character basically means to spell, and the second character refers to sound.

2020-02-28

In English, we have a variety of ways to say “approximately”. There are several in Mandarin as well.

大概 (Dàgài) is pretty common 大致 (Dàzhì) 大约 (Dàyuē) is also pretty common 差不多(Chàbùduō) is literally like “less not more” and is often used for “about” but it’s closer to “almost”

But the one I wanted to highlight today is a less obvious one:

左右 (Zuǒyòu) is literally “left right” but is used for “approximately” or “roughly”.

2020-02-21

In English, we often name people based on where they came from. However, the rules for doing that are very complicated.

• From England, we get English.
• From Australia, we get Australians.
• From Poland, we get Polish.
• From China, we get Chinese.

But some get really, really messy. For example:

From Paris, we have Parisians. (That’s not too bad) From Greece, we get Greeks. From Newcastle, we get Novocastrians. (Woah) From Seattle, we get Seattleites.

2020-02-14

In a previous post, I talked about how adjectives are often doubled in sentences, typically for emphasis. Verbs can also be duplicated, but that is used to soften the verb or mood. It also generally indicates that the action won’t take too long, or won’t be too hard.

The formal term for this in Mandarin is reduplication of the verb. (Mind you, that doesn’t make sense to me as duplication should mean two, and reduplication should then mean four).

2020-02-07

One thing that fascinates me in Mandarin is the number of times you see a word repeated in a sentence. This can commonly occur with adjectives.

The simplest example would be a single character adjective that is repeated.

她的脸红红的。(Tā de liǎnhóng hóng de.)

This literally means “her face red red” or more likely “she blushed”. But the word for red 红(Hóng) is repeated, in this case for emphasis.

Instead of saying:

2020-01-31

It’s hard to believe it’s that time of the year again.

Time to wish all my Chinese readers Happy New Year !

It’s been a bit of a sombre start to the new year, with the outbreak in Wuhan but hopefully will continue on to be a wonderful year of the Rat.

2020-01-24

I wrote in previous posts how Chinese refer to relative days , relative weeks and relative months in Mandarin. In this last post of this short series, we’ll look at how they refer to years.

年 (Nián) is the word for Year. It’s pronounced roughly like “knee-en”.

今年 (Jīnnián) means “This year”

Years don’t use up and down words like weeks and months. Instead:

去年 (Qùnián) means “Last year” (where Qù means “Go” - or in this case gone)

2020-01-17

I wrote in previous posts how Chinese refer to relative days and relative weeks in Mandarin. In this post, we’ll look at how they refer to months.

月 (Yuè) is the word for Month.

这个月 (Zhège yuè) means “This month”

Similar to weeks, the words for up and down are used to make previous and next months:

上个月 (Shàng gè yuè) means “Last month” (where Shàng means “Up”)

下个月 (Xià gè yuè) means “Next month” (where Xià means “Down”)

2020-01-10

I recently read a wish that I liked the sound of. Although it related to the Chinese new year, it seems appropriate for the Western new year as well. I’ve adapted it slightly:

新的一年，祝你微笑多一点，烦恼少一点，活力多一点，忧愁少一点，朝气满一点，脾气小一点，事情多做点，失败少一点。

(Xīn de yī nián, zhù nǐ wéixiào duō yīdiǎn, fánnǎo shǎo yīdiǎn, huólì duō yīdiǎn, yōuchóu shǎo yīdiǎn, zhāoqì mǎn yīdiǎn, píqì xiǎo yīdiǎn, shìqíng duō zuò diǎn, shībài shǎo yīdiǎn.)

In the new year, I wish you more smiles and less worries, more vitality and less sorrow, more vitality and less bad temper, achieve more and fail less.

2019-12-31

I wrote in a previous post how relative times work for days. (Similar to how we say tomorrow, yesterday, day before yesterday, day after tomorrow, etc. in English).

Well the options for weeks are a bit different to the ones for days. To start with, it’s worth noting that there are two common words for weeks:

星期 (Xīngqí) is literally “star period” but means week. It’s pronounced like “shing chee”.

2019-12-27