Chinese

Spoken in China, along with lots of other places. Happens to be the second most commonly used language after English.

TV shows

You should check out viki.com. It has tons of Chinese TV shows, and they usually have decent subtitles. If you want a higher number of shows, or better video quality, you can get a premium membership as well. It’s cheap enough and there’s tons of content.

Pinyin

Writing system that uses the Latin letters to represent Chinese characters. It uses tone marks on the vowels to indicate the tone you’re supposed to use when pronouncing. You can also use numbers after the sounds to indicate the tone, like 一 [yi1]

Numbers

• 1 {% ruby yi || 一 %}
• 2 {% ruby er || 二 %}
• 3 {% ruby san || 三 %}
• 4 {% ruby si || 四 %}
• 5 {% ruby wu || 五 %}
• 6 {% ruby liu || 六 %}
• 7 {% ruby qi || 七 %}
• 8 {% ruby ba || 八 %}
• 9 {% ruby jiu || 九 %}
• 10 {% ruby shi || 十 %}

Combined Numbers

• 11 {% ruby shi yi || 十一 %}
• 12 {% ruby shi er || 十二 %}
• 20 {% ruby er shi || 二十 %}
• 21 {% ruby er shi yi || 二十一 %}

Tones

1. Flat Tone [-]
2. Rising Tone [/]
3. Falling and Rising Tone [\/]
4. Falling Tone [\]

Vowels

a, e, i, o, u, ü

Past Tense

Chinese doesn’t really have a past tense. You indicate something happened in the past by giving context (yesterday, last week etc.). Verbs are suffixed by {% ruby le || 了 %} to turn them into past forms.

• Eat {% ruby chi || 吃 %} - Ate/Had Eaten {% ruby chi le || 吃了 %}
• I ate pizza. {% ruby wo chi le pi sa || 我吃了披萨 %}

Future Tense

Add {% ruby jiang || 将 %} in front of all verbs.

• I will eat pizza. {% ruby wo jiang chi pi sa || 我将吃披萨 %}

Present Tense

Add {% ruby zheng zai || 正在 %} in front of all verbs.

• I am eating pizza. {% ruby wo zheng zai chi pi sa || 我正在吃披萨 %}

Possession

Possession can be expressed with Subject + 的 [de] + Object.

• My book {% ruby wo de shu || 我的书 %}
• Your book {% ruby ni de shu || 你的书 %}
• My pencil {% ruby wo de qian bi || 我的铅笔 %}

Sentence Structures

You are adjective

Instead of using {% ruby shi || 是 %} (is/are) for this, you should use {% ruby hen || 很 %} (very).

• You are cute {% ruby ni hen ke ai || 你很可爱 %}

Useful Words

• Pizza {% ruby pi sa || 披萨 %}
• Water {% ruby shui || 水 %}
• Want 想要 [xiang yao]
• Eat 吃 [chi]
• Chinese 汉语 [han yu]
• Fox 狐狸 [hu li]

Common Phrases

• Hello {% ruby ni hao || 你好 %}
• I am {% ruby wo shi || 我是 %}
• Who are you? {% ruby ni shi shui || 你是谁? %}
• You are water. {% ruby ni shi shui || 你是水 %}
• I want water. 我想要水 [wo xiang yao shui]
• Bye bye 拜拜 [bai bai]
• Thank you {% ruby xie xie || 谢谢 %}
• Good night {% ruby wan an || 晚安 %}
• Bye bye {% ruby bai bai || 拜拜 %}
• See you later. {% ruby zai jian || 再见 %}
• I love you {% ruby wo ai ni || 我爱你 %}
• I love you too/I also love you 我也爱你 [wo ye ai ni]
• Happy New Year 新年快乐 [xin nian kuai le]
• Awesome/amazing 哇，棒极了 [wa, bang ji le]
• Very cool 真棒 [zhen bang]

Useful resources

• Pleco app
• CC-CEDICT dictionary
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDICT
  • https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary
  • https://cc-cedict.org/wiki/start

Backlinks

• Japanese

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