I have a long, long list of things that I need to do - and somewhere on that list is "learn chinese"... hmm, easy no?!
So to keep myself honest, I'm going to post some stuff here - and hope that doing so will help me memorize it. So skip over if you want - they'll all be posted under the same heading. One thing I'm finding difficult (I know, only one thing?!) is reading the pinyin correctly - tough to remember that the pronunciation is different for many letters.
Btw - I am referring to this website for the chinese characters http://www.standardmandarin.com/.
Lesson One: Phrases we know already (but can't read/write the characters for, probably).
Hello "nǐhǎo" 你好
How are you? "nǐhǎo ma?" 你好吗
Thank you "xièxiè" 谢谢
No, thankyou "búyào xièxiè" 不要谢谢
You are welcome "búyòngxiè" 不用谢
Goodbye "zàijiàn" 再见
China "zhōng guó" 中国 (I love characters that have a "story" - the first character here literally means "Middle" - the stroke in the middle of the box. The second character means "Kingdom" and whilst I don't have a story, I like to imagine that it's a person sitting in their "Kingdom".)
OK "hǎode" 好的
I'm still looking for the word that the chinese use when they answer their phones - Brett is in 7th heaven as it sounds just as the Swiss did when they (lazily, I thought) answered their phones "Ouay?" - a very laid-back "Oui"! So Brett has that down already.
That's enough for today - Sebastien calls. Next post will be numbers (I think).
Zaijian!
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Xiamen University, China
Our home away from Australia
4 comments:
Ni Hao Alyssa,
It's illuminating that the Chinese disregarded the Wade-Giles method of Romanisation for a much more confusing native method... Welcome to China!
The telephone Wei's character is: 喂
Hope all is well.
James.
Not sure what I want to write....Just think you need one of my off the cuff comments after that super intelligent brother of ours leaves such a great one. I need to stop teaching children, and spend more time with adults - You are concerned about your grasp of the Chinese language - every day, I feel my grasp of the English language weaken.........You are all doing a fantastic job - I am so jealous!
I'm glad to hear things are going well! Alex looks like a real trooper through all of this.
Regarding the Middle Kingdom: read Three Kingdoms (sometimes called "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"). It's huge, so it'll take a lot of time (you were complaining about fluff reading before), and it's essentially to Chinese culture what the Illiad is to European culture. I thought it was great!
Hi Alyssa-just checking in to see how you are. You sounded so sad in one of your other posts. Chin up! It will all be ok and I know you will find a group to hang with and help you navigate through this new adventure. I so admire your courage and tenacity in moving there and starting to learn Chinese. I am sure Alex wil be able to tutor you in no time at all. We miss you and take care.
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