Lesson 18 - 你想喝什么？

Today we discuss beverages. To ask, "What would you like to drink?" we say:
ni3 xiang3 he1 shen2 me? 你想喝什么？
To answer we just replace the 什么 with the beverage of choice and change you to I. Example:
wo3 xiang3 he1 ka1fei1. 我想喝咖啡。
Some other useful beverages are listed below:
tea cha2 茶
cola ke3le4 可乐
milk niu2nia3 牛奶
water shui3 水
beer pi2jiu3 啤酒

Since many beverages are served warm in China, it is often important to the foreigner to get ice in their drink (or at least cooled). To do this we just add bing1 冰 before the noun to modify it. Example:
I would to drink cold water. wo3 xiang3 he1 bing1 shui3.
我想喝冰水。

To practice your pronunciation with voicethread please click the following link:
http://voicethread.com/share/151668/

Lesson 11 - 中秋节快乐。

It's that time of year again.... we're nearing the 15th day of the 8th lunar month (this year the full moon falls on Sept. 26th). This day in China is a popular holiday called: Mid-Autumn's Festival. It is a time of reunion and a night of moon gazing and munching on moon cakes. In Chinese we say:

中秋节快乐！ zhong1 qiu1 jie2 kuai4 le4.
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

There is a famous legend of Chang e. The Earth had 10 suns in ancient times and Chang e's husband was a famous archer who shot down 9 in one shot, thus saving the people from famine. A goddess gave him an elixir, but Chang e drank it when he was out one day. She began to float up to the moon with only her rabbit for company. To this day the full moon, Chang e and rabbits are all associated in Chinese folklore.

Happy Festival! Eat lots of moon cakes.

Lesson 1 - Intro to Chinese

Welcome to Chinese as it is being taught at 21st Century Academy. This website is meant to supplement and reinforce the students in class experience. Please feel free to share.

The Chinese language as it is spoken, is linguistically, a more evolved language than the English language. Sentences for the most part take their meaning via syntax (word order) rather than by modifying words, working agreement or gender. There is very little "grammar" in Chinese.

It is a tonal language. Meaning that each word as it is pronounced has a particular sing-songy tone that accompanies it and gives the word its meaning. As the example was given in class: ma has four or more meanings depending on how one says the word. "Ma" with a level tone (said kind of like one is singing a note in choir) means mother. "Ma" said with a rising tone that to Westerners sounds like a question, means cotton. "Ma" said in the third tone which is said with the tone first descending and then rising, means horse, and the last tone "ma" said with a sharp descending sound means to curse.

There are only 405 different consonant and vowel combinations in Mandarin Chinese versus the many thousands in the English language. These sounds are all put together into the ordinary sounds that we call Pinyin. Pinyin are marked with the tones above the vowel. Practice the sounds below as you remember them in class:

ba pa da fa la ma
diao piao miao liao
ri ti li mi si

Below is an introduction to some simple characters. Notice how, even though these characters have evolved significantly over hundreds of years they still resemble their original pictures, i.e. big looks like someone holding their arms out.

人 口 大 太 好 男 女
ren2 kou3 da4 tai4 hao3 nan2 nu3
person mouth big huge good man woman

Below are the numbers from 1 to 10. Practicing numbers is great for fixing pronunciation as they cover a wide range of sounds and tones.

一二三四五六七八九十
yi1 ,er4 ,san1 ,si4 ,wu3 , liu4 , qi1 , ba1 , jiu3 , shi2