Comparing English and Chinese

A Fundamental Difference in the Sounds Mandarin Initial Consonant Inventory English Consonantal System

Stuff I Actually Know Rhythm & Sound: Iambic - Unstressed/Stressed Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? The Four Tones - Foundation for Spoken Mandarin 八 - ba1 or b ā 把 - ba2 or b á ( 你把我东西放在那儿？） 拔 - ba3 or b ǎ ( 把出来 ) 爸 - ba4 or b à & many more…

Stuff I Actually Know Rhythm & Sound: Iambic - Unstressed/Stressed Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? The Four Tones - Foundation for Spoken Mandarin 八 - ba1 or b ā 把 - ba2 or b á ( 你把我东西放在那儿？） 拔 - ba3 or b ǎ ( 把出来 ) 爸 - ba4 or b à & many more…

Stuff I Actually Know Q: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

Stuff I Actually Know Q: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood? A: A woodchuck would chuck all the wood it could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood

Stuff I Actually Know Q: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood? A: A woodchuck would chuck all the wood it could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood 妈妈骑马，马慢，妈妈骂马 八 - ba1 or b á 拔 - ba2 or b ā 把 - ba3 or b ǎ 爸 - ba4 or b à

Stuff I Actually Know Q: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood? A: A woodchuck would chuck all the wood it could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood 妈妈骑马，马慢，妈妈骂马 ma1ma qi2 ma3, ma3 man4, ma1ma ma4 ma3 八 - ba1 or b á 拔 - ba2 or b ā 把 - ba3 or b ǎ 爸 - ba4 or b à 四 si4 十 shi2 是 shi4

Stuff I Actually Know 绿－ lü/lv 鱼－ yü/yv Or more common: über 这里 (zhe li) vs. 站 (zhan) V for Victory and R for rose

Stuff I Actually Know Some Grammar/Syntax Stuff Word Order is somewhat different, and there are no subject/verb agreements. Subject - Like English Time words are placed directly before or after the subject 我明天会上课 (Wo3 ming2 tian1 hui4 shang4 ke4) 明天我会上课 (Ming2 tian1 wo3 hui4 shang4 ke4) Location words are placed directly before the verb 他在家打球 (Ta1 zai4 jia1 da3 qiu4) 她在学校吃中饭 (Ta1 zai4 xue2 xiao4 chi1 zhong1 fan4) The object of a sentence is usually placed after the verb, but can also be before the verb, before the subject, or omitted entirely depending on the sentence 你读什么书 ? (Ni3 du2 shen2me shu1?) 球被我接到了 (Qiu2 bei4 wo3 jie1 dao4 le) 你的饭吃了没？ (Ni3 de fan4 chi1 le mei2?)

Stuff I Actually Know Accents & Dialects - Water - Da Bears - Coupon versus Cyupon 你好（儿） Ni3 hao3(er) - hello 你去什么地方 ? Ni3 qu4 shen2 me di4 fang1? - where are you going? 你好麻烦 Ni3 hao3 ma2 fan2 - you’re very troublesome/irritating 睡觉 Shui4 jiao4 - sleep 吃饭 Chi1 fan4 - eat 胡说八道 Hu2 shuo1 ba1 dao4 - talking nonsense/bs

Peking or Beijing? Chinese Postal Map Romanization as opposed to Pinying Based on Wade-Giles system - Was designed to transcribe Chinese terms for Westerners who were Chinese specialists - Used apostrophes for unaspirated and aspirated stop consonants

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