Chinese for Beginners (A1/HSK1) 初级汉语 Lecture 1 第一堂 Instructor: Ya Ping Hsiao 萧雅萍老师 1

Mandarin Chinese  What does Mandarin mean? In the Chinese Empire, mandarin refers to a member of any of the nine ranks of public officials.  Most Chinese speak Mandarin.  875 million people in China and 6.8 million outside China speak Mandarin as their first language. 2

Brief History  In 1932, the Chinese Republic made Mandarin the national language and named it Guóyǔ. Mandarin, the dialect of Peking, became the official form of pronunciation.  In 1949, the People’s Republic changed the name of Guóyǔ to Pǔtōnghuà, which means “the common language.” 3

A Chinese syllable Generally speaking, the pronunciation of one Chinese character is one syllable. One Chinese syllable is composed of one consonant, one vowel and one tone (except that several syllables without consonants). 4

Structure of one Chinese syllable 5 Syllable (lettergreep): mā the first tone: - consonant (medeklinker) vowel (klinker) ma character: 妈

The tones of Mandarin 6 Source: Wiedenhof, J. (2006). De uitspraak van het Mandarijn in 101 oefeningen (met cd). Amsterdam: Bulaaq.De uitspraak van het Mandarijn in 101 oefeningen

Say these words with tones first tone (high level) second tone (rising) third tone (falling rising) fourth tone (falling) fifth tone (short) 1 wǒwówǒwòwo 2 nīnínǐnìni 3 hāoháohǎohàohao 4 māmámǎmàma 7

Four language groups 8 Source: How Hard is Chinese? Retrieved 25 January, 2009, from William Baxter’s homepage. Website:

Why is Chinese the most difficult language in the world? Chinese is a tone language. Chinese shares very little vocabulary with European languages. The writing system is definitely hard to learn. 9 References: (Baxter, 2006; Wiedenhof, 2006)

Chinese loan words in Dutch DutchChinesePinyinIn Mǐn dialect (listen to Amy) mie 面 miàn thee 茶 chá taugé 豆芽 dòuyá 10

Loan words Chinese Loan Words in the English Language English Loan Words in the Chinese Language 11

Feature of this course: ICT-based learning Important installation for Learning Chinese (after this lecture) Chinese computing help desk: Pinyinput: Type Pinyin with tone marks In case you cannot install Pinyinput, you can type Pinyin with tone markers by using Pinyin Editor on Chinese-Tools.com: Or use Macro in Word: Type Pinyin with tone markers 12

Feature of this course: ICT-based learning Important installation for Learning Chinese (later in this semester) Asian and Extended Language Font Packs for Adobe Reader Free Chinese Fonts Handleiding ZDT Getting started with ZDT Writing Chinese on the Windows Platform 13

14 Traditional Characters (Taiwan & Hong Kong) Simplified Characters (China) PinyinDefinitions 1 好好 hǎo/good/well/ 2 你你 nǐ/you/ 3 嗎吗 ma/(question tag)/ 4 呢呢 ne/(question particle)/ 5 很很 hěn/very/extremely/ 6 也也 yě/also/too/ 7 我我 wǒ/I/me/myself/ 8 她她 tā/she/ 9 他們他們他们 tāmen/they/ 10 我們我們我们 wǒmen/we/us/ourselves/ 11 你們你們你们 nǐmen/you (plural)/ 12 小姐 xiǎojiě/young lady/miss/ 13 太太 tàitai /married woman/Mrs./Madam/wife/ 14 先生 xiānsheng /sir/mister/teacher/(title of respect)/

Traditional Characters (Taiwan & Hong Kong) Simplified Characters (China) PinyinDefinitions 15 他 他 tā/he/him/ 16 普通話 普通话 Pǔtōnghuà/mandarin/ 17 中文 Zhōngwén/Chinese/ 18 漢語 汉语 Hànyǔ/Chinese language/ 19 一 一 yī/one/ 20 二 二 èr/two/ 21 四 四 sì/four/4/ 22 三 三 sān/three/ 23 聲 声 shēng /sound/voice/tone/noise/classifier for sounds/ 24 給 给 gěi /to/for/for the benefit of/to give/to allow/to do sth (for sb)/(passive particle)/ 25 謝謝 谢谢 xièxie/to thank/thanks/ 26 不客氣不客气 bú kèqi /you're welcome/impolite/rude/blunt/don't mention it/ 15

Lesson 1 Text 1 课文 16

Lesson 1 Text 2 课文 17

Pinyin table (NPCR p.82-83) 18

Place your tongue forth and back FrontBack zzh cch ssh 19

Initials 20 bpmf dtnl gkh zhchshr zcs jqx