11.19.2007
Learn to Speak Basic Chinese (Mandarin) Words and Phrases
The Chinese Language and dialects
Each province, each city and even each village speaks their own dialect. There are hundreds of Chinese dialects in China so much so that each dialect speaker is not likely to understand another dialect speaker from another village or city. Fortunately, Mandarin, the official dialect, is understood by all dialect speakers.
Let's learn a few useful basic and common Mandarin words and phrases that will help you break barriers with your Chinese friends.
How are You? -Ni Hao Ma
Also commonly shorten to Ni Hao.
This is likely to be the first Mandarin phrase that you will ever learn. Useful as a greeting or a ice-breaker. Suitable for use with all ages and professions.
Thank You -Xie Xie.
Another polite term that is easy to remember and use.
Very Good -Hen Hao.
This is useful when giving praise for a job or task well done. Also useful as a reply to anyone who says "Ni Hao Ma?' to you.
Ni Hao Ma? (How are you?)
Hen Hao (Very Good)
No Good -Bu Hao.
This is useful when there is a need to comment on a shoddy or incomplete job or task. Can also be used as a reply to Ni Hao Ma? but may not be such a good reply.
Ni Hao Ma? (How are you?)
Bu Hao (No Good)
Very Expensive -Hen Gui.
When bargaining at the shops, this is the best term to use when driving a hard bargain.
Don't want or No -Bu Yao.
This is the best term to use for touts - street hawkers who approach you at every tourist stop to ask you to buy things. Bu Yao....will stop them in their track.
This is beautiful -Hen Piao Liang.
Use this phrase to praise something that is nice or beautiful. May also be used when meeting a pretty girl too!
Taxi -De Shi.
De Shi is the correct term but you should be understood even if you use the English word for Taxi. They sound alike anyway.
Good Bye or See You Again -Zai Jian.
Well, I guess this is another term that will be easily understood even if the English word is used.
Excuse Me -Jie Guo.
There is always a crowd in touristy areas. There are so many Chinese who wants to see the same monuments too. Rather than push your way through the crowd, using the term Jie Guo may just open the path ahead for you!
Receipt -Fa Piao.
Always ask for the receipt or Fa Piao at the shops or from a taxi. This may be useful if you need to complain about a fraud or shoddy product. Also useful if you leave behind your bag or camera in the taxi.
I don't want -Wo Bu Yao.
Useful when refusing a tout or when offered a drink too many at the Dinner table
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Hi, just want to share this article with you. Happy reading :)
When in Rome, why not let the Romans teach you?
In Huangshan (黄山) southern Anhui province in Eastern China, Fu Shou-Bing logs on to the computer in the public library near his village. Since discovering ECpod.com (http://www.ECpod.com), the retired High School Chemistry teacher has been logging on almost every day to the English-Chinese teaching website. Sometimes he cycles the 25 miles home, cooks himself a simple lunch of rice and stir-fried vegetables with salted fish, often returning once again to the library and his new hobby in the evening.
ECpod.com boasts an educational website that teaches members conversational English or Chinese (no "this is an apple" stuff here) via video clips contributed by other members. After a vetting and often transcribing process by language tutors commissioned by the site, the clips are available free of charge in YouTube fashion. The twist? Members film each other in everyday activities, hoping other members will learn not just their native tongue, but also cultural innuendos lost in textbooks and more conventional means of language learning.
"One member filmed himself cooking in his kitchen. We got a few emails asking what condiments he used," says a bemused Warwick Hau, one of the site's more public faces. One emailer even wanted to know if she could achieve the same Chinese stir-fry using ingredients from her regular CR Vanguard (华润超级) supermarket. "We often forget our every day activities may not be as mundane to people on the other side of the world," Hau adds. Another such clip is "loaches" - a Chinese mother of 3 filmed her children and their friends playing with a bucket of loaches - slippery eel-like fish the children were picking up and gently squeezing between their fingers.
Lately the members have also begun to make cross-border friends and contacts. The ECpal function works much the same way sites like Facebook.com and MySpace.com work - members can invite each other to view their clips and make friends. And it has its fair share of juvenile humor as well. “Farting Competition” features two teenagers and graphic sound effects. Within several days, the clip was one of the most popular videos that week, likely due to mass-forwarding by the participants’ schoolmates.
For other members keen to learn more than the fact juvenile humor is similar everywhere, there are many home videos featuring unlikely little nuggets of wisdom. “The last thing I learned from the site is why you never find green caps for sale in China”, says Adam Schiedler one of the English language contributors to the site. Green caps signify cuckolded husbands, particularly shameful in China as they are a huge loss of face. Adam vows not to buy any green headgear for his newfound friends.
The subject matter of the videos often speaks volumes about its contributors. Members choose their own content and film the clip wherever they please, some of their efforts drawing attention to rural surroundings and the quaint insides of little homes otherwise not seen unless you backpack your way thru the tiny dirt roads and villages along the Chinese countryside.
Idyllic countrysides and cooking lessons aside however, ECpod marries the latest video sharing technology with the old school way of teaching a language - from the native speakers on the street. It's a modern, more convenient alternative to spending 6 months in China. And why not let the Chinese teach you?
Visit http://www.ECpod.com
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