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Language

Chinese is the hardest language to learn because it has no alphabet, therefore you have to learn it as phrases/word by word. There are two main types of Chinese, these are; Mandarin and Cantonese. In this article, the Chinese you will be learning is Cantonese.

The way you speak Chinese is totally different to the way you would read it. The way you read Chinese, is the way you would write it. I hope that made sense… 

Well the abbreviations in this article is the way you would speak Chinese.

I remember learning Chinese around 5, you would assume it’s easy for me since I’m Chinese, but it is hard. I was born in England and hardly need to use my mother tongue, making it difficult to learn from using Chinese practically. When i was in school, I would write phoneticallynext to the character (the way the word sounds). This made it very easy to learn. However for some words, the tone might sound slightly different, as there are 11 tones, which makes it much harder. It doesn’t bother me as the Chinese still understands They just know I’m foreign.

The Abbreviations

The meanings will be on the left and on the right beside them after the “=” sign are abbreviations. I would use pinyin however you may find it more difficult to read therefore these abbreviations should make it easier to pronounce and understand.

Phrases

• Hello = lay ho
• How are you? = lay ho ma?
• Good = Ho
• Not bad = mm chor
• Bad = mm ho
• I’m called (your name) = or gew (your name)
• And you? = Lay ah?
• How old are you? = lay gay dor sui ah?
• Bye = Joy geen

Numbers

• 1 = yat
• 2 = yee
• 3= sam
• 4= say
• 5 = mm
• 6= look
• 7= chuut
• 8 = bat
• 9 = go
• 10 = sup

Number rule

With numbers, you can combine them to make a larger number.

Here are some examples:

• 19 = say sup go
• 26 = yee sup look

• 32 = sam sup yee

Hobbies

What do you like doing? = lay your yee joe mut yeah ah?

I (really) like (insert hobby) = or (ho) your yee (insert hobby)

I (really) don’t like (insert hobby) – or (ho) mm your yee (insert hobby)

Reading = dok shoe

Swimming = yo sui

Playing = wan

Games = yo hay

Football = tet ball

Surfing the internet = seurng mon

To Write or Not to Write

People are often put off the idea of learning Chinese because they can’t imagine ever being able to write the characters. Although it is great to be able to read and write Chinese, it is not necessary to learn characters in order to be able to speak. In fact, many foreigners living in China speak excellent Chinese, but cannot read or write. Decide what your priorities are. If you want to become fluent and immerse yourself in Chinese characters, then you will need to learn them at some point. Otherwise, you can easily learn to speak Chinese without being able to read it.

Learning Sounds and Tones

Each Chinese character represents a sound, which is represented by “pinyin”, a romanisation system. Each sound has a tone, of which there are four (plus a neutral one): one that rises, one that falls, one that falls then rises and one that maintains a high level. This may sound complicated, but there are limited sounds that can easily be learned – although listening to BBC commentators misprounouncing Chinese names during the Olympics may make you think otherwise. It does require hard work to learn the sounds and tones, but a couple of months with a good teacher (or CD) is enough to get them under your belt, and then you are well on your way to speaking Chinese.

Grammar

Now this is the great bit. Chinese grammar is limited. There are, for example, no changes in verbs depending on whether it is past, future or present. Tense is signified by the addition of a word indicating time or by the context of the sentence. This makes Chinese much easier to learn than, for example, French or Russian – a basic vocabulary can see you go a long way. That isn’t to say that Chinese doesn’t have complexities – it does – but you can avoid most of these these until your language skills are stronger.

Repetition and Determination

Like most languages, there is no need to be “clever” to learn Chinese. What it does require though is patience, particularly if you want to learn the characters as well. I spent much of my first two years learning Chinese repeating vocabulary and testing myself using flashcards. This may not be necessary if you only want to learn the basics, but a certain amount of determination and repitition is needed nevertheless to ensure that the words and sentence patterns stick in your mind.

Find a Chinese Environment

Like any language, it is much easier to learn if you are hearing it all the time. That doesn’t mean moving to China, although that would of course help. Many cities have China Towns, although you will need to make sure that what you are hearing is Mandarin. If you think Chinese sounds unpleasant, it could well be because you’ve heard it in your local takeaway, and the chances are that it will be Cantonese or a Chinese dialect and not Mandarin. Spoken in its purest form, Mandarin is a beautiful, soft language that rises and falls according to the tones. Watching Chinese film or listening to Chinese radio is another option. And nowadays, it is easy to buy Chinese language CDs and DVDs on the Internet.

Learning Chinese may initially seem daunting, but it is incredibly fulfilling when you are able to speak to someone and be understood. And with around a quarter of the world’s population being Chinese, communicating in Chinese may not be as remote as you much think. Zhu ni hao yun! Good luck!

One unique tool to use when learning Chinese is called Hanyu Pinyin. It refers to the attempt to try to write sounds in the Chinese language using the Roman alphabet. It avoids the need to learn to read Chinese characters, at least for a while.

There are other languages used in China besides Mandarin. The language used in and around Beijing is the official language of the country. That is Mandarin Chinese. It is also the one which foreigners most want to learn. Although it is the national language, there are dialects within the language, just as there are many dialects of English. Those regional differences do not actually interfere much with learning the language.

Of course, immersion learning of a new language is usually the most effective. However, it is not always possible. In that case, language classes in Mandarin are available in many large cities. They offer the next best option. If one knows a few Chinese speakers, practice is possible with a native speaker for any corrections which need to be made while learning the language.

Do not discard the idea of a lot of self-instruction. Study from books and recordings can be beneficial in learning a second language. The major negative factor is the need to have some feedback on pronunciation and vocabulary. That is why having a native speaker around to provide feedback.

The two most important elements in learning Mandarin are perseverance and patience. The perseverance involves the self-discipline to make yourself stay on task. You need to work four days a week regularly in order to make progress. If you take time off for a couple weeks or longer, you will backslide in your language-learning goal.

Patience involves realizing that you will not be able to learn a new language in a few weeks. Take time to acquire quality rather than quantity. Learning to use the language and learning to begin to think in the language takes time. Do not try to learn great lists of new vocabulary or learn many grammar rules in the new language. Frankly, one will become more fluent after a year or two of study than within a month or two.

One of the major complications a native speaker of English has when learning Mandarin is the tones. There are four tones in Chinese. They are a high, flat tone, a rising tone, a lowering tone and a dipping tone. You can learn more about production of the tones by using a recording if you do not have a Mandarin native speaker available to assist you.

One last note concerns Mandarin-English dictionaries. They are useful for speaking Mandarin as they help you look up words to use to make your point. They are not helpful for listening to Mandarin since the spelling of words you hear will not be clear enough to look them up in a dictionary.

Learning Mandarin is one of the best tools you can get in trying to become internationally effective in many careers. Have patience and persevere; you can learn this great language.