Monday, August 6, 2012

NUMBERS in MANDARIN


The number beside the mandarin word represents the tone. Therefore yi1 is actually

yi1 one, 1

er4 two, 2

san1 three, 3

si4 four, 4

wu3 five, 5

liu4 six, 6

qi1 seven, 7

ba1 eight, 8

jiu3 nine, 9

shi2 ten, 10


十一 shi2 yi1 eleven, 11


十二 shi2 er4 twelve, 12


十三 shi2 san1 thirteen, 13

........

二十 er4 shi2 twenty, 20

bai3 hundred, 100

二百 er4 bai3 two hundred, 200

三百 san1 bai3 three hundred, 300

五百 wu3 bai3 five hundred, 500

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Greetings

 
We have already learned about "ni hao" - Hello.Following are the other common greeting that can be used in Mandarin. 

Good Morning

zǎo  ān 早 安
zǎo shàng hǎo - 早上好

Zǎo means “morning.”

The Chinese character zǎo is a composite of two characters - (meaning sun) and . The character is an old form of jiǎ , which means “first” or “armor.” A literal interpretation of the character zǎo , therefore, is “first sun.”

The second character - ān - means "peace", so the literal translation of zǎo ān - 早安 is "morning peace".

zǎo shàng - 早上 together means  "early morning"
hǎo - means "good".  So the literal translation of zǎo shàng hǎo - 早上好 is "early morning good". 


Good Night

wǎn ān 晚安

Wǎn means "late" and together  wǎn ān means " late peace" which is used for "good night"


Good Afternoon and Good evening

                                  Zhong wu hao    中午好
                                  Xia wu hao     下午




Appropriate Timings

These greetings should be said at the appropriate time of the day. 

 

Other greetings: 

Good Bye

Zài jiàn  再见

" Zài " means " again" and "jiàn" means "to see" . The literal meaning for " zài jiàn" means "see you again" but it can be used as good bye .

See you tomorrow

                                   Ming tian jian 田明见

Mingtian means " tomorrow"

Thanks

                                    XieXie  謝謝, 

You are welcome

                                      bù kè qi  不客氣

"bù kè qi "literally means "Don't be polite" in MandarinThe Chinese have the tendency to negate a polite action/comment from another, rather than acknowledge it



Wednesday, August 1, 2012

He , She and It

The same word Ta in the flat tone is used for He , She and It. But the written form is different for all the three.


English
Chinese Word
Chinese Character
He
Ta
She
Ta
It
Ta
They
Ta men
他 们

Please follow the video to understand the stroke order for Ta in different contexts.