Peace Corps volunteer Peace Corps / China 11/28/2006 The script accompanies the following 15 audio tracks: CN_Mandarin_Lesson_1 (Time 3:39) (File Size:1.5MB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_2 (Time 14:52)(File Size:6.1MB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_3 (Time 4:45) (File Size:1.95MB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_4 (Time 2:07) (File Size:873KB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_5 (Time 3:14) (File Size:1.3MB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_6 (Time 4:22) (File Size:1.8MB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_7 (Time 3:01) (File Size:1.24MB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_8 (Time 3:37) (File Size:1.49MB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_9 (Time 1:24) File Size:576KB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_10 (Time 1:50)(File Size:757KB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_11 (Time 1:19)(File Size:544KB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_12 (Time 1:12)(File Size:497KB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_13 (Time 2:41)(File Size:1.1MB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_1 (Time 1:01)(File Size:420KB) CN_Mandarin_Lesson_1 (Time 1:25)(File Size:588KB) Text Mandarin is the official language of the People’s Republic of China. It is the dialect spoken in the capital Beijing. It is taught in all schools and is used for television and broadcast. Almost the entire population understands Mandarin. The language taught in Pre-Service Training (PST) is Mandarin. Chinese is a language with a large number of words with the same pronunciation but a different meaning; what distinguishes these ‘homophones，is their ‘tonal，quality - the raising and lowering of pitch on certain syllables. Mandarin has four tones - high, rising, falling-rising and falling, plus a fifth ‘neutral，tone. To illustrate, look at the word ma which has four different meanings according to tone: High ma ‘mother， Rising ma ‘hemp， or ‘numb， Falling-rising ma ‘horse， Falling ma ‘to scold， or ‘swear，

Chinese is not a phonetic language and the characters do not bear any resemblance to actual pronunciation. Chinese is often referred to as a language of pictographs. There are about 56,000 characters, but the vast majority of these are archaic. It is commonly felt that a well-educated, contemporary Chinese might know and use between 6000 and 8000 characters. To read a Chinese newspaper you will need to know 2000 to 3000, but 1200 to 1500 would be enough to get the gist. Each Chinese character represents a spoken syllable, so many people declare that Chinese is a ‘monosyllabic language.，Actually, it，s more a case of having a monosyllabic writing system. While the building block of the Chinese language is indeed the monosyllabic Chinese character, Chinese words are usually a combination of two or more characters. You could think of Chinese words as being compounds.

In 1958 China adopted a system of writing their language using the Roman alphabet. It's known as Pinyin. It is used in this course.

Chinese grammar is much simpler than that of European languages. There are no articles (a/the), no tenses and no plurals. The basic point to bear in mind is that, like English, Chinese word order is subject-verb-object. In other words, a basic English sentence like ‘I (subject) love (verb) you (object)，is constructed in exactly the same way in Chinese..

There are 6 basic vowels and 21 consonants in Mandarin Chinese. A syllable always consists of a vowel (V) or a consonant with a vowel (CV), such as ba, fo, ne. Consonant clusters, two or more consonants used in succession, are not permitted in Chinese. Syllabic combinations common in English such as VC (up, at), CVC (big, pat, map), CCVC (bred, dread, stone), CVCC (mask, best, sand), CcV (fly, blue, grow) CCCV (screw, spray, stray), VCC (old, and, ink), VCCC (Olds, ants, amps), CCVCC (brand, trains, swings), CVCCC (tests, tenths, lunged), CVCCCC (thirsts, texts, worlds), CCVCCC (slurps, prints, flirts), CCCVC (street, squat, strut), CCCVCC (struts, squats, sprained), and CCCVCCC (scrimps, sprints, squelched) are not possible in Chinese. CVC, on the other hand, is possible in Chinese, but the final C can only be the nasal sounds -n and -ng and the retroflex -r, such as jing, nan, yong and er. Consonants are often called initials because they invariably appear initially in a word with the exception of the final -n, -ng or r, which can appear finally. Vowels are also called finals because they appear medially or finally in a word. Vowels can stand by themselves when no initial consonant is present. Let’s learn the finals (vowels) first: MANDARIN SIMILAR ENGLISH SOUND EXAMPLE (PINYIN & CHARACTER) NOTE a Father ba爸 e fur ce测 i see dr地 o or po婆 u flute bu不 u German ‘fur， Lu绿 Written as ‘u， when appearing after ‘j q x， ai fly nai奶 ao now ha。好 ei day mei美 ia yard xia下 ie yes xie谢 iu yolk liu六 ou low lou楼 ua wah hua花 ue you ate yue月 ‘ue， stands for a syllable by itself, so it is written as ‘yue，, with the 2 dots dropped ui way hu!会 uo war zuo做 iao miaow yao要 Bb boy ba爸 Pp paper po婆 Mm mother ma妈 Ff food fa发 Dd door da大 Tt tall ta他 Nn name ni你 Ll life le乐 Gg girl ge个 Kk kid ke客 Hh high he和 Jj jeans jie姐 the lips do not protrude Qq cheese qian 钱 Xx shock xiu休 the lips do not protrude Zz kids zuo坐 Cc cats ca擦 Not a equivalent in English Ss sir san三 Zhzh joy zhao 找 pronounced without rounding and protruding the lips Now the initials (consonants): MANDARIN SIMILAR ENGLISH SOUND EXAMPLE (PINYIN & CHARACTER) NOTE Bb boy ba爸 Pp paper po婆 Mm mother ma妈 Ff food fa发 Dd door da大 Tt tall ta他 Nn name ni你 Ll life le乐 Gg girl ge个 Kk kid ke客 Hh high he和 Jj jeans jie姐 the lips do not protrude Qq cheese qian 钱 Xx shock xiu休 the lips do not protrude Zz kids zuo坐 Cc cats ca擦 Not a equivalent in English Ss sir san三 Zhzh joy zhao 找 pronounced without rounding and protruding the lips Chch child chuang 床 See above Shsh shoe shuo 说 See above Rr red ruan 软 See above Vv visit Only to spell foreign words Ww white wo夜 Is actually ‘u，when ‘u，stands for a syllable by itself Yy year you有 Is actually ‘i，（see above) Some sounds are especially difficult for English speakers to remember, and have similar pronunciations. The sound q9 for example, sounds a little like ch. Similar pairs are xand h and j and zh. zi ci si zhi chi shi ri ji qi xi

High high, flat, continuous tone Rising ' rising tone similar to the intonation used in the question What?， Falling-rising " tone that falls then rises. You'll hear many Mandarin speakers ‘swallow，the rising sound, only giving it a clear falling-rising pattern far emphasis. Falling 、 falling tone, similar to the one used when yelling ‘Damn!， To help you get close, here's a brief try at tones, transcribed in English. Consider the syllable ‘mmm，（a non-syllable in Mandarin). Then, The high level tone is what you might say in English if you were asked a question, and you had to think about it before answering. It's high, and it's a constant tone: “Mmm, sixteen, I think.” ' The rising tone is like a question: “Mmm? I didn't catch that.” ▽ The low level tone is what you might say in English to express doubt, or disbelief: “Mmm...I don't know about that.” 、 The falling tone is like an interjection: “Mmm! Well, I'll be!” Listen and repeat: first tone Choose the syllables you heard: first tone second tone third tone fourthtone a a a a ma ma ma ma tang tang tang tang qing qing qing qing yan yan yan yan guo guo guo guo didian ditan baobian baopian tonghong gongtong daodian daotian zaizuo caicuo xingqiu jiyou canting kanxin cesuo jiecuo jian zhan xue yue shui jue ri ceng zi qing rou zou xuan juan zhun zhen chen yue chun yun jiang zhang cang shang

Mandarin grammar is relatively straightforward. There are no verb conjugations, no plurals, no articles (a/the), and no gender or tenses. At an elementary level, sentence order is similar to English: subject-verb-object. For example, the sentence ‘I study Chinese’ follows exactly the same word order in Mandarin: I study Chinese. W[o xu>e h]any[u 。(lit: I study Chinese) Let，s learn a few words first: this zhe that na to be shi tea cha rice/meal fan cup beizi egg jidan question particle ma no bu what shenme Then you can talk about objects: This is tea. Zhe shi ch 。 That is rice. Na shi fan。 This is a cup. Zhe shi beizi。 That is an egg. Na shi jid]an。 Note: ‘Shi，is ‘to be，. It is generally followed by a noun which defines the subject/topic. It is not normally followed by an adjective on its own.

A very simple way to form a question in Chinese is by putting a question particle ‘ma，at the end of a sentence that would otherwise be a plain statement. English counterparts of these questions are usually formed by syntactically more complicated “transformational” processes such as movement of the verb to the beginning of the sentence. Is this tea? Zhe shi cha ma? Yes./ No. Shi / Bu shi。 Is that rice? Na shi fan ma? Yes. /No. Shi / Bu shi。 Is this a cup? Zhe shi beizi ma? Yes./No. Shi / Bu shi。 Is that an egg? Na shi jidan ma? Yes. /No. Shi / Bu shi。 Note: The word ‘bu，is the negative word. It precedes the verb to indicate that something does not happen. Here its tone changes from the fourth to the second because it is followed by a fourth tone. You will learn the rule in the future.

‘什么 Shenme’ is the interrogative word ‘what’. The most important feature about Chinese interrogative pronouns is that, unlike English practice which shifts all interrogative pronouns to the beginning of the question, Chinese keeps them in the position in the sentence where the answers would be expected. What is this? Zhe shi shenme? This is tea. Zhe shi cha。 What is that? Na shi shenme? That is a cup. Na shi b3izi。

you (singular) n[i I, me w[o good, all right h[ao goodbye z]aiji]an morning z[ao morning z[aosh]ang afternoon xi]aw[u evening w[ansh]ang

A: How are you? A: N[[i h[ao。 B: How are you? B: N[i h[ao。 A: Goodbye. A: Z]aiji]an。 B: Goodbye. B: Z]aiji]an。 Note: You can change the morning ‘z[aosh]ang’ to afternoon ‘ xi]aw[u’ or evening ‘w[ansh]ang’ respectively, and add good ‘h[ao’ to greet people in different times of a day.

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