Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center Nonresident Training Division

Presidio of Monterey Street CA 939,14-500 USA

A MODULAR APPROACH AUGUST 1979 This publication is to be used primarily in support of instructing military personnel as part of the Defense Language Program (resident and nonresident). Inquiries concerning the use of materials, including requests for copies, should be addressed to: Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center Nonresident Training Division Presidio of Monterey, CA 93944-5006 Topics in the areas of politics, international relations, mores, etc, which may be considered as controversial from some points of view, are sometimes included in the language instruction for DL1FLC students since military personnel may find themselves in positions where a clear understanding of conversations or written materials of this nature will be essential to their mission. The presence of controversial statements-whether real or apparent-in DLIFLC materials should not be construed as representing the opinions of the writers, the DLIFLC or the Department of Defense. Actual brand names and businesses are sometimes cited in DLIFLC instructional materials to provide instruction in pronunciations and meanings. The selection of such proprietary terms and names is based solely on their value for instruction m the language. It does not constitute endorsement of any product or commercial enterprise, nor is it intended to invite a comparison with other brand names and businesses not mentioned. In DLIFLC publications, the words he, him, and/or his denote both masculine and feminine genders. This statement does not apply to translations of foreign language texts. The DLIFLC may not have full rights to the materials it produces. Purchase by the customer does net constitute authorization for reproduction, resale, or showing for profit. Generally, products distributed by the DLIFLC may be used in any not-for-profit setting without prior approval from the DUFLC SPONSORED BY AGENCIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADIAN GOVERNMENTS A modular approach Standard Chinese: A ModuIar Approach originated in an inter-agency conference held at the Foreign Service Institute in August 1973 to address the need generaI y felt In the U.S. Government language training community for Improving and updating Chinese materials to reflect current usage In Běijīng and in Taipei. The conference resolved to develop materials which were flexible enough in form and content to meet the requIrements of a wide range of government agencies and academIc institutions. A Project Board was established consisting of representatives of the Central Intelligence Agency Language Learning Center, the Defense Language Institute, the State Department's Foreign Service Institute, the Cryptologic School of the NationaI Security Agency, and the U.S. Office of Education, later joined by the Canadian Forces Foreign Language Schools. The representatives have incIuded Arthur T. McNeill, John Hopkins, and John Boag (CIA); Colonel John F. Elder lll, Joseph C. Hutchinson, Ivy Gibian, and Major Bernard Muller-Thym (D L I ); James R. Frith and John B. Ratliff lll (FSI ); Kazuo Shitama (NSA); Richard T. Thompson and Julia Petrov (OE); and Lieutenant Colonel George Kozorlz (CFFLS). Th© Project Board set up the Chinese Core Curriculum Project in 1974 in space provided at the Foreign Service Institute. Each of the six U.S. and Canadian government agencies provided funds and other assistance, Gerard P. Kok was appointed project coordinator and a planning council was formed consisting of Mr. Kok, Frances Li of the Defense Language Institute, Patricia 0'Connor of the University of Texas, Earl M, RIckerscn of the Language Learning Center, and James Wrenn of Brown University. In the fall of 1977, Lucille A. Barale was appointed deputy project coordinator. David W. Dellinger of the Language Learning Center and Charles R. Sheehan of the Foreign Service Institute also served on the planning council and contributed material to the project. The pIanning council drew up the original overall design for the materials and met regularly to review the development. Writers for the first half of the materials were John H. T. Harvey, Lucille A. Barale, and Roberta S. Barry, who worked in close cooperation wIth the planning council and with the Chinese staff of the Foreign Service Institute. Mr_ Harvey developed the instructional formats of the comprehension and production self-study materials, and also designed the communication—based classroom activities and wrote the teacher's guides. Lucille A. Barale and Roberta S. Barry wrote the tape scripts and the student text. By 1978 Thomas E Madden and Susan C. Pola had joined the staff. Led by Ms. Barale, they have worked as a team to produce the materials subsequent to Module 6. All Chinese language material was prepared or seIectad by Chuan 0. Chao, Ying-chih Chen, Hsiao-jung Chi, Eva Diao, Jan Hu, Tsung-mi Li, and Yunhui C. Yang, assisted for part of the time by Chieh-fang Ou Lee, Ying-ming Chen, and Joseph Yu Hsu Wang. Anna Affholder Mei-II Chen, and Henry Khuo helped in the preparation of a preliminary corpus of dialogues, Administrative assistance was provided at varIous times by Vincent Basciano, Lisa A. Bowden, Jill W. Ellis, Donna Fong, Renee T. C. Liang, Thomas E, Madden, Susan C. Pola, and Kathleen Strype_ The production of tape recordings was directed by Jose M, Ramirez of the Foreign Service Institution Recording Studio, The Chinese script was voiced by Ms. Chao, Ms. Chen, Mr. Chen, Ms, Diao, M. Hu, Mr. Khuo, Mr. Li, and Ms. Yang. 丁 he English script was read by Ms. Barale, Ms. Barry, Mr. Basciano, Ms. Ellis, Ms. Pola, and Ms. Strype. The graphics were produced by John McClelland of the Foreign Service Institute Audio-Visual staff, under the general supervision of Joseph A. Sadote, Chief of Audio-VisuaI. Standard Chinese ： A. Modular Approach was field-tested with the cooperation of Brown University, the Defense Language Institute, Foreign Language Center; the Foreign Service Institute, the Language Learning Canter; the United States Air Force Academy the University of Illinois and the UnIversity of Virginia. ColoneI Samuel L. Stapleton and CoIone Thomas G. Foster, Commandants of the Defense Language Institute, Foreign Language Center, authorized the DLIFLC support necessary for preparation of this edition of the course materials. This support Included coordination, graphic arts, editing, typing, proofreading, printing, and materials necessary to carry out these tasks. Your chief concern as you start this course is learning to pronounce Chinese. The Orientation Module, which plunges you right Into trying to say things in Chinese, naturally involves a certain amount of pronunciation work. This resource module is designed to supplement that work with a brief, systematic introduction to the sound system of Standard Chinese, as well as to Its written representation in Pīnyīn romanization. The essential part of this module consists of the Pronunciation and RomanIzation (P&R) tapes and the accompanying dIsplays and exercises in the workbook section of this module. You should work through at least the fIrst four of these tapes, and preferably the first six, while you are studying the Orientation Module. FoIlowing the workbook section of this module, you will find a summary of pronunciation and romanization. You might want to gIance at this before starting the tapes, particularly to locate certain charts and lists which could be helpful for reference, But it would probably be better to put off studying the summary until after you have finished the tapes. The tapes are intended as an introduction, while the summary is not. For one thing, text discussions of the sounds of the language cannot equal the recorded presentations and your teacher's oral presentations. For another thing, the summary provides considerably more Information than you will need or want at first, Both the tapes and the summary contain discussions of the sounds of the language and their spellings. You may find that these discussions offer useful hints, allowing you to put your intellect to work on the problems of pronunciation and romanization. However, particularly in pronunciation, most of your learning must come from doing. It is Important to practIce, reading and writing the romanization, but it is vital to practice recognizing and producing the sounds of the language. Serious and sustained attempts to mimic, as faithfully as possible, either your Instructor or the speakers on the tapes will allow you to pick up unconsciously far more than you can attend to consciously. The most important thing for you to do is to abandon the phonetic "prejudices" you have built up as a speaker of English and surrender yourself to the sounds of Chinese. Being less set than adults in their ways, children are quicker to pick up a proper accent. Try to regress to the phonetic suggestibility of childhood, however hard it is to shed the safe and comfortable rigidity and certainty of adulthood. The most your intellect can supply is a certain amount of guidance and monitorIng. Be sure to repeat the words and sentences on the tapes In your full normal speaking voice, or even louder, as if you were speaking to someone at a reasonable distance. When you speak to yourself under your breath, you are considerably less precise in your pronunciation than when you speak aloud. This is all right in English, since you can already pronounce the language. But, In Chinese, you would not be practicing that skill which you are trying to develop, and you wouId find yourself at a loss when you tried to switch to full volume In class. One of the advantages an adult has over a child in learning a language is the ability to make use of a written representation of it. In this course you learn the Pīnyīn system of romanizatIon at the same time that you are learning the sound system of Standard Chinese, (The non-aIphabetic system of written characters is taught as a separate component of the course,) You will find that Pīnyīn is not the simplest possible phonetic transcription. Some of the letters and combinations of letters chosen to represent the sounds of Chinese are not the most obvious ones. While consonant letters generally stand for fixed consonant sounds, voweI letters can stand for various voweI sounds, depending on what letters precede them and follow them. Some of the abbreviation rules are more trouble than they are worth at first. These drawbacks –-which are actually relatively minor compared with those of most spelling systems --- stem from the fact that Pīnyīn was designed for speakers of Chinese, not for speakers of English. The primary consideration in devising the system was the most efficient use of the letters of the Roman alphabet to represent sounds of Chinese. The drawbacks to learn Pīnyīn are considerabIy outweighed by the advantage that Pīnyīn is widely taught and used as a supplementary script in the People's Republic of China. You are learning Pīnyīn not merely as an aid during the first few weeks of the course, but also as one of the ways Chinese is actually written, and as what may well represent the wave of the future. NOTE: A number of surnames used in this module are rare. Some may even be unfamiliar to most Chinese, although all are authentic. These rare surnames are used to Illustrate various contrasts in sound and spelling. Subtitle of Chapter Subtitle of Section 1 Text

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