Learning Basic Traveling Mandarin Chinese (Part 2)

Many readers responded that the dialogues in previous post about asking directions with Mandarin are very practical; however, they thought it would be better if I can provide the demonstrative video or just audio file of that conversation because it is a little bit difficult for beginners.

Okay, although I am neither a professional movie maker nor an occupational voice recorder, I would like to try my best to fulfill my readers’ and/or students’ demands on learning Mandarin. As a TCSOL certified good Chinese language teacher, I have done some works to finalize a “video” which demonstrates the dialogues scenario in Learning Basic Traveling Mandarin Chinese (Part 1).

Here you are.

Learning Basic Traveling Mandarin Chinese (Part 1)

One question that I asked my students very often is why they want to learn Mandarin or Chinese. Some responses are pretty unexpected, for example, some people just purely think the Chinese characters are very beautiful so they wanna learn, recognize and write them. If you are interested in either how the Chinese characters were developed from thousands years ago and evolved with the history or how to map the simplified and traditional Chinese characters, here are two sites as followed where you can learn something,

  1. The evolution of Chinese characters
  2. How to write simplified and traditional Chinese characters

On the other hand, most of students want to utilize Mandarin or Chinese as a tool. For instance, some of them would like to learn it because they are going to join the Expo 2010 Shanghai China which will get started on May 1st, 2010 and they also wish that they could travel around Shanghai by themselves without any problem. That’s why the topic of this article is “Basic Traveling Mandarin or Chinese”, I shall introduce some frequently used conversation sentences about asking direction under a traveling scenario as follows,

Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Pinyin (Mandarin Pronunciation)
English Translation

胡英九：您好！
胡英九：您好！
Hu2 Ying1 Jiu3: nin2 hao3!
Mr. Hu: Hello.

馬錦濤：您好！
马锦涛：您好！
Ma3 Jin3 Tao1: nin2 hao3!
Mr. Ma: Hello.

胡英九：請問台灣百貨公司怎麼走？
胡英九：请问台湾百货公司怎么走？
Hu2 Ying1 Jiu3: Qing3 wen4 tai2 wan1 bai3 huo4 gong1 si1 zen3 me zou3?
Mr. Hu: Would you please show me the way to Taiwan Department Store?

馬錦濤：您延著上海路往東直走，遇到海峽路右轉就會看到了。
马锦涛：您延着上海路往东直走，遇到海峡路右转就会看到了。
Ma3 Jin3 Tao1: nin2 yan2 zhe shang4 hai3 lu4 wang3 dong1 zhi2 zou3, yu4 dao4 hai3 xia2 lu4 you4 zhuan3 jiu4 hui4 kan4 dao4 le.
Mr. Ma: Heading east along with Shanghai Road and turn right on Haixia Road then you will see it.

胡英九：那大概要走多久呢？
胡英九：那大概要走多久呢？
Hu2 Ying1 Jiu3: na4 da4 gai4 yao4 zou3 duo1 jiu3 ne?
Mr. Hu: How long will it take by feet?

馬錦濤：這要看交通狀況而定，現在是尖峰時刻，可能要走三十分鐘。
马锦涛：这要看交通状况而定，现在是尖峰时刻，可能要走三十分钟。
Ma3 Jin3 Tao1: zhe4 yao4 kan4 jiao1 tong1 zhuang4 kuang4 er2 ding4, xian4 zai4 shi4 jian1 feng1 shi2 ke4, ke3 neng2 yao4 zou3 san1 shi2 fen1 zhong1.
Mr. Ma: It depends. It may take you thirty minutes because now is rush hour.

胡英九：哇，這麼久！那請問有沒有大眾運輸可以搭乘？
胡英九：哇，这么久！那请问有没有大众运输可以搭乘？
Hu2 Ying1 Jiu3: wa1, zhe4 me jiu3! na4 qing3 wen4 you3 mei2 you3 da4 zhong4 yun4 shu1 ke3 yi3 da1 cheng2?
Mr. Hu: Wow, it’s so long. Is there any public transportation alternative?

馬錦濤：有的，您可搭乘地鐵紅線，不用五分鐘就會到了。
马锦涛：有的，您可搭乘地铁红线，不用五分钟就会到了。
Ma3 Jin3 Tao1: you3 de, nin2 ke3 da1 cheng2 di4 tie3 hong2 xian4, bu2 yong4 wu3 fen1 zhong1 jiu4 hui4 dao4 le.
Mr. Ma: Sure, you can take the red line subway to your destination within five minutes.

胡英九：謝謝您，再見！
胡英九：谢谢您，再见！
Hu2 Ying1 Jiu3: xie4 xie nin2, zai4 jian4!
Mr. Hu: Thank you. See you.

馬錦濤：不客氣，再見！
马锦涛：不客气，再见！
Ma3 Jin3 Tao1: bu2 ke4 qi4, zai4 jian4!
Mr. Ma: You are welcome. See you.

*Note: The number after each pinyin means the tone of it.

Chinese New Year Is Coming…

Some people may know that the date of Chinese New Year is not on January 1st and maybe a few people also get that the date of Chinese New Year varies every year. That’s correct, because the date is based on lunar calendar rather than the solar calendar. In 2010, it’s very coincident on the same day with Western Valentine’s Day. What do Chinese people do on that day? And how do we celebrate it?

The previous evening before Chinese New Year is called Chinese New Year Eve, it’s similar to the Christmas Eve. Most people do not have to work in that evening and all family members have a yearly reunion. In the past, people eat and drink at home. But recently, more and more people go out to restaurants for dinner. Thus they can enjoy the meal and without wasting time on preparing it. During the dinner, there is a very important activity called “red envelope giving”. The elders will give a red envelope (looks like below one)

(Source: http://www.igobh.com/UploadFile/200911/2009112807123357dEp.jpg)

to each younger with cash inside ranges from $200 to $10,000 or higher Taiwan dollars (about $6.7 to $333.3+ US dollars) depends on their economic conditions. And every adult will also give red envelopes to not only their children but also their parents which burn a hole in their pockets. However, it makes everyone happy. You can check out this website to see the flash introduction about the origins of some Chinese festivals. (The website's interface language is Chinese, click on the up-left button to see the origin of Chinese New Year.)

You should already notice that there is a tiger on the cover of the red envelope above, it’s not just a meaningless picture, it’s because the coming Chinese New Year is so-called Tiger Year. Tiger is one of the twelve animals for indicating each special Chinese year, and they take turns in this order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Ram, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. If you are interested in this, a book written by a popular author can tell you more.

The cultural differences which would impact the learning of Mandarin Course and Mandarin Classes (Part 1)

As I discussed about the different number unit between English and Chinese, I would like to talk more about the cultural difference between China and other countries today.

First of all, let me share with you a real case happened on one of my female friends. She is a Taiwanese and she studied abroad in Canada several years ago, where she met a charming Canadian guy then they fell in love. That was a wonder period when they stuck together in Canada; however, she missed her family so much that she came back to Taiwan right after she had graduated from University. Her thoughtful boyfriend could understand her feeling and decided to accompany her to Taiwan. Nevertheless, they broke up finally, why? How could such a sweet couple away from each other? The problem was misunderstandings leaded by cultural difference.

Once her boyfriend arrived Taiwan, just like most American or European, he attempted to visit her family includes her siblings and of course her parents. But in Chinese culture, unless we live alone, we would rarely invite our friends to our home when we live with other family members especially some elders in order not to disturb them. He could not understand this, so he conjectured that she might has not loved him anymore. They argued seriously for that. Eventually, she compromised with him and brought him home. Unfortunately, this is just a beginning of another misunderstanding.

On that BIG day, he waked up early and went to a famous flower market to pick up a bunch of beautiful flowers as a great gift he thought. But her mother was not so happy when she received it, you know why? Because in most of cases, we only take flowers to see a patient in the hospital or a dead man in the graveyard if the relation between the sender and receiver is not lover. Therefore, her mother was definitely unhappy because she was healthy and alive. She saw the “gift” as a “curse” which might cause her ill or even dead.

There are many other true stories about the difference between Chinese culture and others, some of them are comedy while some are tragedy. Please allow me to share with you later.

Tips for Learning Mandarin or Chinese by Yourself.

First of all, it depends on what do you want to learn? Listening & Speaking or Reading and Writing? Of course, the purpose and scenario is also important, for business conversation or social interaction?

For example, if you are a business man and you wanna learn some simple commercial sentences like how to negotiate the price in Chinese (Mandarin). The first thing you need to learn is the unit of numbers. One significant difference between English and Chinese in amount is that there is no “ten thousand” or “one hundred thousand” in Chinese, we use “wàn” and “ten wàn” respectively. Once you know this, you can go to a Chinatown nearby and practice it with any native Chinese sellers. During that process, not only can you be familiar with the usage of correct unit, but also enjoy the bargaining fun.

By the way, there are numerous on-line resources that can help you to learn Mandarin or Chinese at home as long as you have a computer and internet. What’s even better, some of them are totally FREE or have a FREE trial! I will share three of them to you now as followed, and the snapshots of these websites are also attached for your reference.

1. U.S. Chinese Culture Center – FREE basic textbooks and audio/video files

2. Rocket Chinese – FREE 6-Day interactive audios + grammar/culture lessons

3. My Chinese Tutor – More than 30 FREE on-line speech correction lessons

I sincerely hope these are helpful for you to study Mandarin or Chinese by yourself.

Learning Mandarin or Chinese Is Getting More and More Important!!!

The motive of learning Mandarin or Chinese has changed from purely being interested in Chinese culture to be deeply attracted by the huge economic opportunities come along with the rapid growth of China. In many countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, France, Japan and Korea, a lot of elementary and high schools have opened Chinese (Mandarin) related curriculums to cultivate young students’ second language as early as possible.

It’s an obvious trend that Mandarin or Chinese will be one of the major international languages which not only used in daily communication but also applied to official and academic fields. “By 2050, Chinese will continue its predominance, with Hindi-Urdu of India and Arabic climbing past English, and Spanish nearly equal to it.”, said by David Graddol, a British linguist.

However, Mandarin or Chinese is to be generally acknowledged as the most difficult language to learn. Especially when you have graduated from school and your faculty of memory is no longer excellent like before. :( What can you do? An experienced, responsible and creative tutor who can customize the training for you is definitely the best choice. But if there is no one qualified around you, please don’t be dejected, here are some tips for learning by yourself. Let me share them in another new topic. :)