Giáo trình tiếng Hoa

Số lượng người học tiếng Trung mỗi năm một tăng trên toàn thế giới nói chung và Việt Nam nói riêng. “Nếu dựa trên tiêu chí số lượng người sử dụng thì tiếng phổ thông Trung Quốc là ngôn ngữ đứng đầu với hơn 1 tỉ người sử dụng, tiếng Anh có 508 triệu người,.

In this first lesson we will learn the pronouns, the verb "to be", and the occupations "student",

"teacher", and "businessperson"

After all, aren't we a little bit of all three?

The simple sentence pattern of pronoun + be + complement is a a quick and easy way to

convey information about people - "He is an American", "They are students", "She is my coworker" etc

Once you get in the basic form, it's simply a matter of plugging in additional vocabulary (which

we will do in later lessons)

He and she have the same pronunciation in Mandarin, tā; in the written language they are

differentiated by their characters, 他 for he and 她 for she

To make the plural of any pronoun just add 们 men to the singular form of the pronoun Please note that the distinction between plural and singular is not quite as important in Chinese, often

the plural will simply be implied by the context

1.02 Pronouns and the verb "to be"

我是

Wǒ shì

I am

他是

The verb to be 是 shì does not decline, that is to say that its form stays the same no matter who is

performing the action Compared to the English "I am", "You are", "He is", it is actually much easier, right?

Also, please be aware that there are no spaces between the words in a Chinese sentence!

1.03 Pronouns, the verb "to be", and the noun complement "student"

Nouns in Mandarin Chinese usually have a single form that is used whether the noun is singular

or plural That is why 学生 xuésheng remains the same for 他是 生。学 Tā shì xuésheng and 他 们是学生。Tāmen shì xuésheng

You can add 们 men to create a special plural form of the noun, but this is really only used in special situations, often for rhetorical effect

Vocabulary point:

学 xué is, on its own, a verb that means to study Paired with the character 生 shēng it creates a new noun, student 学生 xuésheng

Pronunciation point:

You may have noticed that on its own, 生 shēng has a line over it, whereas when it is paired with

学 xué it does not That is because the 生 shēng in 学生 xuésheng changes to a neutral tone, due

something known as "tone sandhi", which is Sanskrit for "incredibly coy linguistic term" What "tone sandhi" means is that you pronounce words differently based on the words that comebefore or after it Native speakers of Chinese do this intuitively, as do practiced foreign speakers

of Chinese As a beginner student, it really isn't worth worrying about, and as an intermediate level student there will be some tricks you can learn that will help you along

1.04 Pronouns, the verb "to be", and the noun complement "teacher" and "business person" 我是老师。 Wǒ shì lǎoshī

你是商人。 Nǐ shì shāngrén

您是老师。 Nín shì lǎoshī

他是商人。 Tā shì shāngrén

她是老师。 Tā shì lǎoshī

老 lǎo means old, but that is not an exact translation, For starters, it is only used in reference to

people, never things Secondly, it is often combined with other characters to make positions and titles of respect, such as 老师 lǎoshī teacher

People often point out that 老 lǎo carries positive connotations that old does not carry in the West Since 老 lǎo refers only to people and never to things, we could translate it as senior, an English word that has both the meaning of "aged" as well as "having more authority"

商 shāng means business, and 人 rén means person or people, thus 商人 shāngrén literally

means "business person"

1.05 Pronouns, the verb "to be", and the noun complements "man" and "woman"

You will often see Woman 女 nǚ and man 男 nán used on their own as abbreviations on

restrooms, forms, etc

1.06 You cheeky monkey!

Vocabulary point:

木头人 mùtourén literally means "wood head person", the meaning of which seems pretty

self-explanatory We ought to recognize 人 rén from the other words we have studied this lesson, such as 女人 nǚrén and 商人 shāngrén

Nǐ shì xuéshēng

ma?

Are you a student?

他是商人。

Tā shì shāngrén

He is a business person

他是商人吗?

Tā shì shāngrén

ma?

Is he a business person?

2.02 Countries and Nationalities

你是美国人吗？

Nǐ shì Měiguórén

ma?

Are you American?

他是中 人。国

Tā shì Zhōngguórén

He is Chinese

他是中 人国 吗？

Tā shì Zhōngguórén

Is he Chinese?

ma?

她是德国人。

Tā shì Déguórén

She is German

2.04 Nationality - a simple dialogue

The sentence pattern for asking for a first name is:

Pronoun + call (叫) + what (什么) + name (名字)?

什么 shénme what is an interrogative pronoun, and the first of the big six question words we will

encounter (who, what, when, where, why and how)

Note as well that 叫 jiào does not change form according to the noun

3.02 Hello! - a simple dialogue

In Chinese as well as English there are two main ways to state your name, the first being 我叫

Wǒ jiào My name is and the second being 我是 Wǒ shì I'm

你好! Nǐ hǎo! Hello! is the most common greeting in China, a direct translation would be "You

good!"

好 hǎo means good, which in English is an adjective However, in Chinese, 好 hǎo can also

sometimes be a verb (as in "to get better"), and it can also be something called a "predicate

adjective" which basically means a verb that acts like an adjective This is why there is no verb

to be 是 shì in the sentence 你好! Nǐ hǎo!

We will cover predicate adjectives more fully in lesson 21 The point to remember here is that

we should say 你好! Nǐ hǎo! not 你是好! Nǐ shì hǎo!

3.03 Nice to meet you! - everyday expressions

认识 rènshi is a verb that means to know, to recognize, to be familiar with

高兴 gāoxìng is an adjective that means happy, elated, the literal meaning of the first character

of the word, 高 gāo means high and the second character 兴 xìng means interest

很 hěn very is an adverb and is one of the most used words in the Chinese language.

3.04 Hello! - the extended dialogue

Nǐ hǎo! Wǒ shì Mǎté Nǐ jiào shénme míngzì?

莎拉: 我叫莎拉。 高Wǒ jiào Shālā Hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ.很 兴认识你。

我也是美 人。国 Wǒ yě shì Měiguórén I am also an American

她也是学生。 Tā yě shì xuéshēng She is also a student

Please take note here that the position of 也 yě is firmly fixed before the verb and after the

subject For instance, you cannot start a sentence with 也 yě, as you can in English (Also, I am a

Remember that in Chinese there is no direct correspondent to the English word yes Instead, in

many Chinese sentences they will reuse the verb from the question, e.g

他是 ? Tā shì ? Is he ?

- 是, 他是 Shì, tā shì Yes, he is

In spoken Chinese, people will often answer with the verb alone, indicating affirmation

先 xiān means first, so 先生 xiānsheng can be translated directly as "first born" Note that the

second character of 先生, 生 shēng, is pronounced as a neutral tone in 先生

In other words, please note that the 生 shēng in xiānsheng doesn't have a line over it That means

that you should put more emphasis on the first syllable of the word, 先 xiān

4.02 Introductions - simple formal

您贵姓? Nín guì xìng? is a formal and polite way to ask another person's last name 姓 xìng

means family name, and 贵 guì is an adjective modifying 姓 xìng that literally means

"expensive" I 姓 xìng is analogous to the British English use of "dear" to mean both "expensive"

and, well, "dear"

4.03 Full Chinese Names

Tā xìng Liú, jiào Liú Qiángguó

4.04 Common last names with professional titles

4.05 Hello teacher! - concept and vocabulary review dialogue

2.) _? 是，他们是学生。 Shì，tāmen shì xuésheng

A more direct translation of this phrase would be "Is your health good?"

This is a polite question that is asked when we assume that the other person is in fact well If we know that the person has recently been sick, or looks sick at the moment, there are other

questions we can ask to show a greater degree of awareness or concern We will study these in later units

5.02 I am also

我 好。他也 好。很 很

Wǒ hěn hǎo Tā yě hěn hǎo

I am fine He is also fine

Lǐ Xuě shì dàxuéshēng Wáng Jūn yě shì dàxuéshēng

Li Xue is a university student Wang Jun is also a university student

Liú lǎoshī shēntǐ hěn hǎo Lǐ jīnglǐ shēntǐ yě hěn hǎo

Teacher Liu's health is good Manager Li's health is also good

Notes:

A little more about 也 yě:

也 yě is an adverb that introduces additional information It does this in two ways, one by

introducing additional information about a subject, and the second by stating a similarity

between two different subjects So far, we have only seen the second type, but as new verbs get introduced in later lessons we will see the first type more and more

Vocabulary point:

大学生 dàxuéshēng university student is made by combining 大 dà big with 学生 xuéshēng student On its own, 大学 dàxué means university

5.03 How is your health? - dialogue between two people of different social status

马特 Mǎtè shows his respect for 张老师 Zhāng lǎoshī by using the respectful form of the

pronoun you, 您 nín, as well as by using the teacher's title, 老师 lǎoshī while speaking to her

你呢？ Nǐ ne? can be translated as And you? Follow up questions with 呢 ne are used to ask the

same question as the preceding question, but about another subject or object

Vocabulary point:

身体 shēntǐ means health On its own, 身 shēn means body

谢谢 xièxie means thank you Adding a pronoun to the end makes it more polite, as in 谢谢你

xièxie nǐ

再见 zàijiàn means good bye, although it literally means see you again

5.04 See you tomorrow! - dialogue between two people of equal social status

再见 zàijiàn is the most common way to say goodbye, it literally means "see you again" There

are other ways to say goodbye used when speakers have a more or less particular time they

expect to see each other again 明天见 Míngtiān jiàn, meaning See you tomorrow, is one of these expressions

Vocabulary point:

明天 Míngtiān means tomorrow On its own, 明 Míng means bright and is the same 明 Míng as

in The Ming Dynasty 天 tiān means sky

5.05 The Horrors of Pronunciation

C Fill in the blanks

:

xiān shēn shén

hǎo

小 :

hěn wǒ xiǎo míng

hěn wǒ xiǎo míng

míng tā hǎo shén

F Rearrange the words into complete sentences

不 bù is basically the equivalent of the English word not It is one of the two main negation

words used in Chinese, the second being 没 méi, which we will take a look at in a second 不 bù and 没 méi have different connotations, but the main difference is simply that they collocate with different verbs Since 不 bù collocates with 是 shì we will focus on it for the time being.

6.02 I'm not German! - concept and vocabulary review dialogue

Notes:

是吗？ Shì ma? means Is that so?

Remember that in Mandarin Chinese there is no universal way to say "yes" or "no" to a question

To respond in negative to a question you can usually add 不 bù or 没 méi plus the verb, please

note though that the verb must be the same one as used in the question In general, English

speakers tend to overuse or misuse 不是 bú shì in conversations, so be careful

6.03 Are you the teacher? - concept and apologizing for small errors

对不起 duìbuqǐ is a formal way for apologizing for small errors and misunderstandings, when

the speaker (or someone the speaker represents) has in fact been the cause of the error This

makes it quite different from "I'm sorry", which can be used in situations in which the speaker

has done nothing wrong, i.e "I'm sorry to hear that you got the flu"

Of course, the difference between 对不起 duìbuqǐ and I'm sorry is apparent if you actually look

at the meaning of the two phrases 对不起 duìbuqǐ directly translated means something like

"Don't get excited" or "Don't get piqued", whereas when we say I'm sorry what we are saying,

after all, is something along the lines of "This situation has caused me sorrow I feel bad about

it" Thus, I'm sorry refers back to a situation from which we can infer whether the speaker is

apologizing or expressing condolence, whereas 对不起 duìbuqǐ directly refers to the attitude of

the one who has been transgressed, and the wish on the part of the speaker not to be taken the

Remember that 不 bú always precedes the verb in a sentence

Woman 女 nǚ and man 男 nán are used as complements for 名 míng, the root word for 名字

míngzi name.

Be aware that it can be as hard for Chinese people to differentiate male and female names in English as it is for Westerners to differentiate male and female names in Chinese

Adding 呢 ne to the end of the sentence can be, depending on the context, an informal way to

construct a question, similar to adding "And ?" to a noun to make a question

7.01 Countries and citizens

Notice that each of the nationalities are comprised of a country plus the word 人 rén, we see here

an example of a noun (the country) functioning as a modifier of another noun (the common noun

person)

For example, 日本 Rìběn Japan + 人 rén person = 日本人 Rìběnrén Japanese person

Note as well that although "Japanese person" counts as two separate words in English, we are treating it as one word in Chinese - it would be just as easy to translate 日本人 Rìběnrén as

Japanese, as in "He is Japanese."

Finally, do remember that rén could be singular or plural depending on the context - thus 日本人

Rìběnrén perhaps could most explicitly be rendered in English as Japanese (person/people) Of

course, that would be a crazy thing to write!

As with all languages, translation is an inexact science, especially with Chinese, which is a very context-dependent language You should be careful when (for instance) asking your Chinese friends "How would I say X in Chinese?" because the sentence they give you, while perhaps rendering the meaning of the English in Chinese, might not be a normal-sounding Chinese sentence, in fact, in might not even be a functioning Chinese sentence at all

7.02 What country are you from?

你

Nǐ

你是

Nǐ shì

Notice that this question does not use the question particle 吗 ma at the end This is because it is

not a simple yes/no question, but uses the question word 哪 nǎ

哪 nǎ literally means which, it is a common question word and component of 哪里 nǎlǐ where

which we will look at in lesson 12 哪 nǎ is the first question word we are going to learn in this

program Properly speaking, it is an interrogative pronoun

The word order for questions in Chinese that use an interrogative pronoun is the same as the

word order in a statement - the question word occupies the space in the sentence where you

would expect to find the information in the answer This is unlike English, where the question

word usually is at the beginning of a sentence

7.03 Not everyone is Chinese - dialogue

请问 qǐngwèn can be translated as "Can I ask you a question?" or "Excuse me".

7.04 Do you know her?

王军:

李雪:

王军:

王军:

李雪:

Notes:

The verb 认识 rènshi, like 是 shì and 叫 jiào, does not change form according to the noun In

fact, this is the case for all Mandarin Chinese verbs, because Mandarin verbs are not inflected

Since Chinese verbs do not change according to the subject of the sentence a lot of Chinese verbs

can also double as nouns

Dàwèi rènshi yí gè Yuènán xuésheng

A Transcribe the characters below into pinyin

D Translate the following sentences into Chinese

1.) Do you know her?

_ 2.) You are from what country?

_ 3.) Are you Chinese?

guó tā hǎo shén

F Match the characters to their English definitions

2.) _?

不是,他们不是大学生。 Bú shì, tāmen bú shì dàxuéshēng

3.) _?

a complement describing a person.

8.02 She is she isn't - concept review with titles and localities

李先生不是南京人, 他是重庆人。

Lǐ xiānsheng bú shì Nánjīngrén, tā shì Chóngqìngrén

Mr Lee is not from Nanjing, he is from Chongqing

Liú xiǎojiě bú shì Chóngqìngrén, tā shì Guǎngzhōurén

Ms Liu is not from Chongqing, she is from Guangzhou

李老师不是上海人, 他是北京人。

Lǐ lǎoshī bú shì Shànghǎirén, tā shì Běijīngrén

Teacher Lee is not from Shanghai, he is from Beijing

刘经理不是北京人, 她是青岛人。

Liú jīnglǐ bú shì Běijīngrén, tā shì Qīngdǎorén

Mananger Liu is not from Beijing., she is from Qingdao

8.03 Really? Really! - dialogue with localities and titles

真的吗？ Zhēn de ma? is a common rhetorical question that means Really? It is often used to

express surprise and show interest The simplest answer to the question is to drop the

interrogative particle 吗 ma from the question to make it a declarative sentence, 真的! Zhēn de!

Tāmen máng ma?

Notes:

忙 máng is an adjectival verb, as the predicate of a sentence it describes the subject just like an

adjective Various intensifiers can be placed before the verb to modify the degree of the adjectiveverb, for instance, 太 tài too and 很 hěn very

9.02 I'm busy too introductory dialogue

A little more about the adverb 很 hěn very:

很 hěn is an adverbial adjunct, which means that it is used to modify a verb, or in this case, an adjective acting as a verb In a lot of sentences with adjectival predicates, 很 hěn does not

necessarily indicate an increased degree of the verb or adjective, but rather fulfills a purely grammatical function

In other words, a lot of times 很 hěn doesn't really mean anything, it is just put in the sentence

because otherwise it will sound weird

9.03 Are you guys busy? dialogue between three people

Notice that when Matt addresses Teacher Zhang he uses her professional title of "teacher" in place of a personal pronoun or name This is a way of conveying respect

9.04 They are not tired sentences with the attributive "tired"

晚安 wǎnān means good night, the character 安 ān means peaceful and is the same character

used in Tiananmen Gate.

9.06 I am tired to death! - Colloquial expression

死了 sǐ le is a conventional phrase, which means that the 死 sǐ and 了 le always go together The

phrase emphasizes the degree of the adjective

王军: de, wǒ lèi Nǐ ne?

The form for this question is verb (不) verb, or to put it another way, the verb followed by the

negation of the verb It is important to remember that some verbs use 没 méi and not 不 bù in the

negative form, in which case the pattern should be verb (没) verb

This question is a yes-no question, meaning that the answer to the question should typically be either an affirmative or negative, as opposed to open-ended questions which use specific question words.

10.02 Not everyone is an American!

了 le is a past particle that serves a purely grammatical function It implies a state that someone

is already hungry or thirsty In this particular situation the 了 le is optional, although the 了 le form question is more popular

10.04 Is China good or not good?

10.06 Are you hungry? - Concept review dialogue

1.) Nǐ kě bù kě ?

_? 2.) Nǐ shì bú shì dàrén？

_? 3.) Nǐ shì bú shì Měiguórén?

_? 4.) Zhōngguó hǎo bù hǎo?

:

xiān shēn

shén lèi

男:

nán wǒ xiǎo míng 忙

:

wǒ xiān

shén máng

太:

tài wǒ xiǎo míng

míng tā nǚ shén

F Write questions for the following answers

1.) _? 我不渴。 Wǒ bù kě

2.) _? 他是韩国人。 Tā shì Hánguórén

3.) _? 是，我是老师。 Shì, wǒ shì lǎoshī

G Arrange the words into sentences

Háizimen dōu kě le.

>> Listen to the MP3 (right click to save)

Tā hěn xīngfèn Wǒ yě hěn xīngfèn Wǒmen dōu hěn xīngfèn.

He is very excited I am also very excited We are all very excited

Wáng xiānsheng hěn kāixīn Lǐ xiǎojiě yě hěn kāixīn Tāmen dōu hěn kāixīn

Mr Wang is very happy Ms Lee is also very happy They are all very happy

莎拉很兴奋。马特也很兴奋。他们都很兴奋。

Shālā hěn xīngfèn Mǎtè yě hěn xīngfèn Tāmen dōu hěn xīngfèn

Sarah is very excited Matt is also very excited They are all very excited

Lǐ Xuě hěn kāixīn Nǐ yě hěn kāixīn Nǐmen dōu hěn kāixīn

Li Xue is very happy You are also very happy You all are very happy

>> Listen to the MP3 (right click to save)

Notes:

It is not always necessary to add 都 dōun all to every sentence, but adding or omitting it changes

the emphasis of the sentence 我们都很兴奋 Wǒmen dōu hěn xīngfèn emphasizes that both of us

are excited, whereas 我们很兴奋 Wǒmen hěn xīngfèn simply describes the state of being

excited

11.04 If you're happy and you know it dialogue with the complements 兴奋 xīngfèn excited

and 开心 kāixīn happy

王军: 真的吗？马特也很兴奋吗？Zhēnde ma? Mǎtè yě hěn xīngfèn ma?

Notes:

Notice that in Chinese sentences when listing complements it is not required to use a

conjunction Sarah says that they are 很兴奋，很开心 hěn xīngfèn, hěn kāixīn excited and

happy but there is no actual conjunction connecting excited and happy in the Chinese sentence

A direct translation of the sentence would be something like "We are all very excited, very

happy" which, while possible in English, is not as standard as "We are very excited and happy."

11.05 You Cheeky Monkey!

Měiguó liúxuéshēnɡ dōu shì jiàndié!

>> Listen to the MP3 (right click to save)

11.06 The Horrors of Pronunciation

B Translate the following sentences into English