URLLesson Introduction
Here is a Chinese lesson for all those morning people out there that we love to hate. A few chipper 'good mornings' to start off the day. You can shout them out your window to those neighbors who love to rise at the screech of dawn for a powwow outside your window. In this lesson, learn all kinds of greetings a la Mandarin. You'll be hello-ing and beyond in no time!
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jjcarson says
August 20, 2008
Nice job on bringing back the basics to these Newbie lessons.
Isn't Intro 1: Good Morning also a related lesson?
chris says
August 20, 2008
I enjoy diving into the Newbie lessons from time to time. A quick question, which I'd never really thought about before, the "shang5" in "zao3shang5" is the same character as in "Shang4hai3". Why, therefore, is it neutral tone in "good morning" yet 4th tone in "Shanghai"?
Thanks, Chris
jennyzhu says
August 20, 2008
Chris,
While there are some fixed rules with tone changes, such as when there are 2 identical characters, the second one often becomes neutral tone, e.g. 爸爸/ba4 ba, 妈妈/ma1 ma. Some tone changes are more elusive such as 早上。But in everyday conversations, many people don't observe the rule or they pronounce 上 as neurtral tone but without pondering.
Search 'tone', you will get a list of lessons on tones and tone changes.
zhiyuan0920 says
August 20, 2008
hi,chris,actually there is not" shang5", in‘早上好’ and '上海' they are the same as the ’shang4‘.
there are only four tone in spoken chinese.
hope to keep in touch with you ,I am in my junior year in my university ,and my mail is " bestzhiyuan0920@hotmail.com"
mikenotinjubei says
August 20, 2008
I go away for a year come back and I see the Tone Police are still ever present!
johns says
August 20, 2008
I learned these terms early on but never heard anyone casually use them. This lesson taught me to speak a little faster. Thanks, I will remember all of this one!
changye says
August 21, 2008
A useless information about “上”.
This character is a 多音字 (a polyphone), and it traditionally has two strains of pronunciation, i.e. shang4 and shang3. The latter one is used only when referring to “the third tone” in Chinese phonology, where the four tones are often referred to as 阴平, 阳平, 上声, and 去声.
As you can see below, the tones of 阴阳上去 are the same as those the four characters represent respectively. Why is the third tone called 上声 (rising tone)? Why don’t Chinese linguists call the second tone 上声? It’s a long story. I can’t explain it well in English, anyway.
First tone….…一声……阴平 (yin1 ping2)
Second tone…二声……阳平 (yang2 ping2)
Third tone…...三声……上声 (shang3 sheng1)
Fourth tone….四声……去声 (qu4 sheng1)
norahs_dad says
August 21, 2008
Help newbie, is there any programs on this site that will let me type pinyin and English in word vista and print them off?
It will help me remember what I am learning and to be able to put sentences together.
Glen
jennyzhu says
August 21, 2008
mikenotinjubei,
A hearty welcome back! Your support dating back to the first days of Cpod is deeply cherished. Not in Jubei, where are you now?
a1pi2 says
August 21, 2008
In my experience, Chinese don't worry about tones. Native speakers, when asked about tones, have to think (and sometimes wave their fingers about) to tell you what tones they're using. "Tones don't matter", says one coworker, "you just need to use the right ones at the right times."
changye says
August 21, 2008
Hi aipi2,
It is believed that Chinese scholars didn’t realize the existence of “four different tones, 四声” in Chinese until the fifth century. Conversely speaking, in ancient china, people (scholars included) spoke their language even without knowing what tones are, but there is nothing surprising because they were NATIVE speakers! So I understand what your Chinese friends said about tones. Feel your Force!
auntie68 says
August 21, 2008
P/s: May this Auntie add that in those days, "Chinese" had more than only four different tones, it was more like 7 or 8 different tones for many major dialects. You can still hear the relics of these ancient tones in living languages/dialects such as Cantonese and Teochew (Chaozhou dialect)... When I speak Cantonese, I don't dare think about the tones, there are just so many of them! ;-)
mdtubio says
August 21, 2008
Za3oshang ha3o! (Good morning!)
Quick question: the question "are you here?" is "la2i le?" and the answer is "la2i le." What about ma? Would "la2i le ma?" also mean "you came here?" (are you here?) or is that wrong?
And the sun above the horizon is a great tip to help us remember the character!
Thank you, Domingo
khin says
August 21, 2008
大家好！
第一次来到这个网站，我很高兴，我愿成为你们的一部分。目前我在美国。在学西班牙文。
username234 says
August 21, 2008
亲爱的老师们，
谢谢你们！ 这节课很好。我有一个小问题， 就是Expansion 部分的第七个句子 “今天早上你去哪儿了？”。 我不懂为什么这个句子的英文翻译是“Where are you going this morning" 。 不应该是：“Where did you go this morning?" 这样吗？
麻烦你们让我知道。多谢你们的帮忙！！
light487 says
August 21, 2008
This comes up every now and again, whenever people post comments in all 汉字. If possible, can you please keep the Hanzi to a minimum in the Newbie lessons, or include the pīnyīn to go with it? I know that learning the characters is very important but at this level, the important thing is the exposure to very basic things.. the music of the language, the tones, the way things go together.
Thanks for you consideration! :)
Joachim says
August 21, 2008
light487: There are some firefox plugins that look up characters and translate them. Having comments all in Chinese might be seen as a way of exploring the language, too. Btw: Some of the all Chinese posts are by Chinese learning English :-) I wouldn't want to have a Comments Policy where you have to stick to the lesson closely and are not allowed to post in Chinese (or other languages for that matter).
light487 says
August 21, 2008
Yeh, I know.. but when I first started I was very put off by these types of conversation posts. I am just saying that if you can write 汉字 then there is no reason why you can't add the pīnyīn in for the "newbie" lessons.
As a community, we all share our knowledge and help one another to learn. One of these things should also be to make sure the non-native speakers who are at this level, should feel comfortable in learning the language.
I know that some people come to cPOD more to learn English than to learn Mandarin but the central point of the site is the learning of Mandarin...
I wouldn't want a comments policy either..
mikenotinjubei says
August 21, 2008
Jenny
I am living in Tokyo. I have been using Japanesepod101.com which is very nice. But my heart is with the Chinese Language so I will be back shortly. This will of course drive everyone crazy in Tokyo as I respond to them in Chinese.
I do find I over hear some interesting conversations by Chinese people on the Tokyo subways.
Jenny its so kind of you to permit Ken to speak occasionally.
auntie68 says
August 21, 2008
@username234: You asked why the expansion sentence "今天早上你去哪儿了？" is translated by CPOD as "Where are you going this morning?", rather than "Where did you go this morning?"
The short answer is that the 了 in that sentence is an inceptive 了, not a perfective 了. Too complicated for me to explain adequately, and the corresponding section in the CPOD Grammar section is still under construction (--> under particles of aspect and modal particles).
But perhaps you might find Wikipedia's rather technical explanation (under "Chinese Grammar") useful. There might be a QingWen on this?
To rephrase the expansion sentence with a perfective 了, you would change the word order: 今天早上你去了哪儿？ That would have the sense of, "Where did you go this morning?"
Don't worry, this is something which I find that many learners seem to be unaware of. But it's worth knowing. I won't expand further because I think I've answered this same question 3 of 4 times before on various threads, and that is really the job of CPOD teachers, not a fellow user like me. Good luck with that inceptive 了! It's useful knowledge, and your Chinese will sound more natural for it.
changye says
August 21, 2008
Hi auntie68,
Actually, the "了" issue is a headache. I think that your explanation about 了 is to the point, but I'm not so sure if the translation done by Cpod staff is corret. I also think "Where did you go this morning?" may be right.
auntie68 says
August 21, 2008
Right. Let's hope that CPOD will ride to our rescue on this one soon!
@changye (*and only changye, coz I think the others won't be interested in playing Grammar Table Tennis so early in the morning): My interpretation was based on the 了 qualifying not the single word 去 (in which case － ie 去了－ only the past tense would make sense), but the entire cluster 去哪儿, which changes the emphasis of the phrase. Hmm...
ewong says
August 21, 2008
In school, our greetings are always 早安 or 午安。。 as in 老師早安 or 老師午安
sushan says
August 21, 2008
I was totally thrown the first time I was greeted with 老师好 (lao3shi1 hao3, hello teacher) by rows of bowing junior high students - I had no idea if I was supposed to say anything back and had to stifle the urge to burst out laughing. (Zao shang hao, ni hao, or nothing are all ok to say back, by the way)
Now I just tell them that most foreign teachers are not used to that kind of greeting and they can call me by name.
changye says
August 21, 2008
Hi auntie68,
The following samples all mean "Where did he go?", but I don't know if there is some difference in nuance. I guess that (b) and (c) might be "economical" forms of (a).
(a) 他去了哪儿了？
(b) 他去哪儿了？
(c) 他去了哪儿？
When talking about things in the future, "了" is usually used in this way.
他快到了。
他快要到了。
他马上就到了。
elee8888cn says
August 21, 2008
Normally, I just say "早” to the ayi.
changye says
August 22, 2008
Hi auntie68,
Let me give a (long) supplemental explanation to your posting. As you wrote above, Chinese dialects generally have about 6～10 tones, and it mainly reflects the eight tones (四声八调) in ancient Chinese spoken in the 4th ～ the 10th century (中古音). Interestingly, you see only four tones (四声), i.e. 平上去入, in rhyme books edited at that time, which means that people in those days only put importance on four tones when they composed verses.
In Chinese poetry, tonal patters, as well as rhyming, are very important, and ancient poets set many complicated rules for tonal patters. Even so, they only paid attention to four tones, but not eight tones. The reason is very simple. Actually, there were only four kinds of tonal curve in those days, and every tonal curve was further divided into two sub-tones depending on whether the consonant of a character is voiced or unvoiced.
If a character has an unvoiced consonant, it was pronounced with higher pitch, and a voiced consonant with lower pitch, but in both cases, their tone curves were basically same. This phenomenon is quite understandable considering soprano and baritone voices. In short, there were four tone curves, and two pitches for every tone curve in ancient Chinese. I’m not sure I made myself understood in my clumsy English.
(1) 阴平 (flat tone + higher pitch, unvoiced)
(2) 阳平 (flat tone + lower pitch, voiced)
(3) 阴上 (rising tone + higher pitch, unvoiced)
(4) 阳上 (rising tone + lower pitch, voiced)
(5) 阴去 (falling tone + higher pitch, unvoiced)
(6) 阳去 (falling tone + lower pitch, voiced)
(7) 阴入 (entering tone + higher pitch, unvoiced)
(8) 阳入 (entering tone + lower pitch, voiced)
I’m afraid that above is a rather simplified discussion. Maybe you can find a similar tendency in Cantonese tone system, but be noted that there is no voiced consonant in modern Cantonese. By the way, there still is no accepted theory about the tone system before the 4th century. Some scholars believe that the contrast of tone length, such as a long flat tone and short flat tone, played an important role in distinguishing a meaning.
Sorry for a long post. This is one of my favorite topics!
henning says
August 22, 2008
changye:
short and long as in "sheet" vs. "shit"?
That seems to be the most difficult part of European pronounciation for Chinese speakers. It is almost as hard as the tones are for us.
changye says
August 22, 2008
Hi henning,
Thankfully, that is not so difficult for Japanese people, becuase we also distinguish a word based on the length of a vowel.
おじさん (ojisan) uncle
おじいさん (ojiisan) grandpa
おばさん (obasan) aunt
おばあさん (obaasan) grandma
ふりん (hurin) adultery
ふうりん (huurin) a wind bell
The same goes for Cantonese and standard Korean (in Seoul), but I hear that younger Korean guys don't care much about the length of a vowel recently.
miami_meiguoren says
August 22, 2008
nǐ hǎo
norahs_dad:
learning chinese is one thing, learning hanzi at the same time is way too much to chew at once.
my wife and i found this free program that works fantastic
http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?t=13005
it runs along side the windows IME
and even with vista!
miami_meiguoren says
August 22, 2008
i wish everyone would type pinyin after their hanzi characters on these newb lessons, it leaves us dumbies out of the loop even when we try to be a part of the CPOD community.
miami_meiguoren says
August 22, 2008
もう日本語をやめましょうよ！中国語のサイトだから！”
this is a chinese site, lets stop the japanese
auntie68 says
August 22, 2008
@billbag: Sorry if you dislike seeing Japanese on this site, but if you take a closer look at changye's post, the one which contained some Japanese, it was directly relevant to the question raised by henning about long and short vowels in Chinese. Having grown up hearing Cantonese, I can tell you that the length of the vowel does make a difference in at least that dialect. For once, I really do feel that this criticism was quite unfair.
changye says
August 22, 2008
Hi billbag,
It's perfect Japanese! Very well-written.
auntie68 says
August 22, 2008
Okay, let's spick Chiniss now, everybody... Good night. Peace.
username234 says
August 22, 2008
Changye, Auntie68, 多謝你們的幫助。
stephen26 says
August 22, 2008
ni hao wow I just started as a newbe and looking at the last set of comments, aagg help what have I got my self into.
I have a few chinese friends on messenger who try to help, my god it is additive I can't stop listening I now listen to chinese pop music, when will I feel less like a tongue tied 3 year old, and make a conversation.
great show, love dear amber
eruworld says
August 22, 2008
你好
I'm a total newbie, i'm still trying to learn about pinyin. I have a question about the character 了, which is romanized as "Le" ,but why do i keep hearing it pronounced as "La"?. Is it me or is it pronounced like that? Isn't the vowel "e" pronounced as an "e"?
Thanks in advance
amfool says
August 22, 2008
eruworld 你好，
the sound "la" is 啦。啦 sound is combined from 了（le）+啊（a）。
ex： 我去了啊。=我去啦
miami_meiguoren says
August 22, 2008
another interesting greeting although maybe this is more of a northern greeting...
we were just in beijing last month walking around eating ice cream and some homeless lady grinned a huge grin with no teeth and said.
chī zhe ne...
my wife said this was a very warm way of saying hello
mandarinboy says
August 22, 2008
To help users with the characters posters have mentioned the adsotrans plugin. It can be found here: http://www.adsotrans.com/downloads/install.html
Very simple install and use. ( is not working for internet explorer, only firefox. I use it for the latest version of firefox.)
as for norahs_dad question about typing chinese in windows, there is the IME in windows: for Xp you do like this: http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/asianlanguageinstallation_XP.html
and for Vista: http://www.li-ming.org/Form/VistaChineseSetup07.pdf
Note. In vista you also have an very nice Chinese handwriting tool. You can use that to check you handwriting of chinese characters. I use it with an digitalpen but when i am traveling i do it with the mouse or preferable with the mousepad and that works fine too.
steeveepee33 says
August 23, 2008
I haven't heard too much use of zao shang hao in the office that I work in here in Shanghai, but I do hear a lot of ni hao's. I'm going to start using zao shang hao from now on and see what kind of reaction I get from the locals.
light487 says
August 23, 2008
eruworld - Check out the pronunciation guide here:
http://chinesepod.com/resources/pronunciation/section/5
Pretty much all words containing the 'e' are pronounced with an 'uh' sound.. not all of them of course but enough of them to make it a general rule to remember when reading pinyin.
trevorb says
August 24, 2008
Further to mandarinboy's post using a tablet PC with vista is a great way to practice writing chinese characters. You can write directly on the surface and its really pretty fussy about stroke order.
The otherway you can do this now is via the iPod touch or iPhone as the version 2.0 software has the ability to recognise written characters, although some of them seem a little strange..... Still great way to practice when you are on the move.
I record all the characters I've learnt and then review them during boring meetings. ;-)
I must say though it took a while before I knew enough characters to help with the lessons. Now I find myself hearing things in the lesson and associating them with their character and the associated Pinyin. Sometimes I hear one thing on the Pod then realise its actually something different when I read the dialog. Finally though I'm begining to remember words and phrases rather than sylables.....
eruworld says
August 26, 2008
Thanks for answering amfool & light487.
light487, thanks so much for the link, that explanation was exactly what i was looking for, it was very useful.
pinkjeans says
August 28, 2008
Welcome, Eruworld, my fellow Frenchpoddie!
eruworld says
August 29, 2008
Thanks pinkjeans for the welcome ^^
darrencook says
September 1, 2008
One of the expansion sentences is:
你晚上要来吗？
(ni wanshang yao lai ma) meaning "Are you coming this evening?"
What is the "yao" doing there? Does it mean the same as 你晚上来吗？ Or, is the actual meaning more like: "Do you want to come (e.g. out with us) this evening?"
faradi2008 says
September 13, 2008
It is my pleasure to express my appriciation to the service the Chinesebod has provided to the community. I have enjoyed very much the Newbi lessons and will spend more time to complete them, but I have been shocked but the news regards the stoppingof access to lesson linkages 9 vocabuaries, dialogue, excercises . etc). in my opinion they are part of the lessons and can't be belocked like that although the proposed new Chinesebod policy declared Niewbe lesson as free lessons not part of them. I hope this important issue be reviced in order to maximize benefit of learning.
asbestos says
September 23, 2008
hi!
I'm from Vietnamese.I want to learn E and C.Thanks you.
nguyendinhtrung says
thank I like so muchDecember 9, 2008