Update(temporarily sticky)

It looks like that the major foundation part (Pinyin) is complete, and I will continue writing some notes for online videos that are about Chinese dialogue, in the Daily Bite section. Of course, you can leave me a message or give me an email to tell me certain video you would like me to write something on.

Also, I am updating articles on Chinese culture in another blog China Tradition Shop, where you can also find interesting Chinese folk arts that I am about to sell on ebay.
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Some more greetings for Chinese new year

 
Five days later (14,Feb) it will be Chinese New Year based on the lunar calendar, known as the 'Spring Festival', which also coincides with Valentine's day this year as I mentioned in the last post.

Aside from the universal version of 'Happy New Year', we are going to learn something more, something Chinese people usually say in Spring festival.

The two Rockets stars (Luis Scola & Shane Battier) are holding the traditional Chinese posters written with greetings. 

shēn tǐ jiàn kāng(身体健康) = Wish you healthy!

shēn tǐ (=body) | jiàn kāng (=healthy)

xīn xiǎng shì chéng(心想事成) = May all your wishes come true!

xīn (=heart) xiǎng (=think) shì (=things) chéng(=work out, succeed)
Literally it means: (I hope) what your heart is thinking will be realized.

chūn jié kuài lè(春节快乐) = Happy Spring Festival!




chūn jié (= Spring Festival) kuài lè (=happy)
This one should be easy since we learned the 'holiday+kuai le' formula last time:)

Wish you have a happy Spring Festival! Audio will be updated soon!

Note: you may already find the second character in Scola's hands is a different from that in the above red poster, well, much more complicated. That is just the difference between traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese. Namely, '體' is the traditional version of '体'.
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How to say Happy Valentine's day/Happy new year/Happy birthday in Chinese?

The grammar of sending out wishes and greetings in holidays is just this easy in Chinese:

Holiday + kuài lè

qíng rén jié kuài lè(情人节快乐!)=Happy Valentine’s day!

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How to say 'Will you marry me' in Chinese

Though it's still about a month to go, it might be useful to practise this before the Valentine's day. If you want to go further from merely saying "I Love You", which we taught previously, you don't want to miss this post.

nǐ yuàn yì jià gěi wǒ mā?=Will you marry me?


(shì de,) wǒ yuàn yì. =(Yes,) I do.


Please be noted that in Chinese when we say the version of 'Yes, I do' we usually omit the 'Yes' part and just say 'wǒ yuàn yì'.

Of course, the 'do' in 'I do' does not mean 'yuàn yì' itself, but 'will' does.

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A crash Chinese course by NBC's Al Roker

This is a clap during the Beijing Olympics and in this crash class you will find something you may already be familiar with, say, Pinyin (tone) and still can learn something new:



wǒ shì ...(我是...) =wǒ jiào... (我叫) =My name is...
wǒ shì:
wǒ jiào:
Obviously, it's just a way to introduce. wǒ(我) means 'I','me', shì(是) is just 'is','am', or 'are' in English.

wǒ yào(我要)...=I want...

As you can see or guess, yào(要) means 'want'. For example, you can say: wǒ yào nà (that) běn shū=I want that book. Here, 'běn(本)' just plays the role similar to 'piece' as in 'a piece of paper'.

tīng bù dǒng(听不懂)=I don't understand.

Actually this is different from I don't know. Say if some is speaking Chinese and you have absolutely no idea what she is talking about, you should say 'tīng bù dǒng(听不懂)', as Al in the clap. In fact, some of my American friends find this a useful way to refuse to answer questions:)
wǒ è le(我饿了)= I am hungry.




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'Hello','Thank You' and 'Good Bye' in Chinese

Today we will learn some most frequently used sentences in Chinese with the following clips. Some of them are elaborated, but some are not, so I hope my explanation will help a bit.

For xiè xie (谢谢, Thank You) you might notice that for the second 'xie' there is NO tone. It is because in oral Chinese, when the word is composed of two exactly same characters, the so-called 'light tone' applies on the second one. This is the same as bà ba (爸爸, father) and mā ma (妈妈, mother) as mentioned in previous posts.

There are many ways to respond to 'xiè xie', as in English,such as 'You are welcome!', 'It's all right!'.

bù(bú) kè qi (不客气):
This has great interpretation in the clip. Notice again, though 不 has the fourth tone originally, here (and you can also listen to the man in the clip) the second tone is what we usually pronounce. Normally it's because when two four-tone characters are together, the first one changes to the second tone--just because it sounds not that awkard.

méi shì er (没事儿):

Formally, méi shì (没事) will be enough, which literally means 'There is nothing', showing that what I have done for you is no big deal--Yes, a sign of eastern humility. Also, I guess the last 'er' part may confuse you since it does NOT look stardard anyway. Well, Ture! But it's one element of oral Chinese, especailly in northern China, to make people sound more natural and fluent. There are some, but for now let's just remember this one.

bù(bú) yòng xiè (不用谢):
It literally means 'no need to thank'.

zài jiàn (再见):
This is so commonly used, yes, it means 'Good bye!'

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Counting numbers in Chinese

I remember when I started to study English counting numbers seem to be a useful way since you can almost immediately increase your vocabulary by more than 10 words in just several minutes! That is encouraging! Do you feel the same way if you can count numbers in Chinese?


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