Chinese Language Course

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Chinese Language

Module 1
 Chinese Language Course

Mandarin is the name given to a category of related Chinese dialects, spoken by

the vast majority of the north and southwest of China. When is it considered a language
separated, as is often done by academic literature, Mandarin has more
speakers than any other language.

In linguistics, the term 'mandarin' can refer to either of the two concepts.
different

Standard Chinese or Standard Mandarin (Putonghua/Guoyu/Huayu/Hanyu), which is

based on the specific dialect of Mandarin spoken in Beijing. Standard Mandarin
functions as the official spoken language of the People's Republic of China, of the Republic of
Chinese, and it is one of the four official languages of Singapore. 'Chinese' - in practice, the
Standard Mandarin is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

Each of the Mandarin dialects is spoken in the north and southwest of China.
In everyday use, the term 'Mandarin' usually refers only to Mandarin.
standard (Putonghua/Guoyu). In a broader sense, Mandarin is a group
different from dialects that are very close linguistically, some less mutually
more intelligible than others.

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Etymology and history

The term 'mandarin' originated from the trade relations between the Portuguese and the Chinese in
beginning of the 17th century. The Lusitanian traders landed in Chinese cities in
search for tea, silk, and other exotic items, and dealt with determined employees
by the imperial government of China. His subordinates were prohibited from making contact
with the outsiders, and thus trade was done only with the Chinese who sent,
and thus the language used by these employees became known as 'mandarin' in
west. Another widely circulated version for the origin of the word is that it would come
originally from Hindi 'mantri', meaning 'counselor', 'state minister', passing
then to Malay 'mantri', and then to Portuguese 'mandarin' and, from Portuguese, it was
assimilated by other European languages, including English, where the record of the first use
The word 'mandarin' dates back to 1589.

Mandarin has 80,000 (eighty thousand) characters, called hanzis, of which 7,000
(seven thousand) are more used.

A national survey by the Ministry of Education of China showed that nowadays 94%
Two Chinese people speak Mandarin, the official language of the country, in China called Putonghua.
Nothing surprising for a population that has 55 ethnic minorities (10% of the
population in quantitative terms), all with their own dialects.

Mandarin became the national language of China in 1956, but since that time, the country
it is debated whether forcing your ethnic minorities to speak Mandarin would be like condemning them to
end. Apparently, the resistance is strong. In Tibet, for example, where the majority of the population
still poor, everyone speaks Tibetan and only the top of the social pyramid speaks Putonghua
basic. It is good to remember that language is part of the cultural manifestations of a people and, in
The case of Tibet can well illustrate the resistance of the local people to the domination of the occupation.
Chinese.

Ironically, today, by the government's calculations, 30 million people are

learning Chinese in the world.

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Simplified Chinese

Simplified Chinese is one of the two writing standards of the Chinese language. It is a form
simplified characters of traditional Chinese created by the People's Republic of China
to promote literacy.

Currently, simplified Chinese is used in communist China, in Singapore and by

Chinese community in Malaysia, but it is not used in Taiwan (Republic of China).

Traditional Chinese is used in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and also by Chinese people.
emigrants around the world, although the simplified form is gradually gaining
popularity.

The simplified characters were created from a reduction in the number of

traces employed, using regular patterns, replacing all occurrences of
determined component for a simpler variant. Other characters were
irregularly simplified, in an unpredictable way from the traditional original. Others
characters have not undergone any changes, remaining identical to the originals
traditional.

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Pinyin (in Chinese: , pīnyīn), or more formally, Hanyu Pinyin ( / )

Pinyin is the most commonly used romanization method for Standard Mandarin.
Standard Mandarin. Hanyu means Chinese language, pinyin.
it means 'phonetics', or more literally, 'spelled sound'. The system is used only
for standard Mandarin, and not for other Chinese languages, including ancient Chinese
official, Guangyun (/). The system is used in mainland China and Hong Kong,
Macau, parts of Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, for the teaching of Mandarin]e
internationally, to teach Mandarin as a second language. It is also used
to transliterate Chinese names in foreign publications, and can be used for the
insertion of Chinese characters (Hanzi) in computers and mobile phones.

The Romanization system was developed by a governmental committee of the Republic.

People's Republic of China (PRC), and approved by the country's government on February 11, 1958. The
International Organization for Standardization
ISO adopted pinyin as an international standard in 1982 for standard romanization.
from modern Chinese (ISO-7098:1991), and since then it has been adopted by several others
organizations, like Singapore, by the Library of Congress of the United States, and
by the American Library Association.
Romanization also became the national standard in the Republic of China, commonly
known as Taiwan or Formosa, on January 1, 2009.

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Pinyin replaced zhuyin as the method of Chinese phonetic instruction in China.

Continental. It opinions a romanization, that is, it uses Latin letters to
representing sounds in standard Mandarin; the way to perform such representation in pinyin
differs, in some cases, from the style of written sound symbolism in other languages that
they use the Latin alphabet. For example, the sounds indicated in this dialect by the letter
correspond more precisely to the sounds represented, respectively, by the letter p
in Western employment of the Latin alphabet. Other letters, such as j, q, x, or zh indicate sounds
that do not correspond exactly to any sound in English. Thus, the pronunciation of
the name of the capital of China in pinyin, 'Beijing' [something between PeiouPi-kchingouking], is
quite similar to the pronunciation of its current version in Portuguese 'Pequim'.
Some of the transcripts in pinyin, such as the ending 'ang', do not either
correspond to pronunciations of the English or Portuguese language. Pinyin was developed
considering the needs of Chinese language speakers,
specifically from Standard Mandarin, and it is not a form of transliteration of the characters
Chinese directed at Westerners. By allowing Latin characters to refer to sounds.
specific Chinese, opinyin performs an accurate and compact romanization, what is it
convenient for native Chinese speakers and academics, but not always for speakers
of Western languages. This means that a person who has never studied Chinese, or the
the Pinyin system is prone to making serious pronunciation errors. This, however, is
a less serious problem with romanization systems compared to the previous ones

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The primary purpose of Chinese schools is to teach the pronunciation of Mandarin.

standard. Many Western people have a mistaken view when thinking that pinyin is used
to help children associate characters with spoken words they already know.
This is not substantiated, since many Chinese do not use standard Mandarin at home and,
That's why they don't know the pronunciation of words in Standard Mandarin before arriving.
learn them in primary school through the use of pinyin.

Pinyin uses the Latin alphabet, and therefore its pronunciation is relatively clear for
Westerners. The vowels of pinyin are pronounced similarly to the vowels of the languages
Romance languages, and most of the consonants are similar to those of the English language, or even
of the Portuguese language. A trap for novice English speakers, however, are the
uncommon pronunciations of x, q, c, zh, ez (e sometimes) and the voiceless pronunciation (without
vibration of the vocal cords of the letters d, b, g, e, j.

The pronunciation of Chinese is generally given in terms of initials and finals, which represent the
segmental and phonemic part of the language. Initials are initial consonants, while finals
they are all the possible combinations of mediais (semivowels that precede the vowels), the
nucleus of the vowel, and the coda (final vowel or consonant).

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Generally, a single Chinese character is equivalent to a syllable. A common syllable

Modern Chinese typically consists of an initial and a final with a tone. The tone is
overlapping in the whole syllable. A syllable may also not have an onset, but all the
syllables must have an ending.

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Here you find the way to write the tones.

mother mum horse but

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TONS

Mandarin Chinese has four tones and one atonal or neutral.

WRITING DESCRIPTION
TOM

1st mother High and leveled

2nd has Starts at a moderate tone, then rises

to the top

3rd horse Starts from medium to low, goes down to

down and then up to the top

4th but Starts at the top, then goes down fast and
strong all the way down

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INITIALS

The syllable in Chinese is composed of an initial, which is a consonant that starts the
sílaba, e uma final, que cobre o resto da sílaba. As iniciais correspondem às consoantes.
However, it is worth mentioning that a final can start the syllable, playing the role of
initial, but will be written as consonants, which are the y and the w, at the end of the list below.

b p m f

d t n l

g k h

j q x

z c s

zh ch sh r

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Put a paper in front of your mouth and notice that when you pronounce, the
paper moves or not.

but like the sound of 'p' in 'pigeon', it is a soft 'p' and not aspirated

As in the sound of the second "p" in "hippopotamus", it is a closed and aspirated "p".

but like the sound of 'mo' in 'bat'

it's like the sound of 'fo' in 'ant'

and like the sound of 't' in 'shark', a soft and unaspirated 't', just like in 'auntie'
in the accent of Pernambuco (Brazil)

like the sound of "t" in "turtle" or like a closed and aspirated "t"

and like the sound of 'n' in 'novel'

and how the sound of 'l' in 'lion'

and like the sound of 'c' in 'vaca' or like a soft and non-aspirated 'q', what is it
difficult for Portuguese speakers

and like the sound of 'q' in 'quero' or like a closed 'q', but aspirated

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b p m f

d t n l

g k h

j q x

z c s

zh ch sh r

and how the sound of 'r' in 'rat' with a rasping sound

and like the sound of "dj" as in "Djavan" or "j" from "jipe" (keeping in mind the pronunciation
American original "jeep"

like the sound of 'tsi' or like the hissing 't' in 'tiger', with the hissing carioca accent
(Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

x like the sound of 'ci' in 'cithara', with the corners of the lips turned down, however, the
An example with greater retention by memory is the 'xi' in 'xixi', without the hissing, just as spoken.
for baby, who naturally puts the mouth in the right position

like the sound of 'z' in 'zebra', sibilant, but not aspirated

and like the sound of 'ts' in 'Lao Tse', sibilant and aspirated

it's like the sound of 's' in 'serpent'

like the sound of 'j' in 'jeans', unaspirated

and like the sound of 'tch' in our 'bye', aspirated, just like the 'c' in 'ciao' from
Italian

like the sound of "sh" in "shampoo"

like the sound of the 'r' in 'sir' in English

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b p m f

d t n l

g k h

j q x

z c s

zh ch sh r

and as equivalent to 'i'

with a sound equivalent to 'u'

A lot of attention must be given to the pronunciation of the so-called consonants.

"inhaled". It is necessary to release the air

while the consonant is pronounced.

p as in 'duck'

like the 't' in 'turtle'

like 'c' in 'kangaroo'

what is stronger than 'ch' in 'chifre'

such as "ts" in "tsunami"

ch (like an aspirated sound, with the tongue curled back, does not touch the teeth)

Differences between certain initial sounds that are practically the same
bottom), it is precisely the first one not to be aspirated and the second one to be aspirated (that is, the
the result is quite distinct): b / p d / t g / k j / q z / c zh / ch.

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FINALS

In modern Chinese, there are 38 finals alongside the 21 initials represented above.

i u ü
a ia ua

o to

e ie ue
er

ai uai

hey uei(ui)

to hello

or iou(iu)

an ian uan pale

en in uen(un) one

the jiang money

eng ing ueng

long long

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like the sound of 'a' in 'bee'

or like the sound of 'o' in 'butterfly'

and how the sound of 'e' in 'elephant' approaches a guttural sound

i, u, ou e in have the same sound as in Portuguese, with the exception of i after z, c, s,

zh, ch e r, whose sound is closer to the sound of 'i' in 'giraffe'

it is precisely the ü of French, with the lips shaped like a beak producing a sound
next to the 'i' (the 'u' of French)

like the sound of "ai" in "parrot"

it's like the sound of "ei" in "whale"

like the sound of 'au' in 'bacalhau'

it is like 'ia' in 'jboa'

like 'ie' in 'diet'

I call it 'ial' as in 'filial'.

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i u ü
a there ua

o uo

e i.e. ue
er

ai wow

hey uei(ui)

to hello

you iou(iu)

an ian uan one

in in u(en)(n) one

and iang money

eng ing ueng

long long

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iou (iu) as "iou" in "miou"

it is like the sound of 'iuê'

it is like the sound of "ar" from the English "art", in American pronunciation, with the tongue
rolled up at the back

they sound like the sound of 'ien' in 'hyena', closed and without prolonging the 'n'

like the sound of an open 'án', with the tongue ending behind the teeth
superiors, without prolonging the 'n', just like the sound of 'an' in 'swallow'

the sound of "en" in "centipede"

like the sound of 'iuin'

uen (un) like the sound of 'uen' in 'agüentar'

uei, uen and iou when preceded by an initial, are written as ui, un and iu
respectively.

the finals ending in -ng, below, have in common a nasalized sound like
"ng" is an onomatopoeia "Bang" without

pronounce the 'g'

like the sound of an open 'a' that becomes nasalized, like the sound of 'an'
in 'carangeiro'

as the sound of 'on' in 'otter'

like the sound of 'in' in 'ingratitude' with the long 'n'

like the sound of 'on' in 'stork'

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Changes of tones

The 3rd tone, when immediately followed by another 3rd tone, must be pronounced.
no 2nd volume.

you (pro) You

good (adj) good, well

hello Hello!

Hello

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1 you are = zcs

2 support time = zh ch sh

3 you decide to be an ultimate ruler = giant giant round army

what what when what
what when where
Xu Xue Xuan Xun
xü xüe xüan xün

4 moon phase and lunar cycle = u ue uan un

5 This is something you have. = ia ie iao iou

Yin and Yang ian in ing iang
young
long

6 I am outside = you are you are you

Wei Wan Wen Wang uei uan uen uang
weng
ueng

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father father hold grandmother

be cow fill no

who what can what seven qi qi start

some to write write thank youevery beautiful sister every

crown I pipe jar xī tastiest wash xì

pile dui correct correct bright bright mang fate

heaven field to sweetenheaven one one to use easy

gray return destroy can to mend to repair suspend show

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TOM NEUTRAL

In Chinese, there are certain syllables that are soft and have a weak tone. This is known
as neutral tone, whose notation is the absence of a tone sign.

mother mommy

dad dad

older brother older brother

younger brother younger brother

sister older sister

younger sister younger sister

lover marido, esposa

child child, children

relationship relation

thank you thank you

polite polite, educated

rest to rest

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FINAL RETROFLEXA

The final 'er' is sometimes incorporated into another final to form the retroflex final and when it is
used this way, it is no longer an independent syllable.

A retroflex final is represented by the letter "r" added to the end of the word.

huìr a moment

diǎnr a little

where where

this + here -> here here

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I'm sorry Excuse me

It's okay Everything is fine

May No

Thank you Thank you

relationship relationship
You're welcome You're welcome.

cow No

tomorrow Tomorrow

see See

See you tomorrow (we'll) see you tomorrow

to repair Rest

after a while One moment

fix it a little Rest for a moment

good Good

Alright All good

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VOCABULARY
you you (respectful)

noble honor

gender to be called (surname)

to have a surname

I I

Zhang (a last name)

you you

to shout to be called (name)

what which

name name

Vitality (a name)

that he

Wāng (a surname)

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VOCABULARY 2

is to be

who who

of (possessive particle)

my my

teacher professor

to know to know

student student

ma particle
interrogative

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VOCABULARY 3

friend friend

Li (a surname)

ocean (a name)

you delete

sea sea

Shanghai Shanghai

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What is your friend's name? What is the name of your

What is your name? friend?

Her surname is Li, and her name is Li Dahai. His family name
I am Li, the name is Dahai

Historically, it is still Li is the family name.

The sea of Shanghai. hey, 'hi' is the same
hello in Shanghai

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 Curso de Língua Chinesa

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