[Fat1Fared]

[ For fun ]

Mandarin Lesson 1: Greetings

Xing-Hui=Pleased to Meet you.

Wo Hen Gaoxing Renshi Ni=I am very happy to know you. (Another way of saying you are pleased to meet someone, but less)

Ni Hao=Hello (Literally, you good) Mostly said to friends and good acquaintances you meet often.

Ni Hao Ma=Hello (Literally, you good, yes or no?) Mostly said to friends or close acquaintances who you have not seen for sometime.

Hao Jiu Bu Jian=Long time no see (Friendly form of hello for friend you have no seen in some time.)

Culture Shock!

Chi Fan Le, Mei You?=Have you eaten? (This is actually one of the most common and friendly ways to say hello in Mandarin. Technically speaking, Mandarin has no actual word for 'hello' (before you say 'wei', shush that is different.) and therefore a very common way to greet someone in Mandarin to ask an obvious question, like 'where have you been?', or 'have you eaten?' It feels clumsy in English, but is very natural in Chinese.

Grammar Sub + Verb + Obj-Nucleus core of Mandarn

This is the heart of Mandarin, and is at this level no different from English.

Sub + Verb + Obj
Wo xihuan Ni
I like you

The main thing to note with Mandarin is that due to the lack of diversity in its phonics, often you one sound will have hundreds of meanings. As in English where you have, there, their and they're. Mandarin this, only doubly so.

Zai=ing, at, again, then....etc (This sound has about 25 basic meanings.) This means in Mandarin, often you should not split a verb from the object associated with it. Now normally this will be the specific object you are referring to:#

Example

Ni jiang yingyu ma?
Do you speak English?

Wo jiang yingyu (Note, will learn about 'ma' and better ways to answer her questions later.)
I speak English.

However, if you do not have a particular object to reference and in fact just want to state a verb, such as saying, I speak, then you still need an object in Mandarin. The object you should use is the object most commonly associated with the verb. These are called verb-object compounds (or VO for short), they are generally only used for single character, high-usage verbs. IE eat, walk, run, talk, speak....etc. (Single character character means only 1 character is used to represent the word/sound.)

So for our example: I speak is actually:

Sub verb obj
Wo jiang Hua
I speak words.

Another example.

Sub + Verb + Obj
Wo chi fan
I eat rice (Note: Fan actually means rice, but due to rice being so commonly eaten in Chinese speaking countries, it can be used as a general, informal term for food.)

Phonics Use google translator's phonic reader for these sounds. While not perfect, it is far better than me, or most of the other ones you will hear online.

Wo= I =Sounds like W-or (There should be a faint R sound their, but often in the sound of South China, this can be dropped, so sounds like W-ow)
Tone=third

Chi= eat =Sounds a little like ch-er, but the er should be very defined.
Tone=first

Fan= Rice/Food = F-an
Tone= Fourth

Jiang= Speak = G like the letter and 'ang'.
Tone=third

Hua= Words/Language/Sentences =He W A

Hope, this was interesting, can keep posting if you like it, and we can go through very fun basics of Mandarin. :)

I would use characters, but this site cannot show them. :(