{"id":183,"date":"2007-11-20T12:06:23","date_gmt":"2007-11-20T17:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/posts\/2007\/11\/20\/learning-mandarin\/"},"modified":"2007-11-20T23:26:55","modified_gmt":"2007-11-21T04:26:55","slug":"learning-mandarin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/posts\/2007\/11\/20\/learning-mandarin\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning Mandarin"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m part way through my first “Conversational Chinese” course at the University of Waterloo’s Confucius Institute<\/a>. From what I’ve learned so far, I’ve found Mandarin Chinese to be a very elegant language. It’s a language like a talented computer programmer might design a language. Everything is very regular and consistent. It has a quality that in computer science and mathematics we would call “orthogonality.”<\/p>\n

Some examples of what I mean…<\/p>\n

There is no conjugation of verbs by subject<\/em>. In English (and French) we have to memorize many conjugations: “I am, you are, he is, they are.” In Mandarin, there is none of this crap. In Mandarin (written in the Pinyin romanization) it is w\u00c7\u2019 sh\u00c3\u00ac, n\u00c7\u0090 sh\u00c3\u00ac, t\u00c4\u0081 sh\u00c3\u00ac, t\u00c4\u0081men sh\u00c3\u00ac<\/em>, which could be literally translated as “I is, you is, he is, they is.” It’s that simple. And it’s the same for all verbs.<\/p>\n

No conjugation of verbs for present tense, past tense, etc.<\/em> In English: “I was, I am, I will be.” In Mandarin, the verb is always the same. You just use another word to indicate the time. In Mandarin: w\u00c7\u2019 zu\u00c3\u00b3ti\u00c4\u0081n sh\u00c3\u00ac, w\u00c7\u2019 sh\u00c3\u00ac, w\u00c7\u2019 m\u00c3\u00adngti\u00c4\u0081n sh\u00c3\u00ac<\/em>, which is literally “I yesterday is, I is, I tomorrow is.”<\/p>\n

Easy possessive forms<\/em>. In English, we have different forms of possessive corresponding to each pronoun: “my, your, his, our,” etc. Yet more crap to memorize. In Mandarin, possession is indicated by adding the de<\/em> particle after the pronoun: w\u00c7\u2019 de, n\u00c7\u0090 de, t\u00c4\u0081 de, w\u00c7\u2019men de<\/em>. Very easy. It also works with proper names, Sh\u00c4\u0081nm\u00c3\u00a9i de ch\u00c3\u00a0<\/em> means “Sh\u00c4\u0081nm\u00c3\u00a9i’s tea”. De<\/em> is kind of like the English ‘s<\/em>, but can be applied to pronouns too.<\/p>\n

Simple numbers.<\/em> English numbers are easy enough to up to ten. But then there are these weird ones, eleven and twelve. After that we kind of have a bit of pattern again with the teens. But even then it’s not a very strong pattern (fifteen instead of fiveteen.) Mandarin makes it very easy. You just need to learn the words for 1 through 10, y\u00c4\u00ab<\/em> through sh\u00c3\u00ad<\/em> (a different sh\u00c3\u00ad<\/em> with a different tone). Then 11 through 19 are simply sh\u00c3\u00ad y\u00c4\u00ab<\/em> through sh\u00c3\u00ad j\u00c7\u0090u<\/em>, literally, “ten one” through “ten nine”. Twenty is then \u00c3\u00a8r sh\u00c3\u00ad<\/em>, literally “two tens”. Twenty one is \u00c3\u00a8r sh\u00c3\u00ad y\u00c4\u00ab<\/em>, literally “two tens one”. This simple pattern will carry all the way up to ninety-nine (j\u00c7\u0090u sh\u00c3\u00ad j\u00c7\u0090u<\/em>, lit. “nine tens nine”.) At that point, a new word is added for “hundred” (b\u00c7\u017di<\/em>), but then the pattern resumes. The simple pattern continues on up, just adding new words for thousand(qi\u00c4\u0081n<\/em>) and ten-thousand(w\u00c3\u00a0n<\/em>). The pattern breaks there, with 100,000 (sh\u00c3\u00ad w\u00c3\u00a0n<\/em>, literally “ten ten-thousands”) and 1,000,000 (b\u00c7\u017di w\u00c3\u00a0n<\/em>, literally “one-hundred ten-thousands”.)<\/p>\n

Simple question forms.<\/em> Questions take exactly the same form as statements, except the unknown part is replaced with a question-word, like a variable replaces a constant in a math expression. In English we rearrange the sentence to put the question-word first: “Who are you?” In Mandarin, it is “N\u00c7\u0090 sh\u00c3\u00ac sh\u00c3\u00a9i?<\/em>“, literally “You are who?” Similarly for words like “where” (n\u00c7\u017dr<\/em>), “which” (n\u00c7\u017d<\/em>), “what” (sh\u00c3\u00a9nme<\/em>).<\/p>\n

“Yes\/no” kind of questions are also simply formed. Just form the positive statement, and add “ma” to the end to make it a question. “Do you want tea?” in Mandarin is “N\u00c7\u0090 y\u00c3\u00a0o ch\u00c3\u00a0 ma?<\/em>“, literally “You want tea ma<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

Simple days of the week. <\/em> The seven days of the week are just numbered, starting from Monday. x\u00c4\u00abng q\u00c4\u00ab y\u00c4\u00ab<\/em>, x\u00c4\u00abng q\u00c4\u00ab \u00c3\u00a8r<\/em>, etc.<\/p>\n

Simple month names<\/em>. Months are similarly named just y\u00c4\u00ab yu\u00c3\u00a8<\/em>, \u00c3\u00a8r yu\u00c3\u00a8<\/em>, etc. Literally, “first month”, “second month”, etc. Kind of lacks romance, but you have to admire the simplicity of it.<\/p>\n

But it’s not all perfect. There are some flaws.<\/p>\n

Mandarin has this weird idea of measure-words. When you want to give a count or measurement of something, you always have to use a measure-word. And there are many, many different measure-words, depending on what sort of thing is being measured. “Five people” is w\u00c7\u201d ge r\u00c3\u00a9n<\/em>, literally “five (ge) person.” Ge<\/em> is a kind of general-purpose measure-word. I think we have kind of a similar idea in English, when we might say say something like “five head of cattle”: “head” is being used in a way similar to a measure-word in Mandarin.<\/p>\n

There are many measure-words, and which one to use is based on some kind of quality of the thing being measured. Broad, flat things would be measured with zh\u00c4\u0081ng<\/em>, which I guess might be translated as “sheet.” W\u00c7\u201d zh\u00c4\u0081ng zh\u00c7\u0090<\/em> means “five sheets (of) paper”, s\u00c3\u00ac zh\u00c4\u0081ng zhu\u00c5\u008dzi<\/em> means “four sheets (of) table”. You always have to have a measure word of some kind. It’s not correct to say s\u00c3\u00ac zhu\u00c5\u008dzi<\/em> (“four tables”.)<\/p>\n

Almost all adjectives, adverbs and verbs can be negated using the word b\u00c3\u00b9<\/em>: b\u00c3\u00ba sh\u00c3\u00ac<\/em> means “is not”, b\u00c3\u00ba y\u00c3\u00a0o <\/em>means “not want”. The only exception (that I’ve learned so far) is with the verb y\u00c7\u2019u<\/em> (to have). In that case, the negative form is m\u00c3\u00a9i y\u00c7\u2019u<\/em>, not b\u00c3\u00b9 y\u00c7\u2019u<\/em>. Why? I don’t know.<\/p>\n

Another kind of bizarre example: usually the number two is \u00c3\u00a8r<\/em>. But if, and only if, \u00c3\u00a8r<\/em> is used with a measure-word, then it becomes li\u00c7\u017dng<\/em>. “Two people” is li\u00c7\u017dng ge r\u00c3\u00a9n<\/em>, not \u00c3\u00a8r ge r\u00c3\u00a9n<\/em>. Only “two” gets changed this way, none of the other numbers do. Weird.<\/p>\n

What has been most difficult for me so far, though, is the tones. My brain just isn’t wired to think that sh\u00c3\u00ac<\/em> and sh\u00c3\u00ad<\/em> are different words. I can never remember what the correct tone is for any word. Writing this article required constantly looking up the correct tones to be sure I wrote the correct tone marks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m part way through my first “Conversational Chinese” course at the University of Waterloo’s Confucius Institute. From what I’ve learned so far, I’ve found Mandarin Chinese to be a very elegant language. It’s a language like a talented computer programmer might design a language. Everything is very regular and consistent. It has a quality that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thegatesofdawn.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}