Basic mandarin course laneway learning melbourne feb 2013

Editor's Notes

1. My name is Laurel, and you know a bit about me from the intro to the course.This is my lovely asst Carolina.This initial point I want to make relates to the fact that these signs and the trophythat are circulating are all indicative of an important attribute of the Chinese language: an external form that sometimes does not reflect the true nature of what lies beneath, whether intentionally or not.In the case of the trophy, the impressive appearance of the object is more important that the irony of a misspelled word on an award for a language contest.Similarly, in the case of the signs, the sometimes comically misconstrued English translation hides the true intent of those words – not as a genuine (and useful) translation, but as ‘decoration’.In the words of Oliver Lutz Radtke, who put together a collection of these and many others such signs, “English in China can be a kind of decoration, but few take it seriously or care whether it is right.”So, why am I telling you this? Because any introduction to the Chinese language would be remiss if it didn’t ask you to keep this basic precept in mind: What you see/hear may not (fully) represent what lies beneathMore on that later, but first, some audience identification:Who here speaks another language?Who has tried to learn a Western language? Non-Western?Who has taken any Chinese?So I hope this overview will be relevant to most people here – if not, I think I can at least promise it will be interesting. It is impossible to discuss the Chinese language and not be interesting .This is what we will cover, you also have some hand-outs to take away, and I encourage you to make notes particularly when we get to the section on tones, which is one aspect of the language I cannot replicate, even with my Chinese language software. But more on that later…Also, please be thinking of basic vocab you might want to go away with this evening, as I will do my best to add it to the hand-out verbally.PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS AS WE GO ALONG – all of this makes sense and is intuitive to me, but I recognise it may not be for others
2. So what is this language we call Chinese?The complications Westerners see – tones, characters, lack of linguistic reference points (which will we discuss in this course)Disguise some of the simplicity and much of the straightforward mechanics of the language:No tenseNo conjugationNo male and female nouns(These are all covered in a beginner’s language course, to which I will refer you at the end.)What is not so straightforward is not so much the language itself as the history and culture that have shaped the language:Historically:Isolation allowed it to retain simplicity and economy of expression. Phraseology is compact and straightforward, perhaps contributing to the intelligibility of the language across vast geographical distances.Culturally:Form over content is an important principle, as we have just seen in signs and trophy.So, these can be the more difficult components of learning to speak (use) good Chinese. In other words, you need to be able to think a bit like a Chinese person to speak the language well.And this does not just refer to conversational ability but habits of speech. Phone etiquette requires a ‘uh’ on a regular basis as a sign you are still present and listening/comprehending the other person – perhaps this come from the not-too-distant past when phones were both novel and unreliable.Again, that is not the topic of this course so I won’t go into it here, but keep it in the back of your mind as we progress through the evening…and my blog may help, to which you also have a reference on your hand-out.
3. Mandarin also referred to as ‘putonghua’ or ‘the common language’ or ‘Hanyu’ the language of the Han.Taught in schools, technically everyone speaks it.There is some debate over separate languages vs dialects of putonghua, but generally speaking Cantonese can be considered a separate language because it is not mutually intelligible to someone who speaks Mandarin. However, the written languages are all the same, so if I’m educated, I can understand a note you write regardless of which variation of putonghua I speak.Of course, I may not speak a variation of putonghua if I am one of the 55 minority languages/cultures in China.NE accent, including BJ, is considered the most ‘standard’ and therefore is naturally the one that those of us who speak it as a second language learn (I have a Beijing accent to a NW-er)There is also municipally-based slang: Shanghai-hua, Beijing-hua (‘er’- hua) which can be used to disguise meaningfrom out-of-towners or just add a taste of the local to pronunciation: BJ’s ‘er-hua’Yuan becomes yuan-rWan becomes wan-r
4. These are the systems that allow Westerners to develop an association with a language that does not have an alphabet and whose words are not spelled with letters, but represented by signs.Wade-Giles is the older system, developed during the 19th century and supplanted by pinyin in the 50’s because it’s a better, more consistent system that is easier to learn. Pinyin which simply means ‘phonetic translation’ Who knows the last 2 words?These systems do not exist to help foreigners learn Chinese.They used as part of the Chinese school curriculum and, while children have to learn characters the same as anyone – by rote memorisation – they also use pinyin to help them associate characters with spoken words they already know.It’s also the way Chinese is entered into computers.The endings shown here are examples to give you a feel for pronunciation…and how it differs from what might be intuitive to us. E.g. Shang-hai as pronounced… not…
5. So how do we not say something strange by using the wrong tone?There’s no getting around practice and plenty of environmental stimulus – i.e., go to ChinaSo how do we know the difference in meaning among homophones?Same as in English – by context of the conversationThe bear attacked a hiker last week.Where are you going?
6. (I’ve included the characters in this table as well, although you can ignore them for the moment – and note that the lines underneath are not part of the character – I copied these because they had the tone marks on.)You can see how the tone changes the meaning.
7. We will need to transcribe these expressions for 2 reasons:You don’t yet know how to read/pronounce pinyin.There are no tones.I’ll go through once, then you can follow me to get a feel for how it sounds in your own head.
8. Roughly translated as “You’ve arrived.” or “Here you are.” This observation signifies that you have arrived safely and that all parties concerned can now proceed with the business at hand.Literally translates as “Have you eaten?” Although it does convey this literal meaning, it is also used as a greeting to express concern for a guest’s health, even if it is not anywhere near a mealtime.
9. Chinese version of Italian gestures.
10. (The lines underneath are not part of the character – I copied these because they had the tone marks on.)
11. Segment or part of the character..Horse is pronounced ma with which tone.
12. Appears very complex and time-consuming but once you recognise radicals, it becomes easier.In fact, you can see in my well-thumbed dictionary that I have circled some of the more common radicals that I know I will use again and again.
13. Use hempUsually on top or left-hand side of characterRun my eye down the radical index at the front of the dictionary until I find the one I want – note: circle the most common ones.
14. Stories that depict morals.Always 4 characters.Moral of the story is ‘quit when you’re ahead’ or ‘don’t mess with success’.