Nǐ hǎo!
Mandarin isn’t an easy language to learn usually, but with help from the Language Centre we will learn some basics to help navigate our way through the more rural areas of China.
China has eight major dialects; Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Fuzhou and Hokkien-Taiwanese. As Mandarin is the most widely spoken dialect, that is what we will be attempting to wrap out heads around. Chinese characters are incredibly intricate and beautiful, many of which are actually stylised pictures of what they represent. To read a Chinese newspaper it is estimated that we would need about 2000 to 3000 characters to understand! Unfortunately we only have a week to get some functional language and so will be sticking with speaking and Pinyin – the system of writing Mandarin using the Roman alphabet.
The most important (and most difficult) part about speaking Mandarin is all the different tones. There are four different tones in Mandarin, high, rising, falling-rising and falling, plus a fifth neutral tone. Change the tone you use, and the word has a completely different meaning! For example, ‘ma’ can mean mother, hemp, horse, cold, swear or imply a question depending on how you say it. On the flip side, Mandarin has no conjugations and very simple grammar – my two worst nemeses from School French!
Click here to read more about the Language Centre and the courses they offer.