Zhongwén Chinese Pinyin

[IDDQD]

Nǐ hǎo
Nǐmen huì shuō Zhōngwén ma?
Wǒ shì Zhōngwén xuéshēng


Just started lessons 2 hours a week about 2 months ago. Anyone else have some experience with Pinyin?

[joe7f]

I am taking Mandarin in the Fall and am learning some characters (along with the pinyin) now. This is hard stuff...

--Joey

[IDDQD]

Ive found pinyin so much easier to pick up than expected. I havent started on characters yet though.
In Taiwan they teach children to write characters with pobomofo. Its apparantly a great way to start. You should check it out if you haven't already.

[joe7f]

I was curious to see how your Mandarin was developing Bo. I started meeting with a language partner to work on my awful pronunciation.

--Joey

[voyd]

Originally Posted by IDDQD

In Taiwan they teach children to write characters with pobomofo.

I dunno - pinyin superceded bopomofo in China back in 1949 and I personally find it easier. Then again, I'm well-trained in English...unlike young Taiwanese kids.

There's only a few tricky sounds in pinyin, because it was originally based on the Russian Cyrillic (not English) alphabet.

[freespiritz]

da jia hao!

i have no way of writing zhongwen on my diannao at the moment, whether characters or pinyin. so we can play the guessing game! Oh and my Chinese sucks anyway.

wo xiao de shihou xue zhongwen, xian zai mei xue le...wang ji le hen duo (wo ye shi hen lan duo de xue sheng!), dan shi wo jue de xue zhongwen hen you yi se!

[IDDQD]

Originally Posted by voyd

I dunno - pinyin superceded bopomofo in China back in 1949 and I personally find it easier. Then again, I'm well-trained in English...unlike young Taiwanese kids.

There's only a few tricky sounds in pinyin, because it was originally based on the Russian Cyrillic (not English) alphabet.

I think the only sound thats tricky for me is the "r" sound, like in Měiguórén.


The Taiwanese refusal to use pinyin is strictly political. It's a Chinese system and therefore, not fit for use in Taiwan. Really stupid IMO. Instead they've done their best at introducing their own phonetic system which translates horribly
IE Taiwan..Shihcyuan Lou
Pinyin.. shíqiān lù........NOT THE SAME

Needless to say, this causes a lot of problems for wéiguǒrén telling cab drivers where they're going.



Joe. Its coming along pretty well. I don't do much writing but my conversational ability has come a long quickly. Im only about half way through the first text book but because of the use I get out of it in the city I have no issues using any of it at any time. It makes such a huge difference for me once I've learned something new and applied it either with my laoban, xuesheng or nupengyou.
Also, my classes are private so I always get all the attention and spend time just talking about my weekend if I want to. Awesome for expanding vocab.
Wǒ xué zhōngwén sì ge yué. Wǒ de lāoshī hěn hǎo. Wǒ juéde shuō guōyǔ hěn ròngyì kěshì wǒ bú huì xiě Zhōngguǒ zì.

If anyone wants a pinyin program I have one. It was a pain in the ass to find it but it works really well so im happy.

Anyway, zhè ge zhōumò wǒ yào qù KTV chāng ge! lol

And I write a pinyin test mingtian so wish me luck!

[voyd]

Originally Posted by IDDQD

I think the only sound thats tricky for me is the "r" sound, like in Měiguórén.

True, and while q & c are not hard to pronounce, they are not pronounced at all like in English either.

And, you have the fine distinctions between sh, x & s...

Also, vowels like i and e can often actually sound more like ee and u, or other sounds, depending upon the usage.

Etc..

Hwei - how many hanzi do you know?

[freespiritz]

bu duo.

xue ranhou wangji, xue ranhou wangji ying wei wo mei gen bie ren duihua ye mei du zhongwen shu huozi xue zhongwen zai daxue.

I'm just good at bluffing that I know what's going on around me. I've also pulled bluffs the other way round, pretending not to understand when I completely understand that it's a situation I don't want to get into.

[joe7f]

Wo xihuan Chinesepod.com. Wo hui shuo yi dian er Zhongwen. Nimen hao ma

我喜欢 chinesepod.com。 我会说一点中文。你们好嘛。

--Joey

[IDDQD]

Chinesepod.com hěn hǎo! Tāmen de guó yǔ kè hǎo shíyòng!

[hdtee]

Hey I'm from Singapore and Chinese is one of my main languages aside from English.

So if anyone's interested to know anything, I'm available to approach for help.

Examples:

English Pinyin
Hello! Nǐ hǎo!
Thank you! Xièxie
Goodbye! Zàijiàn!
No. / Incorrect. Bù. / Bú duì.
How much money? Duōshǎo qián?


To those new to Chinese, there's these strange signs on the top of the pinyin. Basically there represent one of the 4 "tones"(actually I don't know what's the official translation of this, will go find it out.)

Now focus on the signs on the letters they represent in order of the tone in ascending order.

The first tone is from How = Duō. so sometimes ppl will write Duo1 online
Second one Incorrect. = Bú or Bu2
Third one Hello! = Nǐ and Ni3
Fourth one Goodbye = Zài and Zai4


Anyways Chinese or rather "Mandarin" the language comes in many dialects so although the written Chinese characters looks the same but they're pronounced differently. But to those not familiar with Chinese in generally, they can be super confusing.