2013年6月7日星期五

How to Learn Pronounce Chinese Pinyin

The Chinese government issued the standard of Putonghua in 1958, Pinyin became a way to learn Chinese(in shanghai life) the most efficient. Chinese pinyin is somewhat similar to the Rome letter writing, although the Chinese phonetic alphabet is standard, but there are some rules to remember, for learning Chinese Pinyin people, individual Chinese pronunciation is similar to the English pronunciation of the letters, but most of the phonetic pronunciation but different from western language system and the rules of pronunciation, moreover, Pinyin has its own voice, remember a Chinese characters pronunciation, must be four tones to each pinyin.

Instructions

1
Determine the tone of a given pinyin word. Mandarin Chinese has four tones -- "flat," "rising," "falling-rising" and "falling"-- and a fifth "neutral" tone. Pronounce a word with a flat line above its vowel in a high, steady tone; one with an upward-slanting line with a low tone that quickly gets higher; one with a "v" shape with a falling tone that immediately comes back up to where it began; one with a downward-sloping line with an abrupt, almost angry tone.

2
Pronounce the letter "c" as a mono-syllabic combination of the letters "t" and "s." The word "cai," for example, when spoken in fourth tone, means "dish." Pronounce this word as "tsai." Practice repeatedly until you can say all the sounds in a single syllable.

3
Replace the "i" sound at the ends of words with "u" (as in the word "push"), unless these words begin with "q" or "i," in which case you pronounce the "i" as "e" in "be." For example, the word "shi" means "to be" when pronounced in fourth tone, but is pronounced as "shu," keeping in mind the "u" sound from the word "push."

4
Pronounce the letters "q" and "x" as "ch" and "sh," respectively, keeping in mind that the letter "x" occasionally veers more toward "s" in its pronunciation in certain areas of China. Pronounce the word "qing," which means "please" when said in first tone, as "ching." The Western Chinese city of "Xi'an," on the other hand, is pronounced "She-an."

5
For beginners, may encounter Jing'an such words, Jingan is a district of Shanghai, and how to read this word? Read the Jing, read the an, pay attention to the distinction between the, if not the interval between Jing and an characters, becomes a word, the addition of Jin, gan. There are many people might misunderstand, if you still don't understand this word, you can learn some simple spelling.

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2013年6月3日星期一

Why to Study Chinese: Reason Two

The term “Everyone is Doing it” has been ruined by our parents, their parents, and their parent’s parents. When we are young and we want to participate in malicious activities with our friends but our parents decline, we explain that everyone is doing it. Then the all-to-common response of “if everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you as well?” Well, if you were a little smart ass like me, you retorted that “yes” you indeed would. Today, everyone is learning Chinese, so therefore forget what your parents told you, and learn it too.
OK, so not everyone else is learning Chinese. But did you know that Chinese is the fastest-growing language studied in the US? Enrollment in college Learn Chinese in shanghai courses is at an all-time high. Recently a bipartisan bill was introduced in Congress to provide Chinese language classes even for high school students. Other countries are even more advanced in this regard.
Obviously the idea of jumping off a bridge is more dangerous than learning Chinese, but for those of you that have already started studying and realized how difficult it is, you know that the two are vaguely similar in terms of initial difficulty.