Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
■4 <br /> The official language of The People's Republic of China is called "Putong Hua" <br /> or "the common tongue." We refer to it in English as Mandarin. There is some <br /> disagreement among linguists as to just how many Chinese "languages" there <br /> actually are because so many dialects are spoken in different parts of the country. <br /> This is due in large part to the fact that there are 56 officially recognized ethnic <br /> groups within the boundaries of present-day China. In the south of China, in addi- <br /> tion to speaking Mandarin, people also speak Cantonese or "Guangdong Hua." <br /> Mandarin is characterized by its four tones. Depending on what tone a word is <br /> given, its meaning can vary quite dramatically. Tonal languages are generally <br /> thought of by westerners as being extremely difficult to learn. While this may be <br /> true, there are some enthrallingly easy aspects of spoken Chinese. For example, <br /> words do not change endings in the plural, there are no tenses and there are no <br /> verb conjugations! <br /> "Tomorrow, I will go to the store to buy some things" would be translated as <br /> "Mingtian wo qu shangdian mai dongxi" or "Tomorrow, I go store buy thing." Such <br /> foreign-sounding syntax takes some getting used to, but once the patterns are <br /> learned, they can be applied to communicate countless ideas. Additionally, a <br /> form of the roman script called pinyin can be used so that traditional Chinese <br /> characters called ideographs or Hanzi can be written using our alphabet! <br /> Following are some of the more common Chinese words and phrases, which are <br /> written in pinyin. If you have a classmate or a friend who speaks Chinese, ask him <br /> or her to help you out with the pronunciation. Pay special attention to the tones! <br /> Numbers Some Common Phrases <br /> One - Yi How are you? - Ni hao ma? <br /> Two - Er Good morning- Zaoshang hao (Morning good) <br /> Three - San Good night - Wan an (Night peaceful) <br /> Four - Si Where are you going? - Ni dao nar qu? <br /> Five - Wu What's your name? - Ni jiao shenme mingzi? <br /> Six - Liu Please help me - Qing ni bang wo de mang <br /> Seven - Qi Please come in! - Qing jin! (Please near!) <br /> Eight - Ba See you later - Zai jian <br /> Nine - Jiu Thank you - Xiexie ni <br /> .k,; Ten - Shi You are welcome - Bu keji - <br />