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Chinese is the world language number one, with 1,2 billion first-speakers! If it hadn't been for the American cultural imperialism & invention, Chinese, or Mandarin that is the official language in one of the oldest cultures of the world - China, would probably have been the most spoken language before the beginning of the third millenium. I have a special relationship with the Chinese language. I can't speak it, but I love the short words, the esthetic script & most of all; the diverse culture. The Chinese people's taste is really good! China has some of the most beautiful sights in the world, for instance The Great Wall & Bejing. Beside Mexico, they have the most tasteful food in the world & no country has such a beautiful national anthem as China!! :o) |
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Introduction:
The Chinese language:
Many people in the west think that the Chinese language is Cantonese whereas in fact Cantonese is just one of the eight major dialects of the Chinese language. Although different dialects differ immensely in pronunciation, they share the same written form. The Northern dialect (which has many sub-dialects under it) is spoken by 70 per cent of the Chinese population. Therefore, the standard language spoken nationally is based on the pronunciation of the Nothern dialect. The name for this standard form is Putonghua (common speech) in mainland China, Guoyu or Huayu (national language) in Taiwan, Hong Kong, & other overseas Chinese communities & "Mandarin Chinese" in English-speaking countries. Other terms such as Zhongwen (Chinese) or Hanyu ("Han" language, Han Chinese making up 93 per cent of the Chinese population) are more formal & are often used among Chinese language learners. Native Chinese speakers often use the term "Zhongwen" rather than Putonghua when they ask non-native Chinese speakers if they speak Chinese. Putonghua is taught in schools & spoken by television & radio presenters in mainland China, & it is the kind of spoken language which is most understood by Chinese speakers. This course deals with Putonghua.
Romanization:
Various systems have been devised for transcribing Chinese sounds into the Latin script. The system used in this course is called pinyin. Pinyin was adopted as the official system in the People's Republic of China in 1958, & has since become a standard form used by news agencies as well as educational institutions. Pinyin has now been adopted almost universally in the west for transliterating Chinese personal names & place names although in older books you may still find earlier romanization systems in use (e.g. "Bejing" in the pinyin transliteration & Peking in the WadeGiles transliteration). In mainland China, pinyin is used as a tool to teach the correct pronociation of Putonghua to children starting school. In dictionaries pinyin is given next to the charcter to indicate the pronunciation. Many street signs in big cities in mainland China have pinyin directly underneath the Chinese characters.
The speech sounds
Chinese is a vowel-dominated language. A syllable may consist of a single vowel, a compound vowel or a vowel preceded by a consonant. A compound vowel may consist of two vowels or a vowel with a nasal sound, which is treated as one unit. This is probably why consonants are called "initials" (shengmu) & vowels are called "finals" (yunmu) in Chinese. Every syllable is represented by a Chinese character. For example:
e hungry ai to love ke to be thirsty tang sugar
1. Initials
There are twenty-three initials (some people regard w & y as semi-vowels), in modern Chinese. Below is a table comparing the twenty-three initials with the English sounds. Some of the Chinese initials are quite similar to English sounds, others less so. Those which differ significant from the nearest English sounds have explanations next to them. The letter in bold is the Chinese initials:
Initial
b like b in bed p like p in poor m like m in me f like f in foot d like d in do t like t in tea n like n in nose l like l in like z like ds in beds c like ts in bits s like s in sale zh like j in jade, but with the tongue further back ch like ch in church, but with the tongue further back, & the mouth in a round shape sh like sh in sheep r like r in road, but with the tongue loosely rolled in the middle of the mouth g like g in good k like k in kite h like h in hat w like w in we y like y in yes j like g in George, but with the tongue nearer the teeth, & the mouth in a relaxed manner q - raise the front of the tongue to the hard palate, place the tip of the tongue further forward. The mouth is held more firmly than j. x - place the front of the tongue behind the lower front teeth near the hard palate then letting the air pass through the channel between the front of the tongue & the hard palate, rather like whistling through the lower teeth.
2. Finals
A final is a single vowel, or compound vowel or a wovel plus a nasal sound, i.e. n (like n in in) & ng (like ng in long). |
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