The China Syndrom a.k.a Mandarin

[Pax]

Heya Folks, a few hours earlier i offered someone that i could help him learning chinese (mandarin). Since then many people here asked me to be their teacher. I am glad that there is such a strong response, but before you all get worked up, let me explain why i just can "help" you learning a few basics and not teaching you the whole language.

It´s not that i don´t want to... it´s just impossible to teach chinese sorely using online methods.

See, chinese is a tone based language. It has 4 different tones and almost each syllable in a word has a different type of tone. When a tone changes, the whole meaning of a word changes.

As an example, let´s take a look at the small word "ma":

ma = is a word at the ending of almost every question. It shows you, that the sentence you read/write/speak was a question. You pronounce it maaaaa with a long but steady "a".

mâ = means "horse" and to spell it correctly, you first start the "a" with your normal voice, then lower it a bit and then you end the "a" with a high pitch. It´s kinda hard to explain though. ^^ Maybe this will help. You speak it like: AAAaaaAAA

má = means "mother" and you have to raise your voice at the end of the "a" a few tones up, like a little girl asking a really dumb question, or crying "mámá".

mà = means "to rant" and you have to lower your voice very quick, like you state an argument and really mean it. Like the "so" in: "Because i say so!"


So if you want to say the sentence " Wô yào máoxiàn" to a chinese person (it basically means "I want knitting wool"), but you don´t hit the right tones, it could end up like this: "Wô yào màoxiân." As you can see, the two tones are differrent now and the meaning of the sentence changes. The way we pronounced it the second time maoxian means "risky". So you basically say that you want something risky.

I hope i could explain to you guys, why chinese is a difficult language and somewhat impossible to learn without a good teacher that tells you how to pronounce. Nevertheless, i could try and teach you guys a few common phrases and useful senctences.

Oh and MarkDuff, you disabled your PM function, so i can´t answer you.

Good Night,
a very tired Pax.

[MMM]

You can't learn Japanese online without audio or video either. Don't feel bad.

[Pax]

Sometimes they are Itadakimasu. It´s a very emotional language.
Cantonese is a nice dialekt, but i really dislike the way how they pornounce the vocals sometimes. Those long a´s and o´s crack me up everytime i hear them.

[xYinniex]

i'm from a cantonese descent.. but i;d have to disagree with you about the cantonese vs mandarin. I think mandarin sounds so much more nice and melodic, whereas...cantonese has all the really harsh sounds.

[xXCandyKittenXx]

Ack!! I remember those tones. We had to learn them back in the 6th grade at the beginning of our Chinese unit in my World Language Connections class. And the kids who are taking Chinese in middle school now (high schooler) have to emphasize on it. o.o;; All in all, trying to learn Mandarin was hard and easy, but the tones just ticked me off.

Just thought I'd put in my 2 cents.

And I've always sorta wanted to learn Cantonese...it's just that I never found it as...appealing (for lack of a better word) to me as Mandarin is.