Chinese For Dummies (4 page)

Chapter 1

Chinese in a Nutshell

In This Chapter

Getting a handle on basic Chinese sounds

Reading to communicate

Sounding fluent

Perfecting the four basic tones

Understanding basic Chinese idioms, phrases, and gestures

T
ime to get your feet wet with the basics of Chinese. This chapter gives you guidelines that help you pronounce words in standard Mandarin (the official language of both the People's Republic of China and Taiwan) like a native speaker and helps you get a handle on the four tones that distinguish Mandarin Chinese. After you have the basics down, I show you how to construct basic Chinese phrases.

But before you dive in, here's a bit of advice: Don't be intimidated by all the tones! The best thing you can do when learning a foreign language is to not worry about making mistakes the minute you open your mouth. Practice speaking Chinese first to your dog or cat, and then work your way up to a couple of goldfish or a niece or nephew under the age of ten. When you finally get the nerve to rattle off a few phrases to your local Chinatown grocer, you'll know you've made it. And when you visit China for the first time, you discover how incredibly appreciative the Chinese are of anyone who even remotely attempts to speak their language. All the hours you spent yakking away with the family pet start to pay off, and you'll be rewarded greatly. Still have doubts? You'll be amazed at how much you can say after snooping through
Chinese For Dummies,
2nd Edition.

Encountering the Chinese culture is just as important as exploring the Chinese language. In fact, you can't quite master the language without absorbing a little of the culture by osmosis. Just making the effort to speak Chinese is an act of positive diplomacy. Don't worry about how you sound when you open your mouth — you're contributing to international friendship no matter what comes out.

Grasping Chinese Dialects

Give yourself a big pat on the back right now. Yup, right now — before you even begin to utter one iota of Chinese. If you don't do it now, you may be too shocked later on when it sinks in that you've taken on a language that has hundreds (yes, hundreds) of dialects — each one mutually incomprehensible to speakers of the other ones. Practically every major town, and certainly every province, in China has its own regional dialect that folks grow up learning. Of the seven major dialects (outlined in
Table 1-1
), Shanghainese, Taiwanese, and Cantonese are the ones you may have heard of before.

And then you have Mandarin, dialect of the masses. Mandarin Chinese is spoken by more people on earth than any other language today. Pretty much a quarter of humanity uses it, given China's immense population. So just why was this particular dialect chosen to become the official dialect taught in all schools throughout China, regardless of whatever additional dialects people speak at home or in their communities?

With only four tones,
Guānhuà
官话
(
官話
) (gwan-hwah) (
Mandarin
[Literally:
the language of the officials,
who were also known as Mandarins]) has served as the hybrid language of China since the 15th century because this dialect was based on the educated speech of the region around Beijing. Instead of referring to it as
Guānhuà,
mainlanders in China now call it
Pǔtōnghuà
普通话
(
普通話
) (poo-toong-hwah) (Literally:
the common language
). People in Taiwan, in Hong Kong, and in overseas Chinese communities call it
Guóyǔ
国语
(
國語
) (gwaw-yew) (Literally:
the national language
). You may also hear it referred to as
Zhōngwén
中文
(joong-one) (
the language of the Chinese people
) and
Hànyǔ
汉语
(
漢語
) (hahn-yew) (
the language of the Han people
), because the Chinese have often referred to themselves as descendants of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), one of the golden eras of Chinese history. Because Chinese is the language of ethnic Chinese and China's minority groups, the more all-encompassing term
Zhōngwén
is preferred.

Table 1-1 Major Chinese Dialects

The term
Pǔtōnghuà
is used to refer to Mandarin in the People's Republic of China, and the term
Guóyǔ
is the term used for Mandarin in Taiwan. You can simply say
Hànyǔ
anywhere.