I’ve said before that I’ve forgotten much of the Chinese I’d learned as a child, as well as the 10-week Mandarin class I attended many years later. I do think the stuff I remembered when I started learning again is actually useful for a beginner. So I’ll start the blog with that. Plus, I’ll link videos for pronunciation.
Before I get to my early Chinese words, it’s important to know that Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language and getting the tone of your words wrong could mean you totally misunderstood!
How to Pronounce Things in Chinese
Check out this video that teaches you the tones (finals):
Notice the little line on top of each vowel in the video. The tone sound follows the direction of the line. Take note of the relative pitch of each tone, too.
Here’s a guide to help you pronounce Chinese consonants (initials):
So, basically you combine the initial with the final to pronounce each syllable. For example, 你 (Nǐ) is the sound for “n” in the above video (initial)+ǐ (final in the first video). The final dictates the sound/tone of the syllable; in this case, “ǐ” (sounds like “ee” in English) with a down-up tone.
To pronounce 谢谢 (Xièxiè), you would take the sound for “x” in the above video (initial)+i (final in the first video)+”è” (final in the first video) with a downward tone. You just need to say it twice. It kinda sounds like “seer-seer”, but with a slight “sh” sound.
I think it’s a good idea to listen to as much Chinese as you can, so you get used to how all the different initials and finals sound. So listen to all the videos on this page a few times until you get the sounds right.
Anyway, I’ll include the pinyin (romanized spelling with tone accents) and Chinese characters too.
Note: I do think it’s a good idea to try to remember the Chinese characters as you learn the meanings. It’s definitely been useful for me. Yes, it’s more difficult, but in the long run it’ll be very useful. You’ll be able to read signs, and type messages in WeChat, and comment on XiaoHongShu!
Vocabulary
With this, let’s move on to the vocabulary that I remembered when I first started learning again; it’s all very basic stuff, but it’s good to start easy.
- 你好 (Nǐ hǎo) – Hello
- 你好吗 (Nǐ hǎo ma) – How are you? / Are you OK?
For years, I thought Nǐ hǎo ma meant “How are you?” as a greeting/pleasantry, until I found out that it’s actually said more out of concern, such as asking someone if they’re okay after falling over, or something like that.
- 谢谢 (Xièxiè) – Thank you
- 再见 (Zàijiàn) – Goodbye
- 苹果 (Píngguǒ) – Apple
The “ng” in 苹果 (Píngguǒ) is pretty much the same as in English, though it has a slight “pyung/pying” sound to it.
- 马 (Mǎ) – Horse
- 妈妈 (Māmā) – Mother
Here are numbers 1 -10. I’ll follow up later with a separate post about counting up to higher numbers.
- 一 (Yī) – One
- 二 (Èr) – Two
- 三 (Sān) – Three
- 四 (Sì) – Four
- 五 (Wǔ) – Five
- 六 (Liù) – Six
- 七 (Qī) – Seven
- 八 (Bā) – Eight
- 九 (Jiǔ) – Nine
- 十 (Shí) – Ten
Summary
So there you have it. All the basic stuff that I could remember before starting to learn Chinese proper. It’s all very simple HSK 1 stuff (Level 1 Chinese Proficiency Test).
Some essential stuff, like saying “hello”, “thank you”, and “goodbye”, as well as counting to ten.
Hopefully that’ll ease you into learning the language, and then we can go into some more complicated stuff later.
