• 中文 v1 - people from the Japanese thread unwelcome!
    116 replies, posted
Japanese just got a thread, as did Arabic so I figured I'd start a language thread for simplified Mandarin Chinese. I'm pretty sure there's a couple people that speak/read/are learning Chinese on facepunch. [B]Why Chinese is a good language to learn[/B] - It makes you look like you're smiling a lot because of all the shi's and ch's and xi's and zi's - Japanese stole a lot from it or something so its gotta be good - It's the most widely spoken language globally (China itself has 1/5 of the world's population) and it's also spoken in Taiwan and Singapore - You'll get a lot of jobs if you speak Chinese I think?? - No plurals, gendered words, tenses, conugations, inflections, complex pronouns, definite articles, other linguistic things that are silly - Characters give hints to meaning based on radicals - small bits of the character. For example, 火 is fire, 烤 is roast, 煸 is stir fry, 炒 is flash fry. Fire is self-explanatory, the other three have 'fire' on the left side of the character. There aren't too many radicals, a little bit more than the latin alphabet. - Whenever you decompile a character it's an adventure! 口 is a radical, 'surround'. 田 is 'field' (makes sense). 由 is 'from', also makes sense. 油 is oil (3 drops of water + from). 西 is western, 夕 is evening - 酱 is sauce (the extra bit in the top left is supposed to be 'cot'. "Western evening cot". I dunno). Finally, 酱油 "sauce oil" is soy sauce! [B]Why Chinese isn't for everyone[/B] - Nobody can get their tones right. There are 4 tones and each one implies a totally different meaning with no hints. shi1 is typically "corpse", shi2 is typically "ten", shi3 is typically "shit" (or "arrow/dart" if you're archaic), shi4 is typically "to be". - If your native language isn't character based (aka. 90% of facepunch), it'll take a while to learn - There are only 400 syllables excluding tones - 1600 spoken words, but 40000 words in a modern dictionary and many more words that aren't used much anymore. That's ~25 words per syllable. shi1 means "corpse", "to lose", "teacher/military division", "to carry out", "wet", "lion", a river in China, "rough silk", "louse", "poem", "place name", "strain" and "turtle dove". It's all context-based [B]Good reading[/B] [url]http://www.fluentin3months.com/chinese/[/url] [B]Websites to learn from[/B] [url]http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1194238[/url] - Facepunch language learning thread [url]http://www.memrise.com/[/url] - Memrise, loads of vocabulary practice/learning, basically flash cards with pronunciation but better [url]http://www.imqq.com/[/url] - QQ instant messenger, basically Chinese windows live messenger. Good for google translate practice. You can easily get random adds for conversation practice, I have 150 contacts and know none of them IRL [url]http://www.nciku.com/[/url] - NCIKU dictionary, fantastic character dictionary. It also has a box where you can write hanzi with your mouse and find the definition. [url]http://www.lang8.com/[/url] - Lang8, language exchange site. Write blogs and have native speakers correct them. Good for intermediate-advanced learners of any language. [url]http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/[/url] - Pinyin table with audio. Useful for beginners [B]How to use Chinese in windows[/B] 1) Go to the Region and Language control panel 2) Keyboards and Languages tab 3) Change keyboards 4) Add... 5) Chinese (Simplified, PRC) - Microsoft Pinyin New Experience Input St 6) Press alt+shift to cycle through languages 七) 成功 [B]Tones for the newbie[/B] Four pitch tones: High, raising, dip, lowering - 1 2 3 4 respectively. [img]http://www.wku.edu/~shizhen.gao/Chinese101/gift/tone/tones.gif[/img] Each word in Chinese has a different tone. It's a part of the word and saying "ma" one way is not the same as "ma" another way. That's not to say that if you said everything with tone 1 in mainland China that the native speaker wouldn't understand - it just means they'd have difficulty parsing it and it'd sound very very wrong to them. It's like in English if you say "cup" instead of "cap". They're totally different, unrelated words. There's also technically a 5th tone, neutral, which is where you say it with no inflection or pitch or anything - just as an addon to the sentence. There are only a few with no tone - 吗 (ma5) is one, 子 (zi5) is another. It's good practice to learn your tones and speak with tones to start with, and don't slack off on them! [B]Some slang you might encounter[/B] 加油 (jia1you2), literally "refuel"/"add oil": Give it your all 战斗 (zhan4dou4), literally "fighting": Great! 没事 (mei2shi4), literally "nothing": Don't worry about it [B]Swears (I know that's all you're here for)[/B] 他妈的 "ta1 ma1de5": lit. "his mother's", fig. generic swear 鸡巴 "ji1 ba1": lit. "chicken bar", fig. "cock" 屄 "bi1": lit. "vulva", fig. "cunt" 鸡白 "ji1 bai2": lit. "chicken white", fig. "pussy" 二屄 "er4 bi1": lit. "double vagina", fig. "fucking idiot" (bonus: sounds like "Arby") 妓女 "ji4 nu3": lit. "prostitute woman", fig. "whore" 咪咪 "mi1mi1": lit. onomatopoeia for cat's meow, fig. "titties" 菊花 "ju2hua1": lit. "chrysanthemum", fig. "asshole" 肏 "cao4": lit. "fuck", fig. "fuck" (verb) 爆菊花 "bao4 ju2hua1": lit. "explode the chrysanthemum", fig. "bumsex" 白痴 "bai2 chi1": lit. "white silly", fig. "dumbass" 公共汽车 "gong1 gong4qi4che1": lit. "public bus", fig. "slut" 我肏 "wo3 cao4": lit. "I fuck" (verb), fig. "Holy fuck!" 牛屄 "niu2 bi1": lit. "cow vagina", fig. "fucking awesome" find more at [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanity"]your friendly neighborhood mandarin profanity page[/URL] So yeah, without further ado, 你们好吗?
Ni Hao Khai Lan. See, i speak chinese!
what does 你们好吗 mean I'm so bad at learning languages
I thought there was no such thing as Chinese language. I thought there was Cantonese and Mandarin.
太好了。中文三颗。 Learning Chinese, but I preferred google input. It allowed both simplified and traditional. Unfortunately, my college is teaching traditional hanzi. Its better than Spanish for me though. [QUOTE=Blazyd;39049866]what does 你们好吗 mean I'm so bad at learning languages[/QUOTE] Think it is "How are all of you." I know that the first 3 are nimen hao(meaning hello all).
[QUOTE=Blazyd;39049866]what does 你们好吗 mean I'm so bad at learning languages[/QUOTE] "How are you all" 你: you 们: plural particle 好: good 吗: question particle 你好: lit. "you good", fig. "hello" 你们好: lit "you all good", fig. "hello everybody" 你好吗: lit. "you good?", fig. "how are you?" [editline]31st December 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=raccoon2112;39049884]I thought there was no such thing as Chinese language. I thought there was Cantonese and Mandarin.[/QUOTE] Yep. This thread is for either since none of us are actually talking to each other. Isn't that convenient? There are actually [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China"]56 ethnic languages[/URL] from China.
天皇陛下万歳
你好! 我的汉文是不好。 [editline]1st January 2013[/editline] 我学汉文上七和八年级。2012年我学十二年级。 [editline]1st January 2013[/editline] 我是澳大利亚人。
[QUOTE=swift and shift;39050267]我的汉文是不好。[/QUOTE] 哈哈没事! [editline]1st January 2013[/editline] added list of swears
[QUOTE=swift and shift;39050267]你好! 我的汉文是不好。 [editline]1st January 2013[/editline] 我学汉文上七和八年级。2012年我学十二年级。 [editline]1st January 2013[/editline] 我是澳大利亚人。[/QUOTE] Not bad. "strange" grammar though. I've been in Canada for 9 years now, forgotten much Chinese, but I can still read some. +1 to google input. -1 to Android with Chinese.
[QUOTE=Disseminate;39050553]added list of swears[/QUOTE] 谢谢 [editline]1st January 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Angus725;39051356]-1 to Android with Chinese.[/QUOTE] 我有Android。我不喜欢他。Android 是最不好。
I learned all I need about Chinese from playing Sleeping Dogs.
[QUOTE=Samiam22;39051907]I learned all I need about Chinese from playing Sleeping Dogs.[/QUOTE] 你有沙上你的阴道~
[QUOTE=Zerokateo;39049861]Ni Hao Khai Lan. See, i speak chinese![/QUOTE] moo goo gai pan we're learning!
I work in a chinese restaurant and they all speak chinese around me... I know a few symbols from looking at the menu when I've been bored and working it out but no idea how any of it works. One thing I hear them say a lot is something like 'Gey-Go', anyone know what that means? Could just be a verb or something. I am just interested that's all.
Chinese for duck and gigolo are the same thing, so that might be something to keep in mind if you want to learn it.
[QUOTE=Konigstiger96;39054206]Chinese for duck and gigolo are the same thing, so that might be something to keep in mind if you want to learn it.[/QUOTE] Well that's interesting....
[QUOTE=Simples;39054145]I work in a chinese restaurant and they all speak chinese around me... I know a few symbols from looking at the menu when I've been bored and working it out but no idea how any of it works. One thing I hear them say a lot is something like 'Gey-Go', anyone know what that means? Could just be a verb or something. I am just interested that's all.[/QUOTE] "Gweilo"? Cantonese slang for foreigner/white person "niu2 rou4"? 牛肉 "Cow meat"/beef "jia1 you2"? 加油 "refuel"/give it all you've got "tu3 dou4"? 土豆 "earth bean"/potato Sadly there are a lot of things that could sound like 'gey go' and I can't think of one that sounds exactly like it. A direct google translate of 'gei3 gong1' in pinyin form yields 给工, "for the workers", so that could be it. [editline]1st January 2013[/editline] Also, if you work in a restaurant, listen for 'laowai'. It means 'foreigner' and its used even though they themselves are laowai.
我会说一点儿中文。我觉得它是最难的外文; 我学中文了五年,可是我的词汇太小了。 sorry if the grammar is off, i'm not really familiar with durations of time.
[QUOTE=Disseminate;39054366]"Gweilo"? Cantonese slang for foreigner/white person "niu2 rou4"? 牛肉 "Cow meat"/beef "jia1 you2"? 加油 "refuel"/give it all you've got "tu3 dou4"? 土豆 "earth bean"/potato Sadly there are a lot of things that could sound like 'gey go' and I can't think of one that sounds exactly like it. A direct google translate of 'gei3 gong1' in pinyin form yields 给工, "for the workers", so that could be it. [editline]1st January 2013[/editline] Also, if you work in a restaurant, listen for 'laowai'. It means 'foreigner' and its used even though they themselves are laowai.[/QUOTE] It feels like a wasted opportunity that I hear Chinese for so many hours a week and yet know none of it! I'll listen more carefully and see which it is, but it could be just a combination of all of those sounding a lot like 'gey-go'.
What a coincidence, I started learning it last week It was either this or Japanese, but I decided on Chinese, because it is more useful in the sense that a lot more of the world speaks it I know Hello, goodbye, thank you, you're welcome and can count from 0-100 :v:
[QUOTE=erfinjerfin;39054405]我会说一点儿中文。我觉得它是最难的外文; 我学中文了五年,可是我的词汇太小了。 sorry if the grammar is off, i'm not really familiar with durations of time.[/QUOTE] That's actually pretty perfect [editline]2nd January 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Disseminate;39054366]"Gweilo"? Cantonese slang for foreigner/white person [/QUOTE] Most likely this one. Simples, when you hear the phrase, have you ever heard it prefaced with a word that sounds like 'Si'? In that case they are saying something along the lines of 'bloody foreigner'
[QUOTE=Konigstiger96;39054443]That's actually pretty perfect [editline]2nd January 2013[/editline] Most likely this one. Simples, when you hear the phrase, have you ever heard it prefaced with a word that sounds like 'Si'? In that case they are saying something along the lines of 'bloody foreigner'[/QUOTE] Maybe, I'm not too sure, I'll listen out. I'll probably a lot of swear words haha
Ching chong chang chong what did I say? I love foreign languages but my brain refuses to keep any lessons
Ever notice how zero almost actually looks like a chinese guy with a beard and a little hat [IMG]http://i45.tinypic.com/2jeusr8.png[/IMG]
[QUOTE=erfinjerfin;39054405]可是我的词汇太小了。[/QUOTE] 我的词汇很很很不好。 囧
I'm Chinese and I literally know nearly nothing of the language. A 5 year old knows more Chinese then I do. Very embarrassing.
[QUOTE=Raizo;39054539]Ching chong chang chong what did I say? I love foreign languages but my brain refuses to keep any lessons[/QUOTE] Well, you can take "xing1 chong1 chang1 chong1" to mean "understand grieved/distressed prostitute satisfy"
I actually speak Chinese at home :v: 您好Disseminate先生! Ask me if you need help [QUOTE=Disseminate;39054684]我的词汇很很很不好。 囧[/QUOTE] Usually I don't think you're supposed to repeat 很. You'll either want to say one, or none at all. If you want to emphasize it, you'll have to reword it.
[QUOTE=thefreemann;39062256]Usually I don't think you're supposed to repeat 很. You'll either want to say one, or none at all. If you want to emphasize it, you'll have to reword it.[/QUOTE] Cheers!
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