Ask Mint | Learning to learn Chinese

Tomorrow belongs to China”, and “Chinese is the language of the future.” These are statements we hear from people returning after business visits to China. Be ready for tomorrow; don’t get left behind. Heeding these recommendations, I decided to go in for lessons in Chinese.
My first shock came when I heard that Chinese is a tonal language. The same word spoken in different tones can have different meanings. The classic example is the common word “ma”, which has four meanings when uttered with a high tone, a rising tone, a falling-rising tone and a falling tone. The pitfalls are many. I intend to say, “Your mother is a wonderful lady,” and end up saying “Your horse is a wonderful lady.”
In course of time, however, I found that my fears were misplaced. In continuous speech, the tone variations get merged in the flow of speech. When uttering single words, the tones become prominent.
The several names given to the country and to the language were confusing. In English literature, the country was known as Cathay, a name that survives in Cathay-Pacific. The Chinese name for the country is Zhongguo (sounds like Chung Kuo), and means “middle kingdom”. The name of the language then is Zhongwen, which refers to writing in particular. Another widely used name is Hanyu, the language of the Han people of China. In Taiwan it is called Guoyu, national language. In Singapore and South Asian countries it is Huayu, language of the Chinese. In the mainland, Left-leaning intellectuals wanted to put people at the centre, and preferred the name Putonghua, the speech of the common people. In 1956 the government adopted the term to describe standard Mandarin.
When we learn a new language, we start with the alphabet. Chinese is not an alphabet-based language; you cannot ask someone to spell the word pingguo (apple) in Chinese. Learner’s dictionaries for foreign learners transliterate Chinese words in the Romanized script known as “pinyin” and arrange the words alphabetically. After a short struggle with Chinese characters, I decided to stick to pinyin.
A unique feature of Chinese is the use of what is called measure words. They are words placed between numerals and nouns. In English we say “one book”, and in Chinese we place a measure word between numeral and noun. The most common measure word is “ge”: We have “san ge pingguo” (three apples); “yi ge didi” (one younger brother). The measure word is often dependent on the quantity or shape of the referent. For example, we use “zhi” for stick-like things, as in “yi zhi bi”, a pen. For a long narrow shape, we use “tiao”, as in “yi tiao he”, a river. Measure words do not contribute to the meaning of the expression, but learners have to spend some time learning their use.
When we begin learning Chinese, we expect it to have a grammatical structure like that of English, with tense, number, case, gender and other categories. But Chinese grammar is much simpler. The verb has only one form for present, past and future. A single form, for example, “lai” which means “come”, can be used for simple or continuous, past, present or future, and singular or plural. Word order is also different. “I jog every day” becomes “wo meitian dou paobu” (I every day jog). “Youju li zher luan bu luan?” (Post office from here distant not distant): “Is the post office far from here?”
As in other languages, English words are increasingly being used in Chinese speech. “Nan-peng-you” and “nu-peng-you” are now considered old-fashioned and young Chinese prefer to say BF and GF for boyfriend and girlfriend. Coca-Cola is “ke kou ke le”; beer is “pijiu”, “pi” as a semi-transliteration of “beer” and “jiu” for alcoholic drink.
Names of the days of the week and names of the months in European languages are associated with the history and legend of Greece and Rome. In Chinese they are labelled with numerals: Monday to Saturday are weekday-one, weekday-two, weekday-three and so on. Similarly, there are numerals with the common noun for month, “yue”. The names are month-one, month-two up to month-twelve. Note that October means the eighth month by etymology; but in Chinese it is called month-ten, or “shi yue”.
The final stage in learning Chinese is getting to know the cultural nuances of language in context. How do you address a married woman and a single woman? Can a foreigner be addressed as “tongzhi” or comrade? The normal way of opening a telephone conversation is to say “Wei”; but the same expression is considered rude in any other context. Besides learning grammatical structures, we have to learn to use the language in a socially acceptable way.
V.R. Narayanaswami, a former professor of English, has written several books and articles on the usage of the language. He looks at the peculiarities of business and popular English usage in his fortnightly column. Resource from http://www.livemint.com/2009/01/04213827/Ask-Mint--Learning-to-learn-C.html
After reading this article, maybe you can know how to learn Chinese more effective.

The Year of Niu - Chinese Ox Year

Chinese new year 2009 falls on January 26, 2009 when Chinese twelve-year circle will roll into the year of ox. In Chinese language, ox is pronounced as Niu. Niu, as an animal in general, was playing the role of dragging a plough in field before the invention of modern industrialized farm tools in Chinese history. The image of Niu in Chinese culture is hard-working and down-to-earth so that it is highly respected by Chinese.
When there are different terms, such as ox, bull, cattle, etc., to refer to different species of one kind, there is only one, Niu, for all those terms. And in Chinese there is no special term for beef but just the addition of a word, Rou which means meat in general, to Niu that forms a phrase of Niu Rou. Bull market in Chinese is called Niu Shi with shi standing for market. Niu is also a family name in China and a commonly used one.
Thanks to the shape of Niu, being strong and muscular, and its powerful moos, Niu has become a new slang frequently used by Chinese young and more and more Chinese of all ages. It, functioning as an adjective, is used to praise a capable person. And in most cases it is used humorously. Particularly, when the year of ox is coming around, Chinese are saying greetings mixing Niu the symbolic animal of the year and Niu the popularly used slang, such as wish you be Niu in the year of Niu, which means wish you a success in the year of ox.
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Jiaozi – Chinese dumpling

As a symbol of Chinese food, Jiaozi, Chinese dumpling is a must at a lot of Chinese festivals, especially on the occasion of Chinese New Year’s eve. A story says Jiaozi was invented by doctor Zhang Zhongjing, a famous Chinese doctor in ancient China, to save poor people from frostbite as filling dough with meat and traditional Chinese medicine.
The pronunciation of Jiaozi came from the tradition of eating dumplings on Chinese New Year’s Eve, which became a tradition later after Zhang Zhongjing, the famous doctor, invented it. In Chinese ancient timing system, the time named Zi is twelve o’clock in the midnight. When this moment comes on the eve of the last day of a year the New Year is coming in time. And in Chinese, the whole process is called Geng Sui Jiao Zi that means the change of years and Jiao Zi means that the change happens at the very moment of Zi.
The shape of Jiaozi is like that of Yuanbao, a Chinese ancient silver currency, Chinese think that the shape is quite auspicious. Northern Chinese eat Jiaozi more while Southern Chinese eat less and don’t call it Huntun in stead of Jiaozi. And there were other names for Jiaozi in Chinese history, Jiao’er, Bianshi, boiled Momo, and etc.
There are sayings about Jiaozi, such as chu men jiaozi jin men mian, which means one needs to eat Jiaozi when leaving home for a long time and eat noodle when coming back home.
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Chinese Culture_Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon（新月）on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon（满月）15 days later. The 15th day of the new year is called the Lantern Festival（元宵节）, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade.
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are celebrated as a family affair, a time of reunion and thanksgiving. The celebration was traditionally highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth（万物）, the gods of the household and the family ancestors.
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Strokes of Chinese Characters

Every Chinese character is made up of a number of strokes, or single movements of the pen or writing brush. The order and direction in which the strokes are made are very important in producing uniform characters, and learning the basic rules of stroke order can also ease the process of learning to write.
In general -- and there are exceptions -- characters are written from left to right and top to bottom, and horizontal strokes before vertical ones. The outsides of enclosed characters are written before the insides, and dots, strokes that cut through a character, minor strokes and bottom enclosing strokes are written last.
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流行词语Popular Words

Quán tou chăn pǐn拳头产品High quality product/s
Jià rì jīng jì假日经济Holiday economics. Refers to business peak periods which are usually holiday and festive seasons
Rè mén huà tí热门话题A popular topic; a subject of topical interest
Hōng dòng xiào yīng轰动效应A sensational effect
gōng zhòng rén wù公众人物A public figure; someone in the public eye
bó kè博 客Blog
lìng lèi另 类Out of the ordinary; different from the norm
huí tiē回 贴To write or give a response (on the Internet)
yù mèn郁 闷Gloomy; depressed
tòng biăn痛 扁To give someone a good or sound beating
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