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Chinese for Beginners (A1/HSK1) 初级汉语. Lecture 1 第一堂 Instructor: Ya Ping Hsiao 萧雅萍老师. Mandarin Chinese. What does Mandarin mean? In the Chinese Empire, mandarin refers to a member of any of the nine ranks of public officials. Most Chinese speak Mandarin.
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Chinese for Beginners (A1/HSK1)初级汉语 Lecture 1 第一堂 Instructor: Ya Ping Hsiao 萧雅萍老师
Mandarin Chinese • What does Mandarin mean? In the Chinese Empire, mandarin refers to a member of any of the nine ranks of public officials. • Most Chinese speak Mandarin. • 875 million people in China and 6.8 million outside China speak Mandarin as their first language.
Brief History • In 1932, the Chinese Republic made Mandarin the national language and named it Guóyǔ. Mandarin, the dialect of Peking, became the official form of pronunciation. • In 1949, the People’s Republic changed the name of Guóyǔ to Pǔtōnghuà, which means “the common language.”
A Chinese syllable • Generally speaking, the pronunciation of one Chinese character is one syllable. One Chinese syllable is composed of one consonant, one vowel and one tone (except that several syllables without consonants).
The tones of Mandarin Source: Wiedenhof, J. (2006). De uitspraak van het Mandarijn in 101 oefeningen(met cd). Amsterdam: Bulaaq.
Four language groups Source: How Hard is Chinese? Retrieved 25 January, 2009, from William Baxter’s homepage. Website: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wbaxter/howhard.html
Why is Chinese the most difficult language in the world? • Chinese is a tone language. • Chinese shares very little vocabulary with European languages. • The writing system is definitely hard to learn. References: (Baxter, 2006; Wiedenhof, 2006)
Loan words • Chinese Loan Words in the English Language • http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/chineseloan.php • English Loan Words in the Chinese Language • http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/englishloan.php
Feature of this course: ICT-based learningImportant installation for Learning Chinese (after this lecture) • Chinese computing help desk: http://www.pinyinjoe.com/ • Pinyinput: Type Pinyin with tone marks http://pinyinput.sourceforge.net/ • In case you cannot install Pinyinput, you can type Pinyin with tone markers by using Pinyin Editor on Chinese-Tools.com: http://www.chinese-tools.com/tools/pinyin-editor.html • Or use Macro in Word: Type Pinyin with tone markers http://www.csulb.edu/~txie/PINYIN/pinyin.htm
Feature of this course: ICT-based learningImportant installation for Learning Chinese (later in this semester) • Asian and Extended Language Font Packs for Adobe Reader http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?platform=windows&product=10 • Free Chinese Fonts http://www.clearchinese.com/resources/fonts.htm • Handleiding ZDT http://www.chinees-leren.nl/online-cursus-chinees/beginnen-met-chinese-les/handleiding-zdt • Getting started with ZDT http://zdt.sourceforge.net/main/getting_started/ • Writing Chinese on the Windows Platform http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/chinese_write.htm