Wednesday, February 22, 2006
First Chinese Lesson
Well, I finally decided that my mime act whenever we go out wasn't going to get me all that far, so I decided to sign up for some chinese lessons. Bloody hell! I thought getting the pronounciations was going to be hard, but I didn't count on having to deal with the tones! So, for each vowel sound, you have 5 possible tones (high tone, rising tone, "dipping" tone, falling tone, no tone), and each one has a different meaning. Then, to add to the fun, some combinations of the tones aren't used in some characters. And I thought having no vowels in written arabic and using the accents as vowels was bad! Got afew simple phrases for eating out as well (sort of ironic, I found a restaurant last night where the staff speak english, and now I start geting the phrases I need to order!)
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2 comments:
You think that's bad, try learning Cantonese, it has 9 tones and 3 tone levels for each vowel :)
I particularly like the words for buy/sell (mai/mai with different tones).
Heh, my cousin a long time ago got into trouble for saying gull, but could not get the 'l' right, so sounds like gow (same as dog), but in a different context is a bad word!
Or "ma", 2 different intonations, one is mom and the other horse.
Also check out the Chinese Corner on my forum as it has useful links to learning Chinese (whether it is Cantonese, Mandarin etc) at http://tinyurl.com/r78f7 .
You have better chance at getting the phonetics perfectly (the pinyin is great for westerners). Even the folks from the mainland can't fully get the phonetics correct when they speak Cantonese.
Anyhoo, you will be speaking perfect 'Beijing' Manadarin at the end of your trip. 'Beijing' Mandarin is the Chinese that is taught worldwide. It's easier to listen to as well. You will notice if you travel around China, that the dialects will vary dramatically. That is why 'Simplified' Chinese written remains the same.
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