1、Mistakes of Control When you first start studying Chinese, you have no idea at all how to properly make the tones. Even if you can hear a difference, you can’t do it yourself. Or maybe you can hear and repeat it immediately after, but then quickly forget how to do it. This is all part of the process of learning tones.
Category: Pronunciation
The Prequel To Pinyin
It happens to all language learners, even the best of us. It’s your first day of class, and you’re silently panicking, watching in fear as your professor’s chalk dances across the board with lightning speed, producing the swirls and dots of Chinese characters. With each new slash, your heart sinks a little lower. How will you ever memorize and pronounce all several thousands of these?
Mandarin Chinese Romanization: Comparing Yale to Pīnyīn and Wade-Giles
This is the third of three tables you can use to look up a how a Mandarin Chinese sound is spelled with roman letters and ompare how it is spelled in two other major romanizaion system—especially useful if you run across a spelling in a system you’re less familiar with.
Mandarin Chinese Romanization: Comparing Wade-Giles to Pīnyīn and Yale
This is the second of three tables you can use to look up a how a Mandarin Chinese sound is spelled with roman letters and ompare how it is spelled in two other major romanizaion system—especially useful if you run across a spelling in a system you’re less familiar with.
Mandarin Chinese Romanization: Comparing Pīnyīn to the Yale and Wade-Giles Systems
This is the first of three tables you can use to look up a how a Mandarin Chinese sound is spelled with roman letters and compare how it is spelled in two other major romanizaion system—especially useful if you run across a spelling in a system you’re less familiar with.
Mandarin Chinese Initial and Finals: Table 4
This is the fourth of four tables illustrating which pairings of initials and finals do occur in Mandarin Chinese and, by omission, which do not.
Mandarin Chinese Initial and Finals: Table 3
This is the third of four tables illustrating which pairings of initials and finals do occur in Mandarin Chinese and, by omission, which do not.
Mandarin Chinese Initial and Finals: Table 2
This is the second of four tables illustrating which pairings of initials and finals do occur in Mandarin Chinese and, by omission, which do not.
Mandarin Chinese Initial and Finals: Pinyin Table 1
This is the first of four tables illustrating which pairings of initials and finals do occur in Mandarin Chinese and, by omission, which do not.
Mandarin Chinese Listening Practice: Recommended Films
It’s a simple language learning principle, but many people overlook it for some reason: If you want to learn to speak a language, you must hear it a great deal to become fluent. Babies and toddlers spend quite awhile listening and absorbing sounds before they become natural to them. Why shouldn’t we—especially since we may not have any choice in the matter. To wit: During my first year living in China, I couldn’t get a decent Chinese sentence to come out fluently for nearly six months…and I was trying hard. And then one day my brain seemed to say, "OK, that’s enough input; let’s start talking, Baby!" (My brain is kind of weird that way.)
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