DK - Get Talking Chinese: Mandarin Chinese for Beginners

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FIRST EDIT ION Wri tten by Eli nor G reenw ood Designe d by Hedi Gutt , Gem ma F letcher , Tor y Gor don-Har ris, and C lare Shed den Editor Carr ie Lo ve Consult ants Kath arine Carru ther s and Yu Bin REVISED EDIT ION DK London US Edi tor Kayla Dugge r Produ ctio n Edi tor George Ni mmo Produ ctio n Contr olle r Sian Cheun g Managing Edit or Chr istin e Str oyan Managing Art Edit or An na Hall Publ isher Andr ew Maci nty re Art Directo r Kar en Se lf Publ ishing Directo r Jonat han Metcal f DK Delh i Senior DTP Design er Pushpa k T ya gi DTP D esigner Rajdee p Sin gh Pictu re R esearch Ta iyaba K hat oon Jacket Design er Aki ko Kat o Jacket s Co ordinato r Priy anka Shar ma Jacket Design Develo pment Manager Sophi a MTT Pre-Produ ctio n Man ager Sun il Sharm a This A merican Edition, 2007 First A merican Edition, 2021 Published in the United States by DK Publishing 1450 Broadway , Suite 801, New Y or k, NY 10018 Copyright 2007, 2021 Dorling Kindersley Limited DK, a Division of Penguin Random House LLC 21 22 23 24 25 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 001324689Nov/2021 All rights reserved. Wit hout limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be repr oduced, stored in or intr oduced into a r etrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recor ding, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner . Published in Great Britain by Dorling Kindersley Limited. A c atalog recor d for this book is available from the Library of Congr ess. ISBN 978-0-7440-4069-2 Printed and bound in China Foreword Pinyin The tones Characters Four types Dieren t strokes Stroke ord er How characters are made Memory tips Its radical Easy peasy grammar First words Wel come! How do you do? Chinese names Conversation practice 1 Where are you from? My body Face facts Family and friends Respect! Conversation practice 2 Section 1: Introduction Section 2: Lets Get Start ed Section 3: All About Me For the curious www. dk.com

Numbers 110 Its simple math Number rules Whats the date? Birthday party Signs of the Zodiac Conversation practice 3 Seasons Wea ther words Vro om! Buying a ticket Asking the way Questions Getting around Conversation practice 4 Place settings Dont ip the sh! Live to eat! At a restaurant Conversation practice 5 Fun and games I like it Ping pong and Mahjong Slang Conversation practice 6 Beijing A day in the country At the market How to haggle Lunar New Y ear Festival! Conversation practice 7 Useful words Index and picture cr edits Acknowledgments zO u ba! Lets go! Section 4: Numbers Section 5: Weather Section 6: T ranspor t Section 7: Food Section 8: Hobbies Section 9: A Tr ip to China

Forewo rd Five good reas ons to learn Chi nese: China has the biggest population in the world1.4 billion people If you speak English and Mandarin, you can communicate with over half the worlds population China is becoming a global economic superpower The Chinese language is fascinating Yo u get much more out of a visit to China if you can speak some Chinese 1.5 billion 1.139b 90m 100m 379m 480m 77m There ar e thr ee majo r languages spoken in China. These ar e Mandarin, Shanghainese, and Cantonese. Mandarin has mor e native speak ers than any other language in the wo rld. Mandarin Shanghainese Cantonese English Spanish French Hi! Native speakers N ha o! T i ha o le! Thats g reat! billion million

Chinese people le arn Mandarin, to o Using thi s book At the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 191 1, the incoming nationalist government decided that Mandarin should become the standard language of China, replacing the many languages and dialects that made communication between people dicult. It was originally thought that Mandarin would be spoken by everyone by 2030. However , because of the size of China and the number of languages spoken, teachers in many schools still give classes in the local language. Mandarin is studied like a foreign language class, to use for speaking with nonlocals. Mandarin has many dier ent names in Chinese. Here are some, with their literal translations: Guyu Pu tnghu Hnyu Zhngwn national language universal words langua ge of the Han Chinese language Yo u can take what youd like from this bookr ead it as an overview of the cultur e, with some insight into the language on the way , or use it as a study aid to become a competent beginner . Whatever your approach, this book is a good place to start. The secret to learning Chinese is: Tak e it easy! Mn mn li! Zhng Forewo rd wn

P inyin is the name of the system we use to spell out the sounds of Chinese words in r oman letters. It is a written aid to pronunciation. Introduction For example, how do you say this character? Using pinyin, you pronounce it mo (and it means cat). No alphabet Chinese writing doesnt use an alphabet. Instead it is made up of a series of characters , each of which are made up of mini pictures. W e need help to know how to pronounce them, and thats where pinyin comes in. Wit hout knowing pinyin, it is very dicult for people to learn Chinese as a foreign language. It is important to remember that pinyin is only a guide. The best way to learn the sounds of any language is to copy what you hear . INTRODUCTION

Introduction This means sound This means to spell Listen to t he audio When you see this symbol in the book, audio material is available. Download the free DK Get T alking Chinese app fr om the App Stor e or Google Play , and play the track number shown. Pinyin was adopted by mainland China in 1958 and is the romanization system used there today (and in this book). Other systems, such as W ade Giles, do exist, though they are used less and less. About pinyin On the next few pages, there ar e tables for the initials and for the nals. It is really worth going thr ough each sound with the accompanying app. How to use it Chinese words are made up of one-syllable sounds, suc h as ma. And they all end with a vowel sound called a nal . In the word ma , the nal is the a sound. These sounds all start with an initial . In the word ma , the initial is the m sound. These are the characters for p inyin 1.1