Introduction to Mandarin Chinese Saturday, March 16, 2013 MIT Room 16-644 • 1pm-4pm Stephen M. Hou [email protected] Spark 2013 Educational Studies Program Massachusetts Institute of Technology

How Many People Speak Chinese?

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Native_speakers_in_the_World.jpg Spark 2013 - Chinese Writing - S.M. Hou

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Sample Mandarin Chinese Dialogue • Teachers will now read the Mandarin Chinese dialogue on page 8 of the main handout. • “Ann, an American, and Bob, a Chinese, meet for the first time.” • Two-minute exercise: What are some distinguishing characteristics you observe with Mandarin Chinese?

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Morpheme and Words • Morpheme: Smallest linguistic unit with semantic meaning • Word with multiple morphemes: unspeakable = un + speak +able

• Analytic/isolating language: words composed of a single morpheme • Synthetic language: words composed of multiple morphemes 16 Mar 2013

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Synthetic European Languages • German: Aufsichtsratsmitgliederversammlung “On-view-council-with-link-plural-gathering”, meaning “meeting of members of the supervisory board” • Spanish: escribiéndomelo “write-ing-me-it(masculine/neuter)”, meaning “(while or by) writing it to me” 16 Mar 2013

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Chinese is an Analytic Language One character = One morpheme

(Smallest linguistic unit with semantic meaning)

All characters are one syllable long*

他 tā

不 bú

讓

ràng

我 用 你 wǒ yòng

He (negative) allow me He (negative) allow me

use use

nǐ

的 de

電

diàn

腦

nǎo

you (possessive) electronic brain your computer

“He doesn’t allow me to use your computer.” * Only true in Chinese dialects and Korean. Not the case in Japanese. 16 Mar 2013

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Pronouns • Subject and object are the same • Genders different in written but same in spoken form Singular Sub/Obj 1st

P

2nd P (Male)

Plural

Possessive

Sub/Obj

Possessive

我 wǒ (I, me) 你 nǐ (you)

妳 nǐ 2nd P (Female) (you) 3rd P (Male)

他 tā (he, him)

她 tā 3rd P (Female) (she, her) 16 Mar 2013

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Pronouns • Add 們 (mén) to make it plural Singular Sub/Obj

Possessive

Plural Sub/Obj

我 wǒ (I, me)

我們 wǒ-mén (we, us)

你 nǐ (you)

你們 nǐ-mén (you)

妳 nǐ 2nd P (Female) (you)

妳們 nǐ-mén (you)

1st

P

2nd P (Male)

3rd P (Male)

他 tā (he, him)

她 tā 3rd P (Female) (she, her) 16 Mar 2013

Possessive

他們 tā-mén (they, them) 她們 tā-mén (they, them) Spark 2013 - Chinese Writing - S.M. Hou

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Pronouns • Add 們 (mén) to make it plural • Add 的 (de) to make it possessive Singular Sub/Obj

Possessive

Plural Sub/Obj

Possessive

我 wǒ (I, me)

我的 wǒ-de (my, mine)

我們 wǒ-mén (we, us)

我們的 wǒ-mén-de (our, ours)

你 nǐ (you)

你的 nǐ-de (your, yours)

你們 nǐ-mén (you)

你們的 nǐ-mén-de (your, yours)

妳 nǐ 2nd P (Female) (you)

妳的 nǐ-de (your, yours)

妳們 nǐ-mén (you)

妳們的 nǐ-mén-de (your, yours)

他的 tā-de (his)

他們 tā-mén (they, them)

他們的 tā-mén-de (their, theirs)

她的 tā-de (her, hers)

她們 tā-mén (they, them)

她們的 tā-mén-de (their, theirs)

1st

P

2nd P (Male)

3rd P (Male)

他 tā (he, him)

她 tā 3rd P (Female) (she, her) 16 Mar 2013

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Pronouns • English: 22 words (I, me, you, he, him, she, her, we, us, they, them, my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, our, ours, their, theirs) • Chinese: Combo of 7 characters (only 5 are distinct in spoken form): 我, 你/妳, 他/她, 們, 的

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Characters and Words

• “Word”/phrase: 詞 (cí ) • In Modern Chinese, most “words” consist of two characters. 銀行 電梯 滑雪 小吃 16 Mar 2013

bank elevator skiing snack

肯定 退休 好笑 可愛

to affirm to retire funny cute

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Zhuyin • Zhuyin Fuhao (Mandarin Phonetic Symbols) was invented in 1913 to teach Standard Mandarin pronunciation to schoolchildren. Abolished by PRC in 1949; still used in Taiwan. • 37 symbols (21 consonants, 16 vowels) and 4 tone marks. • Also known by first four characters: ㄅ ㄆ ㄇ ㄈ (“b”, “p”, “m”, “f”).

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Zhuyin

http://encalibur.com/learnchinese/graphics/poem_phonic.gif 16 Mar 2013

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Romanization • Idea: Write Chinese using Latin letters. • Advantages: – Helps foreigners learn Chinese. – Standardizes transliteration of Chinese names into Western languages.

• Disadvantages: – Latin letters not “made” for Chinese. – Inaccurate if not fully understood.

• Systems: – Hanyu Pinyin, Tongyong Pinyin, Wade-Giles, Yale, Gwoyeu Romatzyh

• Keep in mind that pinyin was invented to represent Mandarin sounds, not the other way around.

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Conventions Used in This Class • • • • • •

Standard English: As spoken in the USA Standard Mandarin: As spoken in Taiwan (台灣國語) Characters: Traditional (繁體字) Romanization: Hanyu Pinyin (漢語拼音) Supplementary phonetics: Zhuyin Fuhao (注音符號) International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): \p\, [p]

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Structure of a Chinese Syllable

Initial (optional)

亮

Tone (required)

Liàng Glide (optional part of final)

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Final (may be optional, depending on initial)

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Chinese Syllables •

•

•

•

•

In all Chinese dialects, the syllable is a self-contained unit, both phonologically and morphologically. Every syllable in a sentence means something. Mandarin has ~1300 possible syllables (including tonal differences), and only 297 are syllables with just one character attached. Without tones, it'd be ~400. By comparison, English has more than 8,000. The set of Mandarin syllables is completely closed; anything "new" will sounds odd to native Mandarin-speakers and be rejected. English is different... a new syllable, like "blick", is OK. Even when new terms are borrowed from foreign languages, they are interpreted in terms of the existing set of syllables. So "boot" is impossible in Mandarin, even though "b", "oo", and "t" all exist. Even something like "shong" is impossible, even though similar syllables like "chong", "zhong", and "rong" exist. Studies have shown that the division of a syllable into initials and finals is psychologically read in the minds of native Chinese speakers - they cannot further segment a Chinese syllable final into component sounds.

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Tones • Mandarin has 4 tones 1 2

3

4

• Tones are written as diacritical marks above the vowel, or as numbers after the syllable:

媽

麻

馬

罵

mā

má

mǎ

mà

ma1 ma2 ma3 ma4 16 Mar 2013

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Tones

媽媽

罵

馬

Mā-mā mother

mà scold

嗎？

mǎ mā? horse (question)

Is mother scolding the horse?

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Tones • Tones are very important! • 支持 智齒

zhī-chí zhì-chǐ

encourage wisdom tooth

• 老師 老實

lǎo-shī lǎo-shí

teacher honest

• 柿子 獅子

shì-zi shī-zi

persimmon lion, shih-tzu (dog)

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Exercise on Tones Two-minute exercise: Practice the four tones of Mandarin. 1

mā ma1

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2

má ma2

3

mǎ ma3

4

mà ma4

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Tone Sandhi • Sometimes, the tone will change… • When two 3rd tones are in a row, the first one will become 2nd tone: • Ex: 「水餃」 (“dumpling”) is written as “shuǐ-jiǎo”, but is actually pronounced “shuí-jiǎo”. • Ex: 「所以」 (“so”, “thus”) is written as “suǒ-yǐ”, but is actually pronounced “suó-yǐ”. 16 Mar 2013

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Tone Sandhi • Two words have special tone sandhi rules. • 「一」 (“one”) is read as “yī” (1st tone) in isolation, but:

– Becomes “yí” (2nd tone) right before a 4th-toned syllable: • 一定 (“yí-dìng”, “certainly”)

– Becomes “yì” (4th tone) right before anything else: • 一碗 (“yì wǎn”, “one bowl”)

• 「不」(“not”) is usually read as “bù” (4th tone), but it becomes “” (2nd tone) right before a 4thtoned syllable: • • • •

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不是 不對 不會 不要

(“bú (“bú (“bú (“bú

shì”, “isn’t”) duì”, “wrong”) huì”, “don’t know how”) yào”, “don’t want”)

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Finals: ㄚ/ -a

• Like a as in “father”.

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Finals: ㄛ/ -o

• Like “awe” or “all”. • Usually appears with w- or -ubefore it.

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Finals: ㄜ/ -e

• Like “uh” or the oo in “look”, but with wide lips (smile!).

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Finals: ㄞ/ -ai • Like “eye”. • The diphthongs are much more fused in Chinese than in English. • For example, the “ai” in the “hai” of “Shanghai” is said with far less transition from the “a” to “i”, as compared to the similar sound in English, the “ye” in “bye” or the “ie” in “lie”. • Thus, when an English-speaker says “Shanghai”, the “ai” sounds exaggerated to a native Mandarin speaker. 16 Mar 2013

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Finals: ㄟ/ -ei

• Like ay as in “day”.

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Finals: ㄠ/ -ao

• Similar to ow as in “now”, but the starting vowel sounds more like the a in “father”.

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Finals: ㄡ/ -ou

• Like o as in “no”.

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Finals: ㄢ/ -an

• Like the an in “pan” spoken with a British accent. In other words, the a is pronounced like the a in “ax”. It is not “ahn”. “Mulan” is commonly mispronounced in the US media.

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Finals: ㄣ/ -en

• Like en as in “ten”.

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Finals: ㄤ/ -ang

• Like ang as in “angst”, or “ah-ng”. It is not like ang as in “sang”.

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Finals: ㄥ/ -eng

• Northerners tend to pronounce it like ung as in “rung”. Southerners and Taiwanese tend to pronounce it as pinyin -en, or as “eh-ng” (similar to pinyin -en, but ending with a nasal -ng sound instead of -n), and pronounce the syllable “feng” like “fong” (long o). It is not like ang as in “sang”. 16 Mar 2013

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Finals: ㄦ/ -er

• Like er as in “better”. Northerners tend to pronounce it like the ar in “car” (as if they were pirates or something). Southerners and Taiwanese tend to pronounce it similar to pinyin -e (ㄜ).

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Finals: ㄧ/ -i

• Like ee as in “see” when appearing after b-, p-, m-, d-, t-, n-, l-, j-, q-, and x-.

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Finals: ㄧㄚ/ -ia

• i + a. Like the German “ja”.

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Finals: ㄧㄝ/ -ie

• i + ê. Like ye as in “yet”. It is not like “yay”.

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Finals: ㄧㄠ/ -iao

• i + ao. Like “yow”, but the middle vowel sounds more like the a in “father”.

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Finals: ㄧㄡ/ -iu

• Contraction of i + ou. Like the English yo, as in “yo, what’s up?”

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Finals: ㄧㄢ/ -ian

• i + an. Like “yen”. It is not “yahn”.

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Finals: ㄧㄣ/ -in

• i + n. Like een as in “teen”.

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Finals: ㄧㄤ/ -iang

• i + ang. Like ang as in “angst”, but starts with a “y”.

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Finals: ㄧㄥ/ -ing

• i + eng. Northerners tend to pronounce it “ee-uhng”. Southerners and Taiwanese tend to pronounce it as pinyin -in, or as “ee-ng” (similar to pinyin -in, but ending with a nasal -ng sound instead of -n).

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Finals: ㄨ/ -u

• Like oo as in “moose”.

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Finals: ㄨㄚ/ -ua

• u + a. Like wa as in “swan”.

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Finals: ㄨㄛ/ -uo

• u + o. Like “wall”.

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Finals: ㄨㄞ/ -uai

• u + ai. Like “why”.

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Finals: ㄨㄟ/ -ui

• Contraction of u + ei. Like “way”.

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Finals: ㄨㄢ/ -uan

• u + an. Like “wax”, but with “x” replaced by “n”.

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Finals: ㄨㄣ/ -un

• Contraction of u + en. Like “when”.

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Finals: ㄨㄤ/ -uang

• u + ang. The a is like the a as in “father”.

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Finals: ㄨㄥ/ -ong

• u + eng. Like “song” in British English (long “o”).

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Finals: ㄩ/ -ü • Position the lips as if to say “oo” but position the tongue as if to say “ee”. Like u as in French “lune” and the German ü. • When the initial is j-, q-, or x-, we can simply write “u” without the umlaut dots because the syllables consisting of those consonants and the “u” sound without the dots are nonexistent in Standard Mandarin. • Thus, “ju”, “qu”, and “xu” actually represent “jü”, “qü”, and “xü”, respectively. 16 Mar 2013

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Finals: ㄩㄝ/ -ue

• ü + e. Both vowels are distinctly pronounced, but as one syllable. It is not “you” nor “you-ay”.

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Finals: ㄩㄢ/ -uan

• ü + an. Keep in mind that “yuan” is pronounced as one syllable. It is not “yu-an”.

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Finals: ㄩㄣ/ -un

• ü + n.

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Finals: ㄩㄥ/ -iong

• ü + ong. In Mainland China, the ü- here is pronounced more like a (pinyin) “-i-” (hence the spelling change).

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Aspiration and Voicing • In English, many consonants come in pairs. • In each pair, the position of the lips, tongue, and teeth are identical. • One of the pair is unvoiced and aspirated. • The other of the pair is voiced and unaspirated.

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Comparing English Consonants

Consonant Type

Unvoiced & Aspirated

Voiced & Unaspirated

Plosive

Bilabial

p

b

Alveolar

t

d

Velar

k

g

Alveolar

s

z

Labiodental

f

v

Fricative

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Aspiration and Voicing

• However, the aspiration-voicing distinction isn’t always so clear. • In English, voicing is more important than aspiration. • For example: consider the letters “b” and “p” in the following words: – “Bin”: – “Pin”: – “Spin”: 16 Mar 2013

voiced & unaspirated unvoiced & aspirated unvoiced & unaspirated Spark 2013 - Chinese Writing - S.M. Hou

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Phonemes and Allophones • • • • •

• •

A phoneme is a group of slightly different sounds which are all perceived to have the same function by speakers of the language. Consider the "p" in the English words "pin" and "spin". Even though most native speakers don't notice this, these are actually pronounced differently: they are different speech sounds, or phones. The /p/ in "pin" is aspirated, [ph], while the /p/ in “spin” is not, [p]. The reason why these different sounds are nonetheless considered to belong to the same phoneme in English is that if an English-speaker used one instead of the other, the meaning of the word would not change: Thus, the two sounds are allophones of the same phoneme. Chinese dialects treat these two phones differently; for example in Mandarin, [p] (written "b" in Pinyin) and [ph] (written “p” in Pinyin) contrast phonemically.

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Aspiration and Voicing

A key difference between Mandarin and English consonants: All Mandarin consonants are unvoiced; only aspiration distinguishes within a pair. Some other Chinese dialects do have voicing. In fact, in Taiwanese Hokkien and Shanghainese Wu make a three-way distinction (voiced/unaspirated, unvoiced/unaspirated, unvoiced/aspirated) between b-p-ph, and also between g-k-kh. Some languages, such as Hindi and Bengali, make a FOUR-way distinction; they even have sounds that are both voiced and aspirated.

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Aspiration and Voicing

Aspiration

English ‘p’ English ‘b’

Voicing

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Aspiration and Voicing Mandarin ‘p’

Aspiration

English ‘p’ English ‘b’

Voicing

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Aspiration and Voicing Mandarin ‘p’

Aspiration

Example of overlap: the “p” in the word “spin”

English ‘p’

Mandarin ‘b’

English ‘b’

Voicing

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Aspiration and Voicing Mandarin ‘p’

Aspiration

English ‘p’

Mandarin ‘b’

English ‘b’

Voicing

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Practicing Unvoiced, Unaspirated Sounds

• Pinyin “b” is like the “p” in English “spin” or “spy”. • Pinyin “d” is like the “t” in English “stick” or “sty”. • Pinyin “g” is like the “k” in English “skin” or “sky”. • Similar to the correct pronunciation of “taco” in Spanish. 16 Mar 2013

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Consonants Palatals

Dental Sibilants

Retroflexes

Unaspirated Affricate

ㄐ/ j

ㄗ/ z

ㄓ/ zh

Aspirated Affricate

ㄑ/ q

ㄘ/ c

ㄔ/ ch

Unvoiced Fricative

ㄒ/ x

ㄙ/ s

ㄕ/ sh

Voiced Fricative 16 Mar 2013

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Consonant Comparison • Pronounce the following syllables (all are first tone, a high level tone): • jiāng 將 • qiāng 槍 • xiāng 香 16 Mar 2013

vs.

zhāng 張 chāng 昌 shāng 商

vs. vs.

vs. vs. vs.

zāng 髒 cāng 倉 sāng 喪

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Palatal Practice • Pronounce the following syllables: • 價錢 • 休息 • 請進

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jià-qián xiū-xí qǐng-jìn

price rest please enter

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Dental Sibilant Practice • Pronounce the following syllables: • 自私 • 從此 • 存在

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zì-sī cóng-cǐ cún-zài

selfish from this moment on to exist

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Retroflex Practice • Pronounce the following syllables: • • • •

長城 政治 智齒 認識

• 持直

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cháng-chéng zhèng-zhì zhì-chǐ rèn-shì shōu-rù

Great Wall of China politics wisdom tooth to know (someone), to recognize income

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No Flapping, Please • Some native speakers of American English tend to “flap” the /t/ and /d/ sounds as the alveolar tap [ɾ] , so that many words sound the same: beating / beading betting / bedding bitter / bidder futile / feudal greater / grader latter / ladder

metal / medal Saturday / sadder day seating / seeding sent it / senate set it / said it winter / winner

• Don’t do this when speaking Chinese!

e.g. “bái-tiān” (“白天”, “daytime”), is read as written, NOT as “bai-dian”. e.g. wǒ-de (“我的”, “my”) has a clear stop when the “d” begins.

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Don’t Link Sounds • Don't “link” sounds. In American English, sometimes the end of one syllable is moved to the front of the next one. • For example, “it is” is read as “i-diz”, and “said it” is read as “seh-dit”. • With few exceptions, this doesn't happen in Chinese (any dialect)! • "Tiananmen" should be read as "Tian-an-men", but it is frequently mispronounced in the West as "Tia-na(n)man". • Many English-speakers will mispronounce “huan-ying” (“歡迎”, "welcome") as "hua-ning". • Try to fight this habit. • All Chinese syllables have equal weight in terms of timing, unlike English!

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Online Resources for Pronunciation • http://www.studypond.com/pinyin.aspx

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Dialogue Practice • Go to the Mandarin Chinese dialogue on page 8 of the main handout. • “Ann, an American, and Bob, a Chinese, meet for the first time.” • Ten-minute exercise: Pair up with another student in the class. Practice the dialogue. Switch roles, and practice again.

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Numbers Arabic

Mandarin Pronunciation

Normal Chinese

Financial Chinese

1

yī

一

壹

2

èr

二

貳

3

sān

三

叄

4

sì

四

肆

5

wǔ

五

伍

6

liù

六

陸

7

qī

七

柒

8

bā

八

捌

9

jiǔ

九

玖

10

shí

十

拾

100

bǎi

百

佰

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• Logical and regular! • 12 is literally “ten two”: 十二 shí-èr • 20 is literally “two ten”: 二十 èr-shí • 573 is literally “five hundred seven ten three” 五百七十三 wǔ-bǎi-qī-shí-sān

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The Numbers 4 and 8 • The number “4” (四, “sì”) is unlucky in Chinese (and other East Asian) culture because it sounds like the word for “death” (死, “sǐ”). • Conversely, the number “8” (八, “bā”) is lucky in Chinese because it sounds similar to the word for “prosper” or “wealth” (發, “fā”). • There is also a visual resemblance between two digits, “88”, and 囍, the “shuāng xĭ” (“double joy”), a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters 喜 ("xĭ" meaning “joy” or “happiness”).

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Calendar Dates • Chinese is big endian (big-to-small), year-month-day • Year - 年, Month - 月, Day - 日 • Months and days of week are numbered (Monday = 1) and don’t have names (except Sunday is literally “week sun” 星期日)! • Saturday, March 13, 2010 is 2010 年 3 月 13 日 (星期 6) or 2010.03.13 • In Taiwan, A.D. 1912 is Year 1, so 2010 is Year 99: 民國 99 年 3 月 13 日 (星期 6) or 99.03.13 where 民國 (mín-guó) means “republic”, and is short for 中華民國 (Republic of China). 16 Mar 2013

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No Articles • Chinese doesn’t have a word for the definite article “the”. • Even the indefinite article “a”/“an” is optional (you simply say “one”).

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Negating Sentences

• Two words for “not”: – 沒: used to negate 有 (to have) – 不: used to negate all other verbs

• Place immediately before the verb – 我喜歡打籃球 I like to play basketball – 我不喜歡打籃球 I don’t like to play basketball

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Asking Yes-No Questions • Two ways to produce a yes-no question. • Method 1: – Take the affirmative form of the answer. – Add “嗎?” (“mā?”) to the end – Example: • Affirmative: Question:

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他是美國人 Tā shì měi-guó rén (He is American.) 他是美國人嗎? Tā shì měi-guó rén mā? (Is he American?)

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Asking Yes-No Questions

• Method 2: – Take the affirmative form of the answer. – After the verb, insert “not verb” – Example: • 他是美國人 Tā shì měi-guó rén (He is American.) • 他是不是美國人? Tā shì bú shì měi-guó rén? (Is he American?) 16 Mar 2013

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Answering Yes-No Questions

• Unfortunately, Chinese doesn’t have words for “yes” and “no”! • You can either: – Say the whole sentence (“He is American” or “He is not American”), or – Say “verb” (for “yes”) or “not verb” (for “no”)

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Asking Other Questions • Asking questions in Chinese is easy, because (unlike English) the word order never changes! – Take the “answer” sentence – Replace the “answer” with a “question word”

• For example, “Where is she?” is “She is where?” • Unlike English, where "WWWWH" words are almost always at the beginning of a question, in Chinese, they are always the same place as they are in the answer. • In English, this is usually only done to express increduity: – “What did you eat?” – “I ate horsemeat.” – "Huh?! You ate WHAT?”

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Efficiency of Language • “Chinese is a language that is among the most economical and least redundant in the use of overt grammatical devices.” (F.Y. Xing, 1997) • Example: 魚也吃了 (yú yě chī le) Can be translated into English as either: – “The fish also has/have eaten.” – “The fish also has/have been eaten.”

• Use context to determine meaning! – Father asks child, “Has the dog eaten? How about the fish?” Child answers with the example. – Father asks child, “Did you eat the chicken? How about the fish?” Child answers with the example. 16 Mar 2013

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English-Chinese Translation Exercises • 15-minute exercise: Get into groups of three students. Try the five English-Chinese translation exercises. 1. I do not know how to play basketball. 2. Is your elder brother a student? He is. 3. You have your own math book. 4. Where is Boston? It is in Massachusetts. 5. Does your girlfriend like to watch movies? Yes.

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Chinese-English Translation Exercises • 15-minute exercise: Get into groups of three students. Try the five Chinese-English translation exercises. 1. 對不起，我不認識你。 Duì-bù-qǐ, wǒ bú rèn-shì nǐ. 2. 弟弟為什麼不喜歡看球賽？ Dì-di wèi-shé-me bù xǐ-huān kàn qiú-sài? 3. 我怎麼知道？ Wǒ zěn-me zhī-dào? 4. 日本有沒有音樂老師？有。 Rì-běn yǒu méi yǒu yīn-yuè lǎo-shī? Yǒu. 5. 請問，您什麼時候去加拿大？星期三。 Qǐng wèn, nín shé-me shí-hòu qù Jiā-ná-dà? Xīng-qí sān. 16 Mar 2013

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Language vs. Dialect vs. Accent • Dialect: A variety of a language with its distinguishing vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. • Accent: Speaking another language/dialect with the sound system of your own language/dialect (e.g. foreigners), or two people speaking the same native language but with different pronunciations (e.g. A Briton, an American, and an Australian reading aloud the same English sentence). • Dialect continuum: A understands B, B understands C, C understands D, but D doesn’t understand A. • Language vs. dialect is sometimes largely determined by politics, not linguistics: “A language is a dialect with an army and navy.” (Danish/Norwegian/Swedish vs. Chinese)

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Chinese Dialects • Top 4 Chinese dialect families: – Mandarin (836 million) – Wu (e.g. Shanghainese) 77 million – Yue (e.g. Cantonese) 71 million – Min (e.g. Taiwanese) 60 million

• Not mutually intelligible. • Dialect ≠ Accent!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg 16 Mar 2013

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Chinese Dialects • Top 4 Chinese dialect families: – Mandarin (836 million) – Wu (e.g. Shanghainese) 77 million – Yue (e.g. Cantonese) 71 million – Min (e.g. Taiwanese) 60 million

• Not mutually intelligible. • Dialect ≠ Accent! • Standard Mandarin (created in 1913) is the official form of spoken Chinese in the PRC, Taiwan, and Singapore. It is based on, but not identical to, the Beijing dialect. • Universal education in Standard Mandarin started in 1950s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_sinitic_languages-en.svg 16 Mar 2013

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Fragmentation within Dialect Families Some dialect families (like Wu) are fragmented into partially intelligible subdialects at the city and county level.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Chinese

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(Incomplete*) Tree of Chinese Dialects CHINESE

MANDARIN

HAKKA

WU

XIANG

YUE

GAN

MIN

* Each node produces several branches. By the lowest level, there are hundreds of dialects.

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(Incomplete*) Tree of Chinese Dialects CHINESE

MANDARIN

Beijing Area

Standard Mandarin

HAKKA

WU

XIANG

YUE

GAN

MIN

Northeaster n

Beijing dialect

* Each node produces several branches. By the lowest level, there are hundreds of dialects.

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(Incomplete*) Tree of Chinese Dialects CHINESE

MANDARIN

Beijing Area

Standard Mandarin

Standard Mainland Mandarin (Putonghua)

HAKKA

WU

XIANG

YUE

GAN

MIN

Northeaster n

Beijing dialect

Standard Taiwanese Mandarin (Guoyu)

Standard Singaporean Mandarin (Huayu)

* Each node produces several branches. By the lowest level, there are hundreds of dialects.

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(Incomplete*) Tree of Chinese Dialects CHINESE

MANDARIN

Beijing Area

Standard Mandarin

Standard Mainland Mandarin (Putonghua)

Beijing dialect

Standard Taiwanese Mandarin (Guoyu)

HAKKA

Northeaster n Shanghai dialect

WU

XIANG

YUE

GAN

MIN

Taihu

Suzhou dialect

Standard Singaporean Mandarin (Huayu)

* Each node produces several branches. By the lowest level, there are hundreds of dialects.

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(Incomplete*) Tree of Chinese Dialects CHINESE

MANDARIN

Beijing Area

Standard Mandarin

Standard Mainland Mandarin (Putonghua)

HAKKA

Northeaster n

Beijing dialect

Shanghai dialect

Standard Taiwanese Mandarin (Guoyu)

WU

XIANG

Taihu

Yuehai

Suzhou dialect

Standard Singaporean Mandarin (Huayu)

YUE

MIN

Siyi

Cantonese

Guangzhou dialect (Standard Cantonese)

GAN

Taishan dialect

Hong Kong Cantonese

* Each node produces several branches. By the lowest level, there are hundreds of dialects.

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(Incomplete*) Tree of Chinese Dialects CHINESE

MANDARIN

Beijing Area

Standard Mandarin

Standard Mainland Mandarin (Putonghua)

Beijing dialect

Standard Taiwanese Mandarin (Guoyu)

HAKKA

Northeaster n Shanghai dialect

Standard Singaporean Mandarin (Huayu)

WU

Taihu

Suzhou dialect

XIANG

YUE

Yuehai

Siyi

Cantonese

Guangzhou dialect (Standard Cantonese)

GAN

Taishan dialect

Hong Kong Cantonese

MIN

Minnan

Hokkien

Taiwanese Hokkien (Taiwanese)

Mindong

Fuzhou dialect

Singaporean Hokkien

* Each node produces several branches. By the lowest level, there are hundreds of dialects.

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How Similar? • Lexical similarity: Percent of standard corresponding words that sound similar. • European languages: – French-Spanish: 75% – English-German: 60% – English-French: 27%

• Lexical similarity with Standard Mandarin:

– Shanghainese: 31% – Cantonese: 19% – Xiamen (a prestige dialect of Min Chinese): 15%

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Standard Mandarin: Mainland vs. Taiwan • Pronunciation • Grammar • Vocabulary – Differences mostly restricted to technology-related words or words specific to living in Taiwan. – Comparable to difference between American English and British English (elevator vs. lift, truck vs. lorry, etc).

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Names of Famous People Yao Ming 姚明 Yáo Míng

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Zhang Ziyi 章子怡 Zhāng Zǐ-yí

Jeremy Lin 林書豪 Lín Shū-háo

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Names of Famous People Ang Lee 李安 Lǐ Ān

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Mulan 花木蘭 Huā Mù-lán

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Chow Yun-fat 周潤發 Zhōu Rùn-fā

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Names of Famous People Jet Li 李連杰 Lǐ Lián-jié

Jackie Chan 成龍 Chéng Lóng

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Michelle Yeoh 楊紫瓊 Yáng Zǐ-qióng

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What NOT to Give Chinese People • Clocks – The phrase “to give a clock” (送鍾, “sòng zhōng”) is a homophone of the phrase for “attending a funeral” (送終).

• Fans and umbrella – The words fan “shàn” (扇) and umbrella “sǎn” (傘) sound like the word “sǎn” (散), meaning to scatter or to lose.

• Green hats – The phrase “wearing a green hat” (戴綠帽, “dài lǜ-mào”) means that a man's wife is unfaithful. 16 Mar 2013

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Why Learn Chinese?

• Business – More people speak Mandarin Chinese than any other language in the world – China’s economic growth – “G2”

• Culture • History

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How Valuable Is Knowing Chinese?

http://topforeignstocks.com/wpcontent/uploads/2010/03/us-china-gdp-compare.jpg

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Is Chinese Difficult to Learn? • Difficult aspects

– Writing requires knowledge of characters – Tones – Mandarin has many unfamiliar sounds

• Both difficult and easy

– Chinese is a contextual language

• Easy aspects – – – – – – –

Relatively small base vocabulary Straightforward grammar No verb conjugation No cases (like English; unlike Latin) No plurals (except for pronouns) No genders (except for written pronouns) No honorifics (except in very formal writing)

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Is Chinese Difficult to Learn? • Pronunciation

– Short-term: Difficult (Tones and unfamiliar sounds) – Long-term: Easy (Pinyin is pronounced exactly as the rules state; no strange spelling or stress rules like the English “PHO-to-graph” vs. “pho-TO-graph-y” vs. “photo-GRAPH-ic”)

• Vocabulary

– Short-term: Difficult (almost all words are completely different from those of European languages)

– Long-term: Easy (small base vocabulary, complex words are built from basic ones)

• Grammar

– Short-term: Easy – Long-term: Easy

• Writing

– Short-term: Difficult – Long-term: Difficult

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Resources for Learning Chinese General Information

Textbooks

Daniel Kane: “The Chinese Language: Its History and Current Usage” (2006)

Yuehua Liu: “Integrated Chinese” (2008)

S. Robert Ramsey: “The Languages of China” (1989)

Liu Xun et al: “New Practical Chinese Reader” (2003)

Jerry Norman: “Chinese” (1988)

Julian Wheatley: “Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course in Mandarin” (2010)

www.bn.com & www.amazon.com 16 Mar 2013

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Resources for Learning Chinese Dictionaries

Phrasebooks

Liang Shih-Chiu, “Far East Chinese-English Dictionary” (1992)

Lonely Planet Mandarin Phrasebook (2010)

Shou-hsin Teng, “Far East 3000 Chinese Character Dictionary” (2003)

Rick Harbaugh, “A Genealogy and Dictionary” (1998)

www.bn.com & www.amazon.com 16 Mar 2013

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Resources for Learning Chinese • Audio – Podcasts – Pimsleur language learning system (CDs)

• Online – – – – –

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chinese http://www.studypond.com/pinyin.aspx http://www.zhongwen.com/ http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ http://translate.google.com/

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Feedback • By the end of this weekend, these slides will be available online: – http://web.mit.edu/shou/Public/esp/

• I will send an e-mail to all of you asking for your feedback. – What did you think of this class? – What can be improved for next time?

• Contact me: Stephen Hou [email protected]

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Foreign Names and Places Some countries have 國 (guó) “country/nation/state” at the end of their names. English

Chinese Mandarin

Meaning

England

英國

yīng-guó

“heroic country”

USA

美國

měi-guó

“beautiful country”

Germany

德國

dé-guó

“virtuous country”

• Add 人 (rén) “person” to indicate nationality e.g. 英國人 (yīng-guó rén) = Englishman/Englishwoman • Substitute 國 with 文 (wén) to indicate written language e.g. 英文 (yīng-wén) = written English • Substitute 國 with 語 (yǔ) or 話 (huà): spoken language e.g. 英語 (yīng-yǔ) = spoken English 16 Mar 2013

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What is “Chinese” in Chinese? Three different characters mean “China” or “Chinese”, depending on context: • 中 (zhōng), means “central” – – – –

中國 (zhōng-guó) “China” 中文 (zhōng-wén) “written Chinese” 中國話 (zhōng-guó huà) “spoken Chinese” political connotation

• 漢 (hàn), name of China’s main ethnic group – 漢字 (hàn-zì) “Chinese characters” – 漢語 (hàn-yǔ) “spoken Chinese” – Ethnic, but non-political, connotation

• 華 (huá), literary name of China

– 海外華人 (hǎi-wài huá-rén) “overseas Chinese” – 華語 (huá-yǔ) “spoken Chinese” – 中華人民共和國 “People’s Republic of China”

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What is “Chinese” in Chinese? • What is “Mandarin” (any subdialect) called? – 官話 (guān-huà) “speech of the mandarins (government officials)”, cf. Portuguese: mandarim – 北方話 (běi-fāng huà) “northern speech”

• What is “Standard Mandarin” called? – PRC: 普通話 (pǔ-tōng-huà) “common speech” – Taiwan: 國語 (guó-yǔ) “national language” – Malaysia & Singapore: 華語 (huá-yǔ) “Chinese language”

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