Sunday, September 30, 2007

Chinese idiom - Kong zhong lou ge (A Castle in the Air or a Mirage)


kōnɡ zhōnɡ lóu ɡé

空 中 楼 阁

典 故:

这个成语来源于《百喻经.三重楼喻》,愚人见其垒墼作舍,犹怀疑惑,不能了知,而问之言:“欲作何等?”木匠答言:“作三重屋。”愚人复言:“我不欲下二重之屋,先可为我作最上屋。”

在很久以前,山村里有一位财主。他非常富有,但生性愚钝,尽做傻事,所以常遭到村人的嘲笑。

有一天,傻财主到邻村的一位财主家作客。他看到一幢三层楼高的新屋,宽敞明亮,高大壮丽,心里非常羡慕,心想:我也有钱,而且并不比他的少。他有这样一幢楼,而我没有,这像什么话呢?一回到家,他马上派人把工匠找来,问道:“邻村新造的那幢楼,你们知道是谁造的吗?”

工匠们回答道:“知道,那幢楼是我们几个造的。”

傻财主一听,非常高兴,说:“好极了,你们照样子再给我盖一次。记住要三层楼的房子,要和那幢一模一样。”

工匠们一边答应,心里一边嘀咕;不知这次他又会做出什么傻事来。可是不管怎样,还得照吩咐去做,大家便各自忙开了。

一天,财主来到工地,东瞅瞅,西瞧瞧,心里十分纳闷,便问正在打地基的工匠:“你们这是在干什么?”

“造一幢三层楼高的屋子呀,是照您吩咐干的。”

“不对,不对。我要你们造的是那第三层楼的屋子。我只要最上面的那层,下面那二层我不要,快拆掉。先造最上面的那层。”

工匠们听后哈哈大笑,说:“只要最上面那层,我们不会造,你自己造吧!”

工匠们走了,傻财主望着房基发愣。他不知道,只要最上面一层,不要下面两层,那是再高明的工匠也造不出来的。


The Story:

Long long ago, there was a stupid rich man. One day, he visited a friend and saw his friend's 3-storey building. He liked it very much. When he came back to his own home, he called a carpenter and asked him to build the same kind of house for him.

The carpenter began to dig the foundations and make the vallum. When the rich man saw this, he asked: "What kind of house are you going to construct?"

"A three-storey building," replied the carpenter.

"Oh, I do not want the 2 floors under it, I just want the third floor," said the rich man.

"But how can we build the 3rd floor if we do not have the 2 floors under it?" the carpenter asked.

No matter how the carpenter explained this concept to the rich man, the rich man just insisted on his own opinion of 'only the 3rd floor'.

Talk to eChineselearning's best Chinese teacher, learn to use the Chinese idiom.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Chinese idioms,Chinese -English !

一鸣惊人 Amazing the World with a Single Feat


   战国时代,齐威王即位后做了三年国君,只顾享乐,不理政事。有个善于说笑话的人叫淳于髡,一天对齐威王说:“城里有一只大鸟,三年不飞也不叫,你知道这是什么道理?”齐威王说:“这鸟不飞则罢,一飞就冲天;不鸣则罢,一鸣就惊人。”在淳于髡的激发下,齐威王开始治理国家,取得很大成绩,齐国的声威一直保持了几十年。
  In the Warring States Period, Duke Wei of Qi neglected state affairs, for the first three years of his reign, giving himself over to dissipation. One of his ministers, Chun Yukun who had a good sense of humour, said to him: 'There is a big bird which has neither taken wing nor sung for three years.' The duke answered, 'Once that bird starts to fly and sing, it will astonish the world.' The duke thereupon devoted himself to his duties and built his state up into a powerful one.

  “一鸣惊人”用来表示平时默默无闻,一旦行动起来,却做出惊人的成绩。
  This idiom is used to indicate that a person may rise from obscurity and achieve greatness.

Lesson 13. Grammars – to BE or NOT to Be

One of the simplest and yet the most important structure in Chinese language is the following:

Noun + Verb + noun

It is the same as English. The first noun is subject, the verb describes action, and the last noun serves either as object or complement. For example: “I love books.” “He hates math.” Similar to that of English, the most frequently used verb of such structure in Chinese is also verb BE, the emphasis of this class.

1. shi4

This is only form of verb Be in Chinese, independent of tense, subjects, or single/plural forms.

2. bu4

不 means “no”. It is used to present negative.

3. 不是 bu2 shi4

Please notice that the tone of不 changes to 2 instead of 4 when used as “not” in front of 是.

Again, unlike English where ‘not’ follows verb ‘Be’, 不 precedes是 in Chinese.

Examples:

4. 我是中国人 wo3 shi4 zhong1 guo2 ren2

I am Chinese.

5. 他们不是学生 ta1 men bu2 shi4 xue2 sheng1

They are not students.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Dialogue in Chinese - Courtesy

Dialogue in Chinese - Courtesy

1.


- 请让一下!
qing3 rang4 yi xia4!
Excuse me please! (when someone blocks your way.)

2.


- 谢谢!
xie4 xie4 !
Thanks a lot!

- 不客气!
bu2 ke4 qi4 !
You are welcome!

3.


- 你真棒!
ni3 zheng1 bang4 !
You are so wonderful/great/nice!

- 谢谢!
xie4 xie4!
Thanks!

4.


- 对不起!
dui4 bu4 qi3!
I am sorry!

- 没关系
mei2 guan1 xi !
That's alright
!

learn Chinese online - Chinese characters

Chinese characters are all in square block shape like this one: (meaning ‘mouth’). Simple or complicated, they all take the same area on paper. To write Chinese, you should know 3 things to get ready:

1. Strokes

A stroke is a single brush of pen on the paper. All Chinese characters are made of one or more strokes such as the character: (meaning ‘one’). There are dozens of simple strokes which will be discussed in detail in Class 6. Please also remember that every stroke should be written in a specific way. For example, the horizontal stroke in character “” has to been written from left to right.

2. Radicals

Radicals are the basic component of Chinese characters. Think of Chinese characters as molecules like water or salt and then the radicals as equivalents to element atoms such as sodium, hydrogen, or oxygen. The analogy can be demonstrated this way:

Chinese characters - > molecules such as water, salt, sugar

Radicals - > atoms such as sodium, hydrogen, or carbon

Stroke - > subatomic particles such as proton, neutron, or electron

Just like Chemical elements, many radicals can make single characters by themselves. The character (mouth), for example, is frequently used as radicals in characters related to mouth such as , meaning ‘sing’.

Radicals are very important to the meaning and writing of Chinese characters. Here are two examples. First example, means “man”. It is made up of 2 radicals vertically. The upper part is , meaning farm land and the lower part is , meaning labor or force. Therefore, it is easy to remember the character because the labor at the land is often male people. Another example: the character means “forest”. Since means wood, it should seem obvious that doubling wood would make a forest.

There are about 200 radicals in Chinese characters. Learning them all is a natural process that will not take too long.

3. Stroke and Radical orders

There is a certain order to write strokes and radicals in a Chinese character. The general rule is from above to below, from outside to inside, and from left to right.

We will use the next 3 lessons to show you the details of these 3 important aspects of writing Chinese characters so that you will be best prepared to start to write Chinese.

sign up a free trial chinese lesson here :http://www.echineselearning.com

Thursday, September 20, 2007

learn Chinese online - eChineselearning.com

Lesson 4: Pinyin - Consonants

Consonant Table:

b p m f

d t n l

g k h

j q x

z c s r

zh ch sh

y w

For consonants, we also put all these into English words with the same sound for you to learn and remember in an easier way.

*Note: We pronounce these consonants followed by some vowels that can help deliver the sound more clearly. Letters in the following explanation in "..." are pronounced as in English, and those in '... ' are pronounced in Pinyin.


b - as the "b" in "book"


p - as the "p" in "pool"


m - as the "m" in "moon"


f - as the "f" in "food"


d - as the "d" in "door"


t - as the "t" in "tom"


n - as the "n" in "no"


l
- as the "l" in "love"


g - as the "g" in good"


k
- as the "k" in "kill"


h
- as the "h" in "high"


j
- as the "j" in "jeep"


q
- as the "ch" in "cheese"


x
- as the "sh" in "sharp"


z
- as the "z" in "zero"


c
- as the "ts" in "tsunami"


s
- as the "s" in "sun"


r- as the "r" in "red"


zh- start with 'j' in "jeep", but then end smoothly with "r" sound. The first 2 sounds in the sample voice show such move.


ch-
start with 'q' in "cheese", but then end smoothly with "r" sound. The first 2 sounds in the sample voice show such move.


sh -
start with 'x' in "sharp", but then end smoothly with "r" sound. The first 2 sounds in the sample voice show such move.

( 'zh, ch, sh' are similar to, but strictly different from 'j, q, x' respectively. However, mixing them is not a too big problem for you to be understood in China.)


y- as the "y" in "yes"


w
- as the "w" in "wood"

Sign up a free trial lesson here :http://www.echineselearning.com

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Learn Chinese at eChineselearning - Pinyin ,vowel

拼 音 pin1 yin1

Pinyin is a Roman-letter based system that China now uses to mark the pronunciation of Chinese characters. With four tones and pinyin, any Chinese characters can be pronounced precisely. In many cases, Pinyin is quite intuitive to English speakers with only a few exceptions. However, it can be a twist to render Pinyin in four tones for people who just start.

Pinyin is made up of 2 tables: vowel table and consonant table, the latter of which will be discussed in Class 4.

Vowel Table:

aoeiuϋ
aieiui
aoouiu
ieueer
aneninunϋn
angengingong

As you can see, most vowels are simply a combination of the 6 major vowels in the first row, which is obviously the most important part, and some special consonants.

How can you remember all this? We are putting all these into English words with virtually the same sound for you to learn and remember in an easier way.

*Note: letters in the following explanation in "..." are pronounced as in English, and those in '... ' are pronounced in Pinyin. Also, all samples are delivered in 4 tones.


a - as the vowel in "star" without the "r" sound


o - as the vowel in "law"


e - as the vowel in "stir"


i - as the vowel in "bit"


u - as the vowel in "food"


ϋ - as "y" in "yellow" followed by the 'u' above


ai - as the vowel in "bike"


ei - as the vowel in "lake"


ui - combination of 'u' and 'i', the same as word "we" in English


ao - as the vowel in "loud"


ou - as the vowel in "flow"


iu - combination of 'i' and 'u', the same as word "yew" in English


ie - combination of 'i' and 'e', as the vowel in "sierra"


ue - combination of 'u' and 'e', as the vowel in "buena"


er - combination of 'e' and 'r',
as the vowel in "early"


an - as the vowel in "anchor":


en - as the word "earn" without the "r" sound:


in - as in the word "inn"


un - as in the word "one":


ϋn - as "y" in "yellow" followed by the English word "one"


ang - as the word "long"


eng - as the vowel in "lung"


ing - as the vowel in "England"


ong - as 'u' followed by the 'ng' as above:

Sign up the free lesson here:http://www.echineselearning.com

Monday, September 17, 2007

Learn Chinese with eChineseLearning.com - Underestanding the four tons

Lesson 2: Understanding Four Tones

The best way to explain tones is probably do so by using examples. Here, we can use English pronunciation of letter "i" as one example.

Tone 1: flat

In English, it is the default tone we use to pronounce 'i' emotionlessly as in saying "I am ....".

The audio material will show flat tone 'i', and how 'i' would sound on other tones as if with strong emotions although you should keep in mind that in Chinese, tones have nothing to do with meanings or emotions.

Tone 2: up

This tone is a little like the tone used in English for questions. For example: "Is he right?" The tone of "i" used in word 'right' here is equivalent to the up tone used in Chinese.

Tone 3: curve

There is not exact equivalent for Tone 3 in English. However, Tone 3 can be delivered through a quick combination of tone 4 and tone 2 in a very quick way. Remember, tone 4 before tone 2. So maybe you want to learn to use tone 4 first.


Tone 4: down

The 4th tone is what you will use when saying "right" as in "Yes, he is right.”

Four tones together:


All vowels can be pronounced in 4 tones. It can be a great practice to play it on your own language.

Listen to this example that uses 4 four tones to pronounce English letters A, B, C, and D.

Sign up a free tial lesson with Professional Chinese teacher here :http://www.echineselearning.com/free-trial.html

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Introduction to Chinese Characters

Lesson 1: Chinese Characters - Introduction

汉 字 han4 zi4

The two characters above mean “Chinese Characters”. Chinese Characters are the founding block/unit of Chinese language, because one or more Chinese characters form words, phrases, and sentences, etc.

The number of Chinese characters can be a little overwhelming, but it helps keep Chinese overall a simply structured language.

We start by discussing the pronunciation of Chinese Characters. There are two aspects of Chinese characters’ pronunciation to learn about.

1. Phonics - Pinyin

Invariably, each Chinese character's pronunciation is either a consonant followed by one or two vowels (always in this order) or one or two vowels only. In an analogy, Chinese characters all sound a bit like "La", "Di", "Da".

And generally the pronunciation of each Chinese character lasts about the same length in a sentence. So roughly, a Chinese sentence sounds like "he saw me", "I know you", or "who can sing?", if read flatly.

The phonics system for Chinese characters is called Pinyin. We will introduce Pinyin in much detail starting from Class 3.

2. Four Tones

Each Chinese character has one vowel, and each vowel, in turn, has a tone with it. Many characters should have different tones for different meanings, but most have unique tones in all situations.

There are 5 possible tones: 4 major tones and a "light" tone. Conventionally, the major tones are labeled as following.

Tone 1: flat

Tone 2: up

Tone 3: curve

Tone 4: down

The 5th tone is called "light" tone, which has no number as label. Characters with light tone should be pronounced light and fast, the only exceptions to the previous rule that all characters in a sentence lasts about the same long.

We will introduce how to pronounce the four tones in the next class. It is important to remember that Chinese character’s tone has nothing to do with its meaning.


Sign up a free Chinese lesson with the professional chinese teacher here:http://www.echineselearning.com