A Lesson in Mandarin

Today has been a really interesting, yet a brain-hurting day. We started our Mandarin Language course this morning and let's just say that it's as easy as it looks. Looks tough? Yah; it is. However, I am so glad to be learning a language in the home land where it was created. Trying to be trilingual is such a defeat in itself. Knowing English fluently, everyone here tries to talk to me so they can enhance their language skills. Except it's hard to help them when I can't understand their broken English. Taking a few years of Spanish in high school; I remember hating it. Now all I wish is to go back to it, haha. About twice now, I have accidentally diverted to Spanish when trying to talk with the locals. When learning Mandarin, I find it extremely difficult to speak the tones and sounds their words make.

If you threw me into Mexico City, I would most likely be able to ask simple questions, order food and/or communicate with the locals. Here, I have no prior knowledge of this language. Because I have a background in Spanish, I often try to pronounce the Chinese words with either a Spanish accent or even try to say words with Spanish tones - I don't know - I'm just confusing myself even more. However, Mandarin is the most widely spoken language in the world so I need to keep pushing myself to learn it!

Class is at random times throughout the semester with about 5 hours of class each day we have it. Class, for the most part, goes by fast. Even though I love school in general, I have never been the type of individual to speak/participate  while in class. I hated it in English, Spanish and I now I hate it even more here in China. Basically, you need to practice as much as possible to learn it, right? Of course. Out of everything else on this trip, this is the one thing that I will need to push myself to do the most. I'm not exactly excited.

Anyway, care to learn something? Sure you do.

In China, the family name of a person comes first. For example, my name would be Foote Tyler. My Chinese professor's name is, Mi Nan, so her last name would therefore me Mi. We call her 'laoshi Mi' which basically means Professor Mi. Throughout China, there are eight different dialect groups. We are learning Mandarin, which is most commonly spoken. It was originally founded in Beijing. Think of it as if each accent in the United States was a different language - crazy, right? Apparently, people who speak Mandarin can't understand the dialects in Hong Kong. Could you imagine having a language barrier between Wisconsin and Kentucky?

Mandarin speakers didn't originally have an 'English' version of their language so they came up with a system called 'pinyin'. It literally transcribes the sounds of Mandarin using the Roman alphabet. Our professor told us that they learned basic pinyin words for two years in elementary school - then the rest was character memorization. For foreign learners, pinyin allows us to start learning how each character is pronounced and what each one means. To make this even tougher, Mandarin has four tones within the language.

For example, the word 'ma' can mean four different words. This chart doesn't show the accent marks about the 'a' in each 'ma' phrase but I liked how the chart was set up. After the chart, I have the accent marks written out.

http://phonetics.ucla.edu/vowels/chapter2/chinese/recording2.1.html

I also have included a chart showing characters, pinyin and English translation of two different phrases. You can see that each pinyin has an accent mark above particular vowels. Looking at the marks, Mandarin learning students know how to pronounce each word. By referring to this chart, let's go back and pronounce the 'ma' phrase.

' mā '  is a flat tone. Pronounce it without changing tones with a fairly high voice. This is the easiest to do pronounce. 

' má ' is a rising tone. Literally pronounce the vowel by rising the tone of your voice...not a lot, just enough to make it a distinction between the first one. 

' mǎ ' is a falling/rising tone. This one is fun to do! You start high, go low, then back up to where you started. 

' mà '  is a falling tone. Start the vowel high then drop it. 

It's SOOO important to use the correct tone when you talk so you don't end up saying: "I love my hemp" when you really mean "I love my Mom." Yikes. 

http://tx.english-ch.com/teacher/alvi/home/mandarin-chinese-most-useful-business-language-/

Often when you hear people speak Mandarin, you hear them almost 'sing' the phrases. It's because they use the different tones to make a rhythm. It's very beautiful - yet super hard to grasp. On a quick note, written characters are just as beautiful. With over 10,000 known and readable characters, Mandarin speakers memorize quite a bit of them! From ancient times, pictures drawn from nature were translated to a written language. Look at this cool picture!! 

http://goldstarteachers.com/challenges-learning-mandarin/

The first drawing is of mountains, and the actual character in today's language is drawn below it. Pinyin: Shān. Can you guess the second one? It's supposed to represent a tree. Pinyin: Mù Overall, Mandarin characters are both interesting and cool to look at and learn. If I had to pick either written or spoken Mandarin, I would choose the written form. However, then I would have to worry about stroke counts, stroke angles and pitches and other random things. Either way, I'm not going down without a fight! I will learn you, Mandarin! 

Maybe you learned something? It would be so  much easier to explain this in person! 

Take it easy, 

Ty

"Learning is the road map to a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going." - Rita Mae Brown