Complete

Mandarin Chinese
Elizabeth Scurfield
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First published in UK 1999 as Teach Yourself Chinese
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Contents
Meet the author vii
Only got a minute? viii
Only got five minutes? x
Only got 10 minutes? xiv
Introduction 1
The Chinese language, romanization, general introduction to
sounds and tones, working through the book
1 Making friends (i) 18
Saying hello, observing basic courtesies, saying please
and thank you, the order of names in Chinese
2 Making friends (ii) 24
Making simple introductions, exchanging greetings,
addressing people correctly, making simple apologies,
measure words, numbers 0–99
3 Making friends (iii) 31
Asking someone if they have children, asking how old the
children are, asking if someone is married or has a partner,
question words and their position in the sentence
4 Two days later 39
Inviting someone to your home, telling the time,
verb-object constructions
Mini revision
5 At the Lis’ (i) 49
Saying where you are from and what nationality you are,
Chinese equivalents of foreign names, more on measure
words, abbreviations, singing a Chinese song
6 At the Lis’ (ii) 60
Making appropriate remarks and responses during a meal,
saying how not to do something, expressing the
complement of degree
7 In the house 69
Describing the appearance of an apartment/house with a
balcony and small garden in simple terms, describing the
furniture and appliances in each room, describing the most
common items in each room

Contents iii
 8 At the Lis’ (iii) 79
Describing the rooms in an apartment/house, thanking
your hosts for their hospitality and understanding their
responses, asking questions in the form of alternatives,
expressing direction towards or away from the speaker,
auxiliary verbs
9 Eating out 92
Asking people if they have ever done something, saying
where places and things are, talking about food and
restaurants, more about foreign names expressed in
Chinese, introducing the conjunctions before, when and
after, comparing and contrasting, talking about your family
10 Teething troubles 112
Expressing that something is happening, more about
directional endings and resultative verbs, days of the week,
how to express the passive
11 Weather, dates and seasons 128
The weather and seasons in Beijing, what Chinese people
do when the weather is fine, months of the year, more on
the comparative, expressing the duration of something
12 In the restaurant 148
Expressing approximate numbers, saying first, second,
third etc., more on the use of le, the difference between
cái and jiù
Halfway review
13 Grammar review 169
Common measure words, denominations of money, time
words and expressions, resultative verbs, directional
endings or complements, auxiliary verbs, conjugations
14 An introduction to Chinese characters 184
The earliest characters, the evolution of characters, how
characters are composed, radicals or significs, how Chinese
children learn to write characters, some basic rules for
writing characters, recognizing some useful public
notices and signs
15 Shopping 202
Asking for things in shops, asking the price, Chinese money,
stroke order of useful Chinese characters and their radicals

iv
16 Buying tickets (i) 217
Buying tickets for an entertainment, deciding which row,
giving the date, more about the stroke order of characters,
China’s main dynasties
17 Buying tickets (ii) 228
Telephone numbers, describing characters in your Chinese
name, saying something is going to happen soon, revising
dates, more about radicals
18 Directions and transport 238
Famous places of interest in and around Tiananmen
Square, asking for and understanding directions, points of the
compass, expressing the distance between two points, place
words, more about the stroke order of difficult characters
19 At the Bird’s Nest National Stadium 253
Buying tickets at a tourist attraction, asking to see the
catalogue, asking for an audio guide, asking for the
washrooms, more about the stroke order of difficult
characters, buying stamps, sending postcards, moving the
direct object in front of the verb using bj, more about the
stroke order of difficult characters, Chinese festivals
20 At the coffee shop 271
Guānxi in China, expressing similarities, changing money,
using an ATM, opening a bank account, expressing
percentages and fractions
21 Traveller’s notes 284
Expressing two actions going on simultaneously, Chinese
proverbs, more about abbreviations in Chinese, similarities
and dissimilarities, more about the passive, yīn and yáng
22 Farewell to all that! 303
Making a toast, giving a present and making an
appropriate remark when receiving one, exclamations,
the Chinese zodiac, more about Chinese proverbs,
more on the passive, classical Chinese poetry
Key to the exercises 320
Chinese–English vocabulary 351
English–Chinese vocabulary 385
Character texts for Units 1–6 and 8–12 402
Index 410

Contents v
 1
Making friends (i)

In this unit you will learn

• how to say hello
• how to observe basic courtesies
• how to say please and thank you
• the order of names in Chinese

1 CD 1, tr 5–7

Mr King (Wáng xi1nsheng) has come to China to take up a job in a

joint venture company (héz3 qCyè). Mr Li (LC xi1nsheng) is a friend
and colleague of Mr King’s Chinese teacher in Britain. The meeting
takes place in Mr Li’s office.

Ll Wáng xiānsheng, nl hjo! How do you do, Mr King?

King/first-born/you/good/
Wáng Ll xiānsheng, nl hjo! How do you do, Mr Li?
Li/first-born/you/good/
Ll Qlng zuò. Please, sit down.
Invite/sit/
Wáng Xièxie. Thank you.
Thank/
Ll Qlng hē kāfēi. Have some coffee.
Invite/drink/coffee/
Wáng Xièxie, wm bù hē kāfēi. No, thanks, I don’t drink
Thank/I/not/drink/coffee/ coffee.

18
 Ll Nàme, Zhōngguó chá Would you like some
xíng bu xíng? China tea then?
So/middle country/tea/
be OK/not/be OK/
Wáng Xíng, xièxie nl! Wm hěn Yes, thank you, I’m very
xlhuan hē Zhōngguó chá. fond of China tea.
Be OK/thank/you/I/very/
like/drink/middle country/tea/

xiānsheng (n) Mr, gentleman

nl (ps) you
hjo (adj) good
qlng (v) to invite
zuò (v) to sit
hē (v) to drink

QUICK VOCAB
kāfēi (n) coffee
xièxie (v) to thank
wm (ps) I, me
bù (neg) not
nàme in that case, so
Zhōngguó (N) China
chá (n) tea
xíng (v) to be all right
hěn (adv) very
xlhuan (v) to like

Grammar
1 Names

In Chinese, names always appear in the following order: surname,

given name (Christian name), title (when used), e.g. Máo Zéd4ng
tóngzhì, where Máo is the surname, Zéd4ng the given name and
tóngzhì is used in place of a title and means ‘comrade’.

Unit 1 Making friends (i) 19

 2 Nl hjo

Some Chinese adjectives can also function as verbs so hAo means

‘to be good’ as well as ‘good’. (Some people call such adjectives
stative verbs.) Thus no separate verb for ‘to be’ is used. Note
word order in Wáng xi1nsheng, n# h!o. ‘Mr King’ comes first in
Chinese.

It is very difficult to say two third tones together. When this

happens, the first one is said as a second tone, but it is still marked
as a third tone in the text, otherwise you might think that the
syllable in question is always a second tone, which it is not: N# h!o
is therefore said as Ní h!o ‘How are you?’

3 Use of qlng

QCng means ‘to invite or to request somebody to do something’.

Do not think of it as ‘please’ as this will create problems with word
order later on. Note also that Chinese verbs are invariable, which
means that we use the same form throughout.

4 Negation with bù

With one exception (the verb ‘to have’ yDu), all verbs are negated
by putting bù in front of them.

5 Questions ‘xíng bu xíng?’

One common way of asking a question in Chinese is to put the

positive and negative forms of the verb together in that order:
Xíng bu xíng? ‘Is it all right (or not)?’ The answer is not ‘yes’ or
‘no’ but either the positive form of the verb, in this case xíng or
the negative form, i.e. bù xíng. (This construction is often
referred to as the choice-type question form.) Note that the
second half of the question, i.e. bù plus the verb, is sometimes
written without tones, as it is normally said unstressed in everyday
speech. I have followed this convention at times to familiarize
you with it.

20
 6 Position of adverbs

Most adverbs in Chinese precede the verb, e.g. ‘I like you very
much’ is WD h@n xChuan nC.

7 Tone of bù

Bù is normally fourth tone (`) but changes to second tone (´) when
followed by another fourth tone, e.g. bú zuò not bù zuò. Also note
that in Xíng bu xíng?, bu is toneless.

Exercise 1.1
Make the following sentences negative:

Wm hē kāfēi → Wm bù hē kāfēi.

1 WD zuò.
2 NC hAo.
3 WD h2 chá.
4 NC xChuan Zh4ngguó.
5 LC xi1nsheng xièxie wD.
6 Wáng xi1nsheng qCng nC h2 Zh4ngguó chá.

Exercise 1.2
Make the following statements into questions and then answer
them first in the positive and then in the negative:

Nl hē chá. → Nl hē bu hē chá? → Wm hē chá.

Wm bù hē chá.

1 WD xChuan h2 k1f2i.
2 NC xièxie wD.
3 Wáng xi1nsheng qCng wD zuò.
4 LC xi1nsheng xChuan h2 shuC (water).
5 T1 (he/she) xChuan h2 Zh4ngguó chá.

Unit 1 Making friends (i) 21

 Exercise 1.3
Translate into colloquial English:

1 Wáng xi1nsheng qCng wD h2 Zh4ngguó chá.

2 LC xi1nsheng hBn bù xChuan Wáng xi1nsheng.
3 Wáng xi1nsheng yB (also) bù hBn xChuan LC xi1nsheng.
4 NC bú xièxie wD, nàme wD yB bú xièxie nC.
5 T1 qCng wD zuò. T1 yB qCng wD h2 k1f2i.

Insight: learning tip

Go back to the pronunciation guide before you start Unit 2.
Listen, repeat, listen again and repeat. Make sure you are
really comfortable with Unit 1 before you go onto Unit 2.

On meeting people
On meeting somebody for the first time on a formal occasion,
the Chinese will usually shake hands and incline the head a
little at the same time in greeting. This will probably be
accompanied by such questions as Nín guìxìng? ‘What is
your surname?’ (Lit. you [polite form] expensive/honourable
surname) or QCng wèn dàmíng? ‘May I ask your (big/
famous) name?’ or JiEyAng, jiEyAng ‘I’m very pleased to
meet you’ (Lit. long time raise head looking up to you).
In less formal situations, an older person may pat a younger
one on the shoulder, close friends of the same sex may hug
each other and pat each other on the back a few times and
say for instance, NC hái huózhe? ‘You’re still alive!’ or
Shénme f2ng bA nC chu3 lái le? ‘What wind blew you here?’
(This phrase is normally used when you meet someone
unexpectedly.) Secondary school students still stand up when
the teacher comes in and chorus out LAosh3 hAo! ‘How do
you do teacher?’ (Lit. teacher good!) and the teacher will
normally answer Tóngxuémen hAo! ‘How do you do
students?’ (Lit. fellow students good).
Hopefully this will give you a few guidelines which you can
then supplement from your own observations.

22
 TESTING YOURSELF
You’ve arrived at the end of Unit 1, so now for some quick
revision. Please respond to the following questions in Chinese:

1 What would you say on meeting a Mr Li?

2 How would you ask him to sit down?

3 How would you ask him if he would like some coffee?

4 What would he say if he didn’t drink coffee?

5 How would you ask if he would like [some]* tea instead?

6 What would he say if he didn’t drink tea?

7 What would he say if he liked Chinese tea?

8 How do you say ‘Thank you’?

9 How do you say ‘I like you’?

10 How do you say ‘I like you very much’?

* English words in square brackets should not be translated into Chinese.

Unit 1 Making friends (i) 23