ASSIGNMENT (1) pre-mid

Chinese Language (Hàn yǔ)

HSK-1 (002)
Table of Contents

Lecture-1 Chinese language ........................................................................................................................ 3

Tones ......................................................................................................................................................... 4

Graphical Presentation of Tones: .............................................................................................................. 6

PinYin ....................................................................................................................................................... 7

Lecture-2 Phonetic Alphabets ................................................................................................................... 8

Particles:.................................................................................................................................................... 8

Phonetic Letters/ Alphabets ...................................................................................................................... 9

Lecture-1 Chinese language

Chinese language is called as the central language because on the world map china lies on the
center.

Zhōng wén Chinese Language

Zhōng wén
Chinese Language/Culture

Zhōng guó China Country

Zhōng guó
China Country

g at the start sounds like k/‫ك‬

g at the end sounds like g/‫گ‬

Chinese Word Meanings

Zhōng guō China Country

Gŏu Dog

Máng Busy

Māo Cat
 Biăo Watch

In Chinese language B is pronounced as p/‫پو‬

Family Members:

Word Meaning

Bába Father

Māma Mother

Jiĕjie Elder Sister

Mèimei Young Sister

Gēge Elder Brother

Dìdi Younger Brother

If there are pair of words like these family words, then the tones comes on the 1st part of the
word.

Tones
Tones are also known as the phonetic symbols or signs of Chinese language. Chinese is a tonal
Language. In Chinese, same syllable can be used for different words because of different tones.
In Chinese language, Tones play a very important role and if proper attention is not given to the
tones, it could lead to proper miscommunication.

● 5th Tone
The Chinese language has Four (4) main tones and one neutral tone. Each Tone has a distinctive
pitch contour which can be graphed.

●
Tail Head

First Tone: ( )
 It is a high level Tone
 It is a Constant Tone
 Starts from left and Ends at right
 Tail is on the left and Head is on the right side
 It is a straight Tone
 Prolong tone
 When pronouncing it, it is important to keep the voice even in the whole syllable
 Its graphical value is 55

Example: ā
Mā, Māng

Second tone: ( )

 It is Rising tone
 It is from down to up
 Head is right side upward and tail is left side downward
 It is half rising tone
 Its graphical value is 35

Example: á
Má
Third tone: ( )

 It is Dipping sound
 It is a Curved tone
 It looks like a tick
  Tail is left side upward and Head is right side upward
 It has 2 parts (i) Falling part (ii) Rising part
 Falling part is less
 Rising part is more than the falling part
 Its graphical value is 214

Example: ă
Mă
Forth tone: ( )

 It is a Sudden falling tone

 It is up to down
 Tail is left side upward
 Head is right side downward
 Its graphical value is 51

Example: à
Mà

Fifth tone:

 It is a neutral
 It’s simple tone
 It is a plain tone
 Its graphical value is zero
Example: ma

Graphical Presentation of Tones:

5 1st Tone Value = 55

4 2nd Tone Value = 35

3 3rd Tone Value = 214

 2 4th Tone Value = 51

1 5th Tone Value = 0

Same Word different Tones:

 Mā -- Mother
 Má -- Numb, hemp (herb), fiber crop
 Mă = Horse
 Mà = Scold
 Ma = Question Tag/ Question particle or a Question mark

Ma is always used at the end of the sentence to make it into question

Tonal Rules:

 When you put tone one “i”, you don’t put dot on it
 Vowels comes after Initials/ Consonants
 Latinisation or latin words are used
 I in Chinese sound as “ee”
 P in Chinese sounds as “pho”
 98% of the times, Tones come on the vowels alphabets
 But there are two exceptional cases
(i) When “i” comes with u =iu, we will use tone on u. Because in this case u is dominant
(ii) And when “i” comes with o=io, we will use tone on o. In this case also O is dominant

“O” and “U” are main vowels and both have clear sounds.

PinYin
It is a system of Latin words that are used for learning Chinese. PinYin means spelling out
Chinese phrases with letters from the English alphabets. In mandarin Chinese, literal meaning of
PinYin is; Pin Yin

Spell Sound
Lecture-2 Phonetic Alphabets

Particles:
Particles are grammar points that play very important roles in Chinese language and in Chinese
Grammar. Particles usually don’t have tones on it and particles are mostly with neutral tones.
Particles are always used in sentences. Such as;

Nǐ hǎo ma?
How are you?

Ma is always used at the end of the sentence to make it a question.

Q) How to put tones?

We put tones on vowels letter, if there are more than one vowel according to alphabetically order
The methodology is;

Syllable: Sounds of the word. Chines words are called as the syllables.
Syllable
Sounds of words
Syllable Ma
Consonant Vowel
In Chinese Language, a syllable has two parts;
Initial + Final
M a
Prefix Suffix
In every word, look for the vowel first, all the letters before the vowels are initials and all the
letters after the vowels are finals.
For example:
Water
 We put tones on prominent or dominant vowel letters
 “a” and “e” are vowels in this and the sounds are clear of them.

Phonetic Letters/ Alphabets

These Digits are called groups or sets (in blue)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Key 6 42 43 33 34 44 34 2
1 a bo de ge ji zhi zi Yi
2 o po te ke qi Chi ci Wu
3 e mo ne he xi shi si
4 i fo le ri
5 u
6 Ü/ϋ

Chinese Vowels Semi-Vowels, neutrals

Initials and Consonants

LSR:
Listening speaking and reading will be in R sound, means r will be silent
Any words starting from “4” letters ,zh,ch,sh and r and “i” comes after these four letters
Zh,ch,sh press and viber in sound
J,q,x stretch lips and show teeth’s

Y initial semi-vowels, neutrals

W

Consonants which do not have their clear sounds

Consonants are suppressant

Phonetic: when vowel is with the letter

QĪNG QÍ
Easy /cheap Ride

Chinese Words Meaning

Dōng jīng Tokoyo

Jĭ Few, how many

Qí ride

Xī west

Nān south, difficult, male

Dōng east

Nǚ female

Zhī no

Chī eat
Shī profession

rὶ Sun/day/date