MANDARIN
MADE
EASY
FLANG 1 – FOREIGN LANGUAGE
(Basic Mandarin)
Learning Module
AY 2021-2022
UNIVERSITY OF ANTIQUE
SIBALOM, ANTIQUE
COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND ACCOUNTANCY
RISTY CLENT E. AQUITO
Chapter One
THE CHINESE LANGUAGE:
AN INTRODUCTION
Chapter Outline
Learning Objectives
 Characteristics of Chinese
After studying this chapter you should be able to:
a. History of Chinese Language
b. Standard Chinese
c. Influences of Chinese Language
d. Romanization
 Tones and Homophones
a. Chinese Phonetic Alphabet
b. Tone Marks
c. Rules of Phonetic Spelling
1.1 discuss history of Chinese Dialect and Importance
of Chinese Language;
1.2. identify influences that affects the evolution of
Chinese Language;
1.3 identify and pronounce the initial and final sounds
used in mandarin; and
1.4 understand and apply rules in phonetic spelling
sentence.
OVERVIEW
The Chinese language (Hànyǔ, Huáyǔ, or Zhōngwén) is language or language family consisting of
varieties which are mutually intelligible in varying degrees, with most of the varieties not being mutually intelligible.
Originally the indigenous language spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of SinoTibetan family of Languages. About one-fifth of the world’s population, or over one billion people speaks some
variety of Chinese as their native language. Internal divisions of Chinese are usually perceived by their native
speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, rather than separate languages, although this identification is
considered inappropriate by some linguists and sinologists.
Stimulating Learning
Can you imagine the world that one-fifth of its population speaks the language? With over 1.5 billion
speakers Chinese is the most spoken language in the world. Can you imagine yourself learning the language
with greater advantage working in the Hospitality Industry? International companies are looking for someone that
are competitive and one of the many skills they are looking for is someone who could speak other languages.
👉Activity 1. Are you still not interested in learning other language? How about you watch this 10 ways to
motivate yourself when learning Chinese so you can start this subject with interest. Good luck and have fun
learning Mandarin. (click here): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjm2d98FTA4&t=24s
LESSON 1. Characteristics of Chinese Language
1.1 The History of Chinese Language
Most linguists classify all varieties of modern spoken Chinese as part of the Sino-Tibetan language
family and believe that there was an original language, termed Proto—Sino—Tibetan from which the Sinitic and
Tibeto-Burman languages descended. The relation between Chinese and other Sino-Tibetan languages is an
area of active research, as is the attempt to reconstruct Proto-Sino-Tibetan.
Mandarin is now spoken by virtually all young and middle—aged citizens of mainland China and on
Taiwan. Cantonese, not Mandarin, was used in Hong Kong during the time of its British colonial period (owing to
its large Cantonese native and migrant populace) and remains today its official language of education, formal
speech, and daily life, but Mandarin is becoming increasingly influential after the 1997 handover.
Classical Chinese was once the lingua franca in neighboring East Asian countries such as Japan, Korea
and Vietnam for centuries, before the rise of European influences in the 19th century. In Korea and Vietnam
official documents were written in Chinese until the colonial period.
1.2 Standard Chinese
Standard Chinese (Putonghua / Guoyu / Huayu) is a standardized form of spoken Chinese based on the
Beijing dialect of Mandarin Chinese, referred to as Guānhuà or Běifānghuà in Chinese. Mandarin Chinese
history can be dated back to the 19th century, particularly by the upper classes and ministers in Beijing. Standard
Chinese is the official language of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, also
known as Taiwan), as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six official languages of
the United Nations.
Putonghua / Guoyu, often called "Mandarin", is the official standard language used by the People's
Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Singapore (where it is called "Huayu"). It is based on the
Beijing dialect, which is the dialect of Mandarin as spoken in Beijing. The government intends for speakers of all
Chinese speech varieties to use it as a common language of communication. Therefore it is used in government
agencies, in the media, and as a language of instruction in schools.
In mainland China and Taiwan, diglossia has been a common feature: it is common for a Chinese to be
able to speak two or even three varieties of the Sinitic languages (or "dialects") together with Standard Chinese.
For example, in addition to putonghua, a resident of Shanghai might speak Shanghainese; and, if he or she grew
up elsewhere, then he or she may also be likely to be fluent in the particular dialect of that local area. A native of
Guangzhou may speak both Cantonese and putonghua, a resident of Taiwan, both Taiwanese and
putonghua/guoyu. A person living in Taiwan may commonly mix pronunciations, phrases, and words from
Mandarin and Taiwanese, and this mixture is considered normal in daily or informal speech.
1.3 Influences of Chinese Language
Throughout history Chinese culture and politics has had a great influence on unrelated East Asian
languages such as Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese. Korean and Japanese both have writing systems
employing Chinese characters (hanzi), which are called Hanja and Kanji, respectively.
In South Korea, the Hangul alphabet is generally used, but Hanja is used as a sort of boldface. In North
Korea, Hanja has been discontinued. Since the modernization of Japan in the late 19th century, there has been
debate about abandoning the use of Chinese characters, but the practical benefits of a radically new script have
so far not been considered sufficient.
Languages within the influence of Chinese culture also have a very large number of loanwords from
Chinese. Fifty percent or more of Korean vocabulary is of Chinese origin, likewise for a significant percentage of
Japanese and Vietnamese vocabulary. Examples of loan words in English include "tea", from Minnan tê,
"ketchup", from Cantonese ke]zap] and "kumquat", from Cantonese gam]gwat].
1.4 Romanization
Today the most common Romanization standard for Standard Chinese is Hanyu Pinyin, often known
simply as pinyin, introduced in 1956 by the People's Republic of China, and later adopted by Singapore, and
Taiwan. Pinyin is almost universally employed now for teaching standard spoken Chinese schools and
universities across America, and Europe. Chinese parents also use Pinyin to teach their children the sounds and
tones of new words.
LESSON 2. The Chinese Phonetic System
Official modern Mandarin has only 400 Spoken monosyllables but over 10,000 written characters, so
there are many homophones only distinguishable by the four tones. Even .this is often not enough unless the
context and exact phrase or cí is identified.
The mono—syllable jī, first tone in Mandarin, corresponds to the following characters: / chicken, WL /
machine, basic, / (to) hit, hunger, and accumulate. In speech, the glyphing of a monosyllable to its meaning must
be determined by context or by relation to other morphemes (for example, "some" as in the opposite of "none").
Native speakers may state which words or phrases their names are found in, for convenience of writing.
Southern Chinese varieties like Cantonese and Hakka preserved more of the rimes of Middle Chinese
and have more tones. The previous examples of jī, have more distinct pronunciations in Cantonese (romanized
using jyutping): gail, geil, geil, gikl, geil, and zikl respectively. For this reason, southern varieties tend to need to
employ fewer multi-syllabic words.
2.1 Chinese Phonetic Alphabet
There have been many different systems of transcription used for learning to pronounce Chinese.
Today the official transcription accepted on an international basis is the Pinyin alphabet, developed in China at
the end of the 1950's.
2.1.1 Initials
A syllable in Chinese is composed of 23 initials, which is a consonant that begins the syllable, and a
final, which covers the rest of the syllable.
b
d
g
j
z
zh
y
p
t
k
q
c
ch
w
m
n
h
x
s
sh
f
l
r
💡 m, f, n, l, h and sh are pronounced as in English.
💡 d like "d" in "bed" (unaspirated), j like "g" in "genius" (unaspirated), z like "ds" in "beds", zh like "J" in "job",
b like "p" in "spin" (unaspirated), g - a soft unaspirated "k" sound, x like "sh" in "sheep" but with the corners of
the lips drawn back somewhat like "r" in "rain.
💡 Particular attention should be paid to the pronunciation of the so-called "aspirated" consonants. It is
necessary to breathe heavily after the consonant is pronounced p like "p" in pope, t like "t" in "tap", k like "k" in
"kangaroo", q harder than "ch” in "cheap", c like "ts” in "cats", ch (tongue curled back, aspirated)
💡 Distinction between certain initials: b / p d / t g / k j / q z / c zh / ch
(Click here for the Video Tutorial): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eXqIL0KfeY
2.1.2 Finals
Finals always begin with vowels. They may end in consonants, or diphthongs. In many cases they can
be pronounced accurately using your intuition as an English speaker, but there are some few surprises.
sounds.
There are 35 final sounds, 6 of which are simple final sounds, and 29 of which are compound final
a
ai
ao
an
ang
o
ou
ong
e
ei
en
eng
er
i
ia
iao
ian
iang
ie
iu
in
ing
iong
u
ua
uai
uan
uang
uo
ui
un
ü
üe
üan
ün
💡 a, e, o, i, u, and ü are the simple final sounds the remaining 29 are the compund final sounds
💡 "a" is pronounce "ah" as in rah, "ai" like the y in rye or my, "ao" like the ow in cow, "an" ahn to rhyme
with John, "ang" like ahng as in angst
💡 "o" like the aw in awe, to rhyme with saw, "ou" like the o in toe or ho, "ong" like the ong in wrong , but with a
rounder o sound
💡 "e" like the u sound in bush, "ei" like the ay in pay, "en" like the un in pun, "eng" like
the ung in hung, "er" like ur in curd
💡 "i" like the ee in flee when following "b", "p" "m", "d", "t", "n", "l", "j", "q", and "x", "ia" like the ia in the
name Mia, but said in one syllable, "iao" ee-yow, to rhyme with the cat's meow, but said in one
syllable, "ian" like yen, "iang" yahng, with the same vowel as in the word angst, "ie" like yeh, "iu" like the eo in
the name Leo, pronounced in one syllable, "in" een as in green, "ing" as in sing, "iong" yawng, to rhyme
with strong
💡 "u" oo as in boo after most letters pronounce as ü after "j", "q", "x", and "y", "ua" wah, like
the ua in guava, "uai" wye, to rhyme the rye, "uan" wahn, to rhyme with swan after most letters wen, to rhyme
with when after "j", "q", "x", or"y", "uang" wahng, with the same vowel as the word angst, "uo" waw to rhyme
with thaw, "ui" way, "un" one is the closest sound in English, though the vowel is actually closer to the oo sound
in book
💡 "ü" no english equivalent; like the German ü or French eu. Used after "n", and "l", "üe" to rhyme
with moo and yeh, merged into one syllable, ritten with diaresis or diaeresis (the two dots over the letter) as
symbol after "n", and "l" In modern Chinese, there are 38 finals besides the above represented 21 initials.
(Click here for the Video Tutorial): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T8BlTd27lA
2.2 Tone Marks
Mandarin Chinese has four pitched tones and a "toneless" tone or neutral.
Each Chinese syllable also has intonation that must be used when it is pronounced. Spoken Mandarin
has four distinct tones. They do not correspond to absolute musical pitches but rather, are spoken differently by
individuals depending on the range of their voices. What is important is that the tones remain relatively distinct
from one another.
For example, the first tone is pronounce at high, level pitch at the top of one’s vocal range. For a woman
this will be a higher pitch that for a man, but this makes no difference as long as it is done at the top of one’s
register. The second tone rises from the middle of the voice to the top, as when asking a question in English,
even though a rising tone implies no interrogative in Chines. The third tone starts at the middle of the voice and
dips to the bottom before rising at the end. The fourth tone starts high and ends low, as when scolding someone
or emphasizing something in English.
The tones are indicated by the use of diacritical marks above the syllables. The first tone, the even tone,
illustrated with a horizontal mark above the syllable ( ¯ ). The second tone, which rises, is shown with a line
sloping ( / ). The third tone, which dips to the bottom of the voice, indicated with a U-shaped mark ( V or U). The
fourth, or falling, tone is illustrated with a line sloping down (\).
The importance of the tones is clear from the example of the syllable ma. Mā, in the first tone, means
"mother". In the second tone, má is understood to mean "hemp". The third tone mǎ, means "horse." And in the
fourth tone, mà means "to scold." If you are careless with your tones, you are more than likely to make a serious
mistake speaking Chinese since the language is rich in homonyms. The tones help a Chinese listener to
distinguish different words. Asking for táng at the table get you sugar, but if you pronounce it tāng, you'll be given
a bowl of soup.
Even a syllable with a given tone can have more than one meaning. Shī, for example, means both "lion"
and "poem" in the first tone, as well as other things. A Chinese can generally figure out what you mean from the
context of your remarks, but imagine how much harder you make his or her task if you mispronounce the word.
In various other tones, shi can mean history, a teacher, an envoy, a market, to show, a lifetime, a test, a style,
the number ten, a stone, or the verb "to be."
One more point: We've used standard punctuation marks in this text. These are as intelligible to the
Chinese as to us. But when you're speaking Chinese, don't make the all-too-common mistake of raising your
pitch at the end of a question or dropping it after an exclamation, as you might in English, for this will interfere
with the proper pronunciation of tones. Just keep to the tones as marked and you will get the desired results.
(Click here for the Video Tutorials): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGR2LTa2SlI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNsb9agMCJE
2.2 Rules of Phonetic Spelling
The study of the sound system of language normally starts with phonetics followed by phonology.
However, it is widely acknowledged that the two are not mutually exclusive: The quality of phonological modeling
crucially depends on the understanding of phonetic details, whereas phonetic description is often more insightful
when done within a more explanatory framework of phonological constraints, rules and/or parameters. In this
chapter, we will not attempt to separate the two, but each will be resorted to as required by the description and
explanation of certain aspects of the Mandarin sounds and their patterns (Hua Lin, 2001).
💡 Standard Table of Sounds and Syllables
One of the most remarkable phonological characteristics of Mandarin (and the Chinese language in
general) is the salience of its syllable. The following quote from Jerry Norman (1988) is typical of linguists of
Chinese:
"There is a sense that Chinese is also phonologically monosyllabic. In almost all descriptions of Chinese, the
syllable is taken as a kind of self-contained entity which forms the basis of phonological description... In historical
comparison, [the syllable] is the largest relevant unit; another important feature of Chinese dialects (and perhaps
of other monosyllabic languages as well) is that any one dialect contains a fixed number of possible syllables.
Even when new terms are borrowed from foreign languages, they are interpreted in terms of the existing set of
syllables... A further consideration is that most phonological processes affect the syllable without reference to its
lower level constituents"
What is also remarkable about the Mandarin syllable is that there is a very limited number of them, just
a little more than 400⎯the official figure from the PRC is 405⎯when tonal difference is disregarded.
Even when tonal difference is considered as a difference in syllable type, there are only about 1200
types. This number is remarkably small in contrast to that in English, which has more than 8,000 syllable types
according to one source (De Francis 1984). One consequence of this paucity of syllable types is that in Mandarin
there are a great many homophones, especially at the morpheme level.
(Click here for the Video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5OMNlZkSS8
USING/APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
👉 Assignment 1. Tone Drills. Practice the following syllables with the correct pronunciation considering the
tone marks and record it. Submit a video file of your performance. Good luck!
bā bá bǎ bà
bū bú bǔ bù
kē ké kě kè
qī qí qǐ qì
xiē xié xiě xiè
mēi méi měi mèi
guān guán guǎn guàn
xī xí xǐ xì
duī duí duǐ duì
mīng míng mǐng mìng
tiān tián tiǎn tiàn
yī yí yǐ yì
huī huí huǐ huì
xiū xiú xiǔ xiù