0 Preamble
The following is a program that introduces Mandarin Chinese to the English-speaker. The discussion of language is also accompanied by a brief introduction to the well-known sixth-century essay, Thirty-six Stratagems (with historical examples and illustrations), as well as their corresponding hexagrams from the the ancient Chinese philosophy of change, the Yijing. The structure is such that each chapter contains one of the 36 stratagems as a kind of theme to which the vocabulary, characters, and sample sentences have been related, and each chapter is denoted by the hexagram corresponding to that stratagem.
Concerning the origin of the material comprising the language portion, the author’s first year in China was partially spent learning Mandarin (speaking, reading and writing) in the following way: everyday they would go out and, not knowing much Mandarin at all, would come into situations where knowing how to say some certain words would have been a great help, so they made a list of these words (20 apprx.) and, with the help a friend and colleague, memorized how to read write and pronounce them; the following day they went out again and, using the words from the list, ran into yet more situations compelling them to make a new list. After doing this weekly for about a year, their Mandarin had greatly improved. The above-mentioned method produced a very natural and unique progression of lists, and it is of these that the program is comprised. It is also worth mentioning that the language content is completely scaffolded in the sense that, whenever a new character, word or phrase is introduced, the reader is shown how to read, write and pronounce it, and nowhere will a character, word or phrase appear unless it was already previously introduced.
We will assume some familiarity with pronunciation and reading pinyin, as well as a handle on how to write some basic characters. Having said this, the reader should also know that this program is certainly introductory, and would be most useful to beginners who are independent and who enjoy reading and learning.
Pinyin is a phonetic system that uses Latin characters to denote pronunciation of Chinese words. There are actually not that many (toneless) syllables. The following is a table which lists all of them.
Vowels and consonants are pronounced as shown in the following.
There are four common tones (not including the “toneless” tone). The following shows how the four tones act on the same syllable (ma).
Let’s begin with some basic parts of speech.
Pronouns:
I/me: 我: wǒ
you: 你: nǐ
you (formal): 您: nín
he/him: 他: tā
she/her: 她: tā
it: 它: tā
they/them (plural ‘it’): 它们: tāmen
we/us: 我们: wǒmen
you (plural): 你们: nǐmen
they/them (including men): 他们: tāmen
they/them (all women): 她们: tāmen
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Verbs:
to have: 有: yǒu
to want: 要: yào
to go/to: 去: qù
to need: 需要: xūyào
to buy: 买: mǎi
to sell: 卖: mài
to ask: 问: wèn
to write: 写: xiě
to read (something, e.g. book): 看 (书): kàn (shū)
to run: 跑/跑步: pǎo/pǎobù
to do/make: 做: zuò
to like: 喜欢: xǐhuān
to be able to...: 可以/能: kěyǐ/néng
to use: 用: yòng
to drive (e.g. a car)/open: 开: kāi
to go/walk: 走: zǒu
to see: 看: kàn
to say/speak: 说 / 说话: shuō/shuōhuà
to eat: 吃: chī
to drink: 喝: hē
to walk: 走路: zǒulù
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Nouns: (note that there is no marker for plurality as is the ‘s’ in ‘apples’)
store/small store: 店 / 小店: diàn/xiǎo diàn
school: 学校: xué xiào
apple: 苹果: píng guǒ
banana: 香蕉: xiāngjiāo
rice: 饭: fàn
water: 水: shuǐ
street/road: 路: lù
table: 桌子: zhuōzi
chair: 椅子: yǐ zi
dog: 狗: gǒu
cat: 猫: māo
thing/stuff: 东西: dōng xi
animal: 动物: dòngwù
person/people: 人: rén
man: 男人: nánrén
woman: 女人: nǚrén
child: 小孩: xiǎohái
boy: 男孩: nánhái
girl: 女孩: nǚhái
week: 星期: xīngqī
month/moon: 月: yuè
day: 天: tiān
dish: 菜: cài
music: 音乐: yīnyuè
door: 门: mén
car/automobile: 车/汽车: chē/qìchē
meat: 肉: ròu
cow: 牛: niú
bird: 鸟: niǎo
parents: 父母: fùmǔ
(cow’s) milk: 牛奶: niúnǎi
(chicken) egg: 鸡蛋: jīdàn
orange (the fruit): 橙子: chéngzi
orange juice: 橙汁: chéngzhī
mouth: 口: kǒu
bear: 熊: xióng
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Adjectives: (sometimes the qualifier ‘de’ (的) must me used to construct an adjective, or to provide proper context for disambiguation)
good/bad: 好 / 不好: hǎo/bù hǎo
big/small: 大 / 小: dà/xiǎo
many/few: 多 / 少: duō/shǎo
hot/cold: 热 / 冷: rè/lěng
yellow: 黄色的: huángsè de
white: 白色的: báisè de
black: 黑色的: hěisè de
blue: 蓝色的: lánsè de
green: 绿色的: lǜsè de
expensive/cheap: 贵 / 便宜: guì/piányi
long/short: 长 / 短: cháng/duǎn
beautiful/ugly: 漂亮 / 丑: piàoliàng/chǒu
pretty: 美: měi
red: 红色的: hóngsè de
purple: 紫色的: zǐsè de
orange: 橙色的: chéngsè de
heavy/light: 重 / 浅: zhòng/qiǎn
delicious: 好吃: hào chī
tall/short: 高 / 矮: gāo/ǎi
New Characters:
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Question Words:
who: 谁: shéi
what: 什么: shénme
when: 什么时候: shénme shíhòu
where: 在哪/哪里: zài nǎ/nǎ lǐ
why: 为什么: wèishénme
how: 怎么: zěnme
how many: 多少: duōshao
which: 哪个: nǎ ge
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Numbers:
one: 一: yī
two: 二/两: èr/liǎng
three: 三: sān
four: 四: sì
five: 五: wǔ
six: 六: liù
seven: 七: qī
eight: 八: bā
nine: 九: jiǔ
ten: 十: shí
eleven: 十一: shíyī
twelve: 十二: shíèr
thirteen: 十三: shísān
fourteen: 十四: shísì
fifteen: 十五: shíwǔ
sixteen: 十六: shíliù
seventeen: 十七: shíqī
eighteen: 十八: shíbā
nineteen: 十九: shíjiǔ
twenty: 二十: èrshí
one hundred: 一百: yībǎi
one thousand: 一千: yīqiān
ten thousand: 一万: yī wàn
one million: 一百万: yībǎi wàn
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Days of the Week:
Monday: 星期一: xīngqī yī
Tuesday: 星期二: xīngqī èr
Wednesday: 星期三: xīngqī sān
Thursday: 星期四: xīngqī sì
Friday: 星期五: xīngqī wǔ
Saturday: 星期六: xīngqī liù
Sunday: 星期天: xīngqī tiān
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Months:
January: 一月: yī yuè
February: 二月: èr yuè
March: 三月: sān yuè
April: 四月: sì yuè
May: 五月: wǔ yuè
June: 六月: liù yuè
July: 七月: qī yuè
August: 八月: bā yuè
September: 九月: jiǔ yuè
October: 十月: shí yuè
November: 十一月: shí yī yuè
December: 十二月: shí èr yuè
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Four Seasons:
Fall/Autumn: 秋天: qiūtiān
Winter: 冬天: dōngtiān
Spring: 春天: chūntiān
Summer: 夏天: xiàtiān
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New Characters:
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Measure Words (basic):
general (arbitrary) unit: 个: gè
pair: 双: shuāng
serving: 份: fèn
one half kilo: 斤: jīn
kilo: 公斤: gōng jīn
book: 本: běn
tree: 棵: kē
vehicle: 辆: liàng
kilometer: 公里: gōnglǐ
meter: 米: mǐ
some (an uncertain amount): 些: xiē
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Spacial and Temporal Operators:
up/upper/last: 上: shàng
inner/central: 中: zhōng
down/lower/next: 下: xià
to be (located) in/at: 在: zài
now: 现在: xiànzài
yesterday: 昨天: zuótiān
today: 今天: jīntiān
tomorrow: 明天: míngtiān
last week: 上个星期: shàng gè xīngqī
this week: 这个星期: zhègè xīngqī
here: 这里: zhèlǐ
there: 那里: nàlǐ
next week: 下个星期: xià gè xīngqī
left: 左: zuǒ
straight: 直: zhí
right: 右: yòu
last month: 上个月: shàng gè yuè
this month: 这个月: zhègè yuè
next month: 下个月: xià gè yuè
north: 北: běi
south: 南: nán
east: 东: dōng
west: 西: xī
with: 和: hé
inside/outside: 里面/外面: lǐmiàn/wàimiàn
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New Characters:
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A Brief Introduction to Yijing (the Chinese Philosophy of Change)
The ancient Chinese philosophy of change, based on the Yijing (Book of Changes), is comprised of three distinct layers. Its fist layer consists of eight trigrams, together with the 64 hexagrams obtained by taking all possible pairs of the trigrams; it believed by many to have been created by Fu Xi (伏羲) himself, the mythical First Emperor of China, born in the twenty-ninth century B.C. Its second layer consists of the names of and descriptive statements associated with each of the hexagrams, allegedly written down by King Wen and the Duke of Zhou during the eleventh century B.C. Its third layer consists of seven writings, making up the "Ten Wings", composed between the fifth and second centuries B.C., the authors of which used the hexagrams to describe the cosmic patters that relate humanity to nature.
The philosophy of change underlying the Yijing treats the cosmos as one grand self-generating organismic process, without beginning or end, like a great motion in which "all of the parts of the process belong to one whole", and where each part interacts spontaneously with the others.
The unfolding of the universe is so portrayed through taking combinations of the eight trigrams. According to many commentators on the Yijing, the eight trigrams (☰, ☱, ☲, ☳, ☴, ☵, ☶, ☷) symbolize the mixing of the yin and yang cosmic forces, where taking certain combinations of a straight line (—) representing yang, and a broken line (--) representing yin, a trigram comes symbolizes the universe's constant renewal of these things. As each hexagram can be divided into two of these trigrams -- the lower three lines and the upper three lines -- each represents the interaction of two sets of yin-yang configurations, and demonstrates the various ways in which these yin-yang forces transform one another.
For a more thorough introduction to the Yijing, the reader is referred to [1], [2] and [28].
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