Mandarin Chinese in Use

Magic Chinese

FOUNDATION IV Mandarin Chinese in Use

Q & A with Peter (彼得)

The Chinese language you are learning is called Hànyù or Zhōngwén. It’s also called Pŭtōnghùa or Mandarin Chinese. How can it have four different names? Hàny& refers to the language used by people of the Han tribe in China, the largest Chinese ethnic group, which composes about 90% of the population. China is slightly smaller than the U.S. in total geographical area, but has close to 5 times of the U.S. population! There is a total of 56 ethnic groups, according to the Fifth National Population Census in 2000. Each ethnic group has its own dialect of the Chinese language. In order to communicate efficiently, Hàny&, the ethnic dialect of Han tribe, has been chosen as the official Chinese language. Zhōnggúo is China; therefore, Zhōngwén is the language spoken by the Chinese people. The term Pŭtōnghùa literally means “common language”, while Mandarin Chinese refers to the Mandarin dialect. Isn’t it amazing? All these four names refer to the Chinese language you are learning.

Who Uses Chinese in Our World?

Currently, Zhōngwén is used as a national language by people in mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore. Zhōngwén is also used wherever there is a large population of Chinese people, such as Chinatowns all over the world. However, they might also use different dialects of Zhōngwén, such as Cantonese in San Francisco, CA, USA. In ancient times, many nations in Asia used Chinese characters as their written language, such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Today Japanese still uses kanji, borrowed Chinese characters, as part of their writing system. As for modern Korean

XV Foundation IV Mandarin Chinese in Use and Vietnamese, they’ve since developed their own spelling systems and no longer use Chinese characters. According to The World Almanac, there are more people on Earth who speak Chinese than either Spanish or English. It’s also one of the six official language used by the United Nations, along with Arabic, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Based on the trend of language learning in schools around the world, there will be more people using Chinese as time goes on.

How Many Characters Must I Learn?

That depends on what you want to do. Honestly, you really only need about 3,000 characters to do everything in your daily life, such as watching TV or movies, reading newspapers, magazines, novels, etc. Some characters are used more frequently than others, so you should start learning the high-frequency words first. A Chinese college-graduate will probably master 6,000 to 7,000 characters. So, you might ask, what about the other 80,000 characters? The truth is that you will not see them unless you become a linguist of the Chinese language or a scholar of the ancient Chinese literatures.

How are Chinese and English different?

When I first came to the U.S., I had to learn English from the very beginning, starting with ABC. That was really difficult for me because English is so different from Chinese. For example, in Chinese, there are no gender-specific nouns, a chicken is just a chicken. We also don’t have singular or plural forms of nouns. The best part is there is no need to conjugate verbs. We never need to change a verb according to person and tense. It took me a long time to get used to all these grammar rules in English. My friends told me there are even more of these changes in Spanish. Can you imagine how hard that must be! After we have mastered Chinese Pinyin and tones, we will almost be ready to take off for a fun language adventure. Oh, one more thing, the Chinese language’s written form does not use alphabet letters or a spelling system. Pinyin is only a tool to teach you how to pronounce the sound. The written form of Chinese is based on characters (字 zì).

XVI Magic Chinese

Now, let me invite you to join my friends and I on this amazing around-the-world journey with our Magic Compass. Wait! I almost forgot. Let me introduce to you four of my awesome friends in the adventure of Magic Chinese. Now we are ready. Let the fun begin!

Lisa (麗莎) Linda (琳達)

Tom (湯姆) Reggie (瑞奇)

XVII Foundation IV Mandarin Chinese in Use 魔術羅盤與中文人物小檔案

五位主角是住在加州舊金山的七年級的學生。他們的年齡大約是十三歲。下面是他們的長相，個性及家庭背景。

彼得: 中國人。十歲時由台灣移民到美國。是家中唯一的孩子。體形高瘦，方臉帶眼鏡。是沉穩的智慧型的好學生，說得一口流利的中文。湯姆: 美國白種人。個頭比彼得稍矮些，身形圓胖。一張圓臉，有很多雀斑。家中還有姐姐。個性樂天，調皮，有時行為莽撞。不太喜歡上學。瑞奇: 美國黑人。個頭比湯姆稍矮，身形瘦小。一張長臉，有一頭捲曲的暴炸頭。家中還有哥哥。個性多慮，較膽小，但上進努力，是好學生。琳達: 中國女孩子，可是不會說中文。是五個主角中個頭最小的。三歲時由美國家庭收養，對自己的身世很好奇。一張瓜子臉，眉清目秀，齊肩的秀髮又黑又亮。個性溫柔善良，但容易憂愁善感。麗莎: 父母由墨西哥移民來美，生在美國，會說流利西班牙語的聰明女孩。家中人口眾多。身高和湯姆差不多。一頭大波浪型的金長髮，桃形臉，十分漂亮。個性開朗，愛笑，善解人意。

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