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Re:Re:Re:How to say how are you in Mandarin
Cai Jie, Xie4xie.
That's true, of course.
The rule of tone shift seemed to me to be more than was called for in response to Chuckie's question. I was already hitting her with a whole lot of information for a non-Mandarin speaker just explaining how to do the tones correctly (a problem that took me the better part of two years to get comfortable with) without trying to explain on top of that that Ni is a third tone word that you pronounce as second tone becuase it's followed by the third tone in this context.
It seemed more straightforward just to tell her how to pronounce Ni3 hao3 correctly and let her worry about the tone shift rule later.
Zhu2 ni3 hao3,
Make
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Mark S.
March 25, 2005
# Msgs: 7
Latest: April 5, 2005
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Re:Ni hao
Zhangyan Hao3,
Ni3 tai4 ke4qi le.
Xie4xie ni3 jiao4 wo3 zhei4ge ci4.
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help with pinyin.
Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember tian1tian1. But I’m puzzled by you4jian4. I thought "see you again" was zai4jian4. Or is that another way to say the same thing again?
I notice you’re quote marks are coming out funny when you post messages. I can tell you how to fix that, if you want. I’ll post a message for you on the Computer Technology board, where it might be helpful to other people, too.
So, do you celebrate Easter there in China? You don't seem very plain to me. Tell me about Guiling. What part of China is that in? What is it like there?
Wo3 ye3 hen3 gao1xing4 you4 jian4 dao ni3
Zhu4 ni3 hao3
Make
Sacramento, CA, USA
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Mark S.
March 25, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: April 12, 2005
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Re:xie xie
Ni3 hao3 Zhangyan,
Xie4xie ni3 xie3 wo3.
Hai2 you3 shi4 wo3 bu4 kan4 dong3.
Ni3 zhu4 wo3 tian1 tian1 kuai4le. Wo3 zhi1dao Tian1, gen1 jin1tian1 de tian1 yi2yang4, ke3shi4 wo3 mei3 ting1le zhei2ge tian1tian1. Zhe2 shi2 "days" ma? You wish me good days? Xie2xie ni3 :0) Wo3 ye3 zhu4 ni3 tian1tian1 kuai4le.
he2 "you jian" shi4 shen2me? Wo3 de ci4dian2 li3 bu4 kan4le.
qing3 yong4 yin1diao4 ba. you3 yi1 dianr3 nan4 kan4 bu4 yong4 yin1diao4 de pin1 yin1.
xie4xie ni3
Ma3ke4
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Mark S.
March 22, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: April 12, 2005
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Re:Re:Re:xie xie ni
Wow, you speak Chinese too?
Puti, you're amazing!
Mark
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Mark S.
March 22, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: April 12, 2005
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Re:Re:xie xie ni
> In my class, we always said, "zhou mo
> kuai le," [...]
> If I'm talking about the right thing,
> this should all make perfect sense to you,
>
My teacher often used "yu kuai" and
"kuai le" as interchangeable variants.
Puti
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Juha-Petri T.
March 21, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: April 12, 2005
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Re:xie xie ni
Mei wenti Zhangyan,
Language is interesting. It always is, and I love noticing the interesting connections between words.
Did you ever wonder why the Chinese character hao3 is made up of child and woman characters? Have you ever had anyone explain it to you? I always had a theory that it was from a traditional assumption that a man who has a wife and a child has a good life. I wonder if femenists in your country, or people who choose not to raise families find that annoying. I wonder if anyone ever talks about wanting to find a more universally meaningful way of writing the word.
Si ma ke is what passes for my Chinese name. My Chinese teacher often promised to give me a more fitting one, but she never thought of one she liked.
You have an interesting way of wishing me a good weekend. In my class, we always said, "zhou mo kuai le," so I'm guessing that the "kuai" is the same one we always used, the one that means quick, made of a vertical xin character on the left and the yang character on the right.
But I had some trouble finding "yukuai" I finally found a character for yu2kuai4, which seems to mean happy, so I guess that was the one you meant. I'm not sure how to describe the yu character, and my Chinese software hasn't worked on my computer since I got Windows XP. But it's a vertical Xin on the left again, and this time a top made out of an 8 (ba) with a 1 (yi) connecting the legs. Below the top of the right part is a moon (yue4)on the left and something I always want to call a two stroke dagger that looks kind of like a dotless i and a dotless j.
I don't know. If I'm talking about the right thing, this should all make perfect sense to you, but if I'm wrong, you'll probably have no idea what I'm talking about.
Anyway, wo ye zhu ne zhou mo kuaile.
zai jian!
Make
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Mark S.
March 19, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: April 12, 2005
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Duibuqi / excuse me
Ni hao,
I was reading my message again, and realized I said that the sack was like a "sleeping back" or any kind of bed. I meant a "sleeping bag." These darn rented fingers just don't type what I tell them to.
Also, I was sharing with my girlfriends about your very interesting question, and she mentioned a really good "hitting" idiom in English that I completely forget about: "hit the showers," meaning to go take a shower. This one is typical of athletic coaches at the end of practice or after a game (and that's why it is always used in the plural, since it's always a large number of people who will be taking showers), but we can use it for just one person, as in, "I think I'll go hit the showers." It seems incorrect, but even in this case we use the plural. But of course, idioms never have to observe the same rules as other expressions.
zhu ni hao,
Si ma ke,
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA, USA
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Mark S.
March 18, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: April 12, 2005
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English Idiom: "Hit the sack"'
Ni Hao! Renshi nin, wo hen gaoxing!
"Hit the sack" is an idiom in English for going to bed or going to sleep. "The sack" is a metaphor for a sleeping back, but means any kind of bed. And in English when we're speaking very informally, (Only when we speak informally, not like in Chinese) we often use the word "hit" for going to something. So we might say, "Hit the pavement (or "hit the bricks") to mean get out on the streets, either to look for a job or to go sell things. We might say "Hit the books" for going to study.
It's funny, because as I was saying that about how we use Hit in English, and I remember how you use Da3 in Mandarin, like Da dian hua, to make a phone call (hit the phone), da zhen to get a shot, da qiu, to play ball. I remember laughing to myself, thinking, I never would have beleived the Chinese were so violent! (just kidding)
But anyway, as I say, in English, we use "hit" that way only in very informal conversation, like with friends and family.
Xiexie ni, rang wo yi ge zhen you yisi de wenti!
Zai jian!
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Mark S.
March 17, 2005
# Msgs: 10
Latest: April 12, 2005
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Re:How to say how are you in Mandarin
In Mandarin, to say hello, it's "ni2 hao3", which literally means, "you good!" When you want to make a statement into a question in Mandarin, you add a question word at the end, "ma"
So in Mandarin, when you say, "ni2 hao3 ma," it means, "you good?" And that's how they say "How are you?"
I don't know how much Mandarin you already know, but you may be wondering how one pronounces a 2 or a 3 in Mandarin. The thing is, Mandarin is a tonal language, which means that the tone of voice you use when you speak affects the meaning of what you say. This is really important to get familiar with, becuase if you don't use the right tones, your friends will be very confused when you want to say, "I want to go to bed" and you end up saying, "I would like some dumplings" instead.
So here's what the tones mean:
Second tone (2) is the tone of voice we use when we're asking a question. In Mandarin, it's called a rising tone, but in English, the tone of voice we use when we're asking a question: "what?" "Who?" We always ask our questions with a rising tone of voice, and that's what the second tone in Mandarin sounds like. So when you say, "Ni2 hao3 ma," Make sure that the Ni2 sounds like you're asking a question "Ni?"
Third tone is the tone of voice you use when you're thinking really hard about something you don't want to do, and you're about to be convinced against your better judgement, your voice goes down really low, and it goes down even a bit lower and then back up to where it started: (weeeellllll......I know I'm going to regret this, but o.k...) Notice that the "ma" has no tone. It's neutral, so you just toss it out there real quick like any small unimpoartant word in a sentence, like "the" and "of" in "The United States of America" The important words are United States America (the words that show up when we abbreviate, USA, and the other words we shoot past really fast because their not important. That's what neutral tone sounds like, just quick spit it out and move on. So, again, How are you, in Mandarin: "Ni? Haaooooo.... ma."
"Zhu ni hao!" (Good wishes to you!)
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: English; Chinese, Mandarin
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Mark S.
February 25, 2005
# Msgs: 7
Latest: April 5, 2005
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Speaking of Thanks in advance...
Konichiwa, Amazon!
Nice job with the Japanese and Chinese! How did you make your Asian texts appear with the Chinese Characters and the Kanji and everything?
So far, I haven't been able to see any characters people type that don't use the basic Western European alphabets. I speak some Mandarin, and I'd love to be able to put Chinese into my messages when occasion calls for it.
I appreciate anything you can do to help. And good luck with your exciting, ambitious goals. I would love to do something like that myself. As it stands, I have to be satisfied, for now, with perfecting my Spanish and taking up Portuguese.
Zhu ni hao.
zai jian!
Mark Springer
Sacramento, CA USA
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Language pair: Chinese, Mandarin; English
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Mark S.
February 16, 2005
# Msgs: 3
Latest: February 18, 2005
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