Hello and welcome to Simple Chinese, where the special effects are even more simple than
what you’ll learn.
Coming to you live from Beijing, my name is Alex, and I’m so very excited to be doing this.
The first topic I’d like to address today are tones. Now if you’ve ever done a quick wikipedia search you’ll know that
“Standard Chinese, also known as Modern Standard Mandarin, Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese (MSMC), or simply Mandarin, is a tonal language.
Now what does that mean. Well, it means that, in the same that playing different
keys on a keyboard will give you different notes...
Miiiiiii
Siiiii
saying words with different inflexions, meaning rising and falling, will give you different meanings.
A common example is 妈麻马骂. So, t he same syllable: MA, can either mean:
Mom
Numb
Horse
Curse
This becomes even more problematic when combining characters and even words together.
For example, let's take a look at this word here:
If we read it shuìjiào,
it means sleep
But if we read it as
shuǐjiǎo
it means dumplings
What about this one?
Reading this as běijīng means the Chinese capital, Beijing
But, pronounced: bèijǐng, it means background.
Now, you probably think that, "hey, context will usually clear up confusion".
And it’s true, people should be able to tell what you mean for these examples.
But it gets tricky for words with similar meaning, for example city names.
Are you going to the city of sūzhōu?
or sùzhōu?
Is it the province of shānxī
or shǎnxī?
The list goes on...