Welcome to Gaia! ::

Here's Lesson 2!

Note: This is a lot of material, so take your time！ I wouldn't advise trying to get through this entire lesson in one sitting, unless you're incredibly bored or something.

Numbers 11-99

You may have already figured this out, but just in case you didn't, here are the numbers after 10; you'll probably need them for later in this lesson when you learn how to say how old you are!

Remember the numbers for one through ten?
一 yī, 二 èr, 三 sān, 四 sì, 五 wǔ, 六 liù, 七 qī, 八 bā, 九 jiǔ, 十 shí

To form the numbers 11 through 19, take ten (十) and add the numbers 1 through 9 to it:

十一 shíyī 11
十二 shíèr 12
十三 shísān 13
十四 shísì 14
十五 shíwǔ 15
十六 shíliù 16
十七 shíqī 17
十八 shíbā 18
十九 shíjiǔ 19

Twenty is 二十 èrshí, and 21-29 work the same way as 11-19:

二十一 èrshíyī 21
二十二 èrshíèr 22
二十三 èrshísān 23
二十四 èrshísì 24
etc.

Thirty is 三十 sānshí, and so on and so forth until you get to 九十九 (jiǔshíjiǔ) for 99.

Basic expressions

We've already learned one basic expression: 你好 (nǐ hǎo), which means hello.

At the end of the last lesson, I concluded with 再见 (zài jiàn), which literally means "again see" and is the word for "goodbye". You can also put times or dates before 见 when saying "goodbye," indicating when you expect to see the person next. We haven't gone over dates or days of the week yet, but just for example using this pattern:

明天见！ (míngtiān jiàn) -- See you tomorrow!
星期六见！ (xīngqīliù jiàn) -- See you on Saturday!
明年见！ (míngnián jiàn) -- See you next year!
etc.

Here are some more common expressions:

谢谢 (xièxie) -- thank you

Note: 谢谢 is mostly only used when you're thanking somebody for doing something or for helping you in some way. If somebody compliments you and you want to "thank" the person, instead of 谢谢 you should say:

哪里，哪里。 (nǎlǐ, nǎlǐ)

Literally this means "where, where," but the meaning is that of modestly denying the compliment, kind of like "you flatter me" or "you don't have to say that"; in Chinese it's better to say this than to say 谢谢, which would be more like agreeing with the compliment and saying "yeah, I know," which comes off as arrogant. An example of when to use 哪里，哪里:

周老师(1)： 晏达文，你说中文说得很好(2)。 (Yan Dawen, you speak Chinese very well.)
我： 哪里，哪里。 (You flatter me.)

1. Zhōu Lǎoshī, one of my Chinese professors
2. Yàn Dáwén, nǐ shuō Zhōngwén shuō de hěn hǎo.

So what do you say when somebody thanks you for something?

There are at least two ways of saying "you're welcome" in Chinese:

不谢。 (bú xiè)

Literally, "not thank," or in other words, "there's no need to thank me."

不客气。 (bú kèqi)

Literally, "not polite," as in "don't be so polite!"

One more:

对不起 (duìbuqǐ) -- sorry

This is roughly equivalent with English "sorry," and you can use it when you're apologizing for something, but you can also use it to politefully get someone's attention, as in "excuse me..."

Talking about yourself

vocabulary:

是 (shì) -- to be
说 (shuō) -- to speak
做 (zuò) -- to do
不 (bù) -- no, not
也 (yě) -- also
和 (hé) -- and
还是 (háishi) -- or
国 (guó) -- country, nation
人 (rén) -- person
语言 (yǔyán) -- language
哪 (nǎ) -- which
吗 (ma) -- question particle
今年 (jīnnián) -- this year
年 (nián) -- year
多 (duō) -- many, a lot
大 (dà) -- big
岁 (suì) -- year(s) of age

professions:
老师 (lǎoshī) -- teacher
学生 (xuéshēng) -- student
医生 (yīshēng) -- doctor
护士 (hùshi) -- nurse
律师 (lǜshī) -- lawyer
木匠 (mùjiàng) -- carpenter
厨师 (chúshī) -- cook
服务员 (fúwùyuán) -- waiter/waitress
科学家 (kēxuéjiā) -- scientist
巡警 (xúnjǐng) / 警察 (jǐngchá) -- police officer
消防队员 (xiāofángduìyuán) -- firefighter

countries:
中国 (Zhōngguó) -- China
美国 (Měiguó) -- United States
英国 (Yīngguó) -- England
加拿大 (Jiānádà) -- Canada
澳洲 (Àozhōu) -- Australia
苏格兰 (Sūgélán) -- Scotland
爱尔兰 (Àiěrlán) -- Ireland
日本 (Rìběn) -- Japan
韩国 (Hánguó) -- Korea
越南 (Yuènán) -- Vietnam
西班牙 (Xībānyá) -- Spain
墨西哥 (Mòxīgē) -- Mexico
意大利 (Yìdàlì) -- Italy
法国 (Fǎguó) -- France
德国 (Déguó) -- Germany
俄国 (Èguó) -- Russia
瑞典 (Ruìdiǎn) -- Sweden
挪威 (Nuówēi) -- Norway
丹麦 (Dānmài) -- Denmark
芬兰 (Fēnlán) -- Finland
瑞士 (Ruìshì) -- Switzerland
荷兰 (Hélán) -- Holland/the Netherlands
(these are just off the top of my head...
let me know if you want to know any others!)

languages:
中文 (Zhōngwén) -- Chinese
英文 (Yīngwén) -- English
日文 (Rìwén) -- Japanese
西班牙文 (Xībānyáwén) -- Spanish
意大利文 (Yìdàlìwén) -- Italian
法文 (Fǎwén) -- French
德文 (Déwén) -- German
俄文 (Èwén) -- Russian
瑞典文 (Ruìdiǎnwén) -- Swedish
拉丁文 (Làdīngwén) -- Latin
世界文 (Shìjièwén) -- Esperanto
(again, let me know if you want to know others that I left out!)


This is a lot of vocabulary, but that's only because there are a lot of countries and possible professions that a person can have!

This lesson will teach you how to ask about and answer to questions about your 1) age, 2) nationality, 3) occupation, and 4) what languages you speak.

Age

To ask someone how old he/she is:

你今年多大？
Nǐ jīnnián duō dà?

Literally, "You this-year many big?" or in other words, "how old are you?"

The response is:

我 (number) 岁。
Wǒ (number) suì.

For example, 我二十岁。 =　I'm 20 years old.

Note that the usual word for "year" in Chinese, 年 (nián), is not used here (and if it was, it would be wrong!), but rather the word 岁 (suì), which refers specifically to years of age, or "years old".

Nationality

你是哪国人？
Nǐ shì nǎguórén?

"You are what-country-person?", or "What country are you from?"

国 means "country". When you add the word 人 ("person") to it, it means a person from that country. So, given that the United States is 美国 (Měiguó), how would you say that you're an American?

我是美国人。
Wǒ shì Měiguórén.

And now a bit of grammar:

The particle 吗 (ma) takes any statement and turns it into a yes/no question. For example, let's look at the sentence

你是法国人。
Nǐ shì Fǎguórén.

"You are French."

Add 吗 to the end and it becomes a question:

你是法国人吗？
Nǐ shì Fǎguórén ma?

"Are you French?"

This has two possible answers, obviously:

是。 我是法国人。
Shì. Wǒ shì Fǎguórén.
(Yes. I am French.)

or

不。 我不是法国人。
Bù. Wǒ bú shì Fǎguórén.
(No. I am not French.)

In Chinese, there isn't a word that specifically means "yes" as there is in other languages. Generally the way to answer a yes/no question with "yes" is to repeat the verb. In this case (你是法国人吗？) the verb is 是, so to answer simply "yes," you may say "是。".

"No," on the other hand, is always 不 (bù), which means "no" or "not". Notice, however, that the tone changes from fourth (bù) to second (bú) whenever 不 is followed by another word that is fourth tone. This is a phenomenon that mostly only occurs with the words 不 and 一 (which we'll get to in later lessons).

There are a few other ways of asking yes/no questions. To avoid giving you an information overload, I'll save the rest for later, but here is one of them:

你是不是法国人？
Nǐ shì bú shì Fǎguórén?

This pattern is easy enough to understand. You can think of it as "You are or are not French?" etc.

Profession:

This works just like nationality, using the verb 是, to be.

我是学生。
Wǒ shì xuéshēng.
I am a student.

However, when asking what someone's profession is, you use the verb 做 (zuò), "to do":

你做什么？
Nǐ zuò shénme?
What do you do?

As in English, you can combine profession and nationality into one statement, like so:

我是美国学生。
Wǒ shì Měiguó xuéshēng.
I　am an American student.

她是中国老师。
Tā shì Zhōngguó lǎoshī.
She is a Chinese teacher. (as in, she is Chinese and a teacher)

他是俄国医生。
Tā shì Èguó yīshēng.
He is a Russian doctor.

Here's another kind of question that you can ask using the word 还是 (háishi), which means "or":

你是美国人还是英国人？
Nǐ shì Měiguórén háishi Yīngguórén?
Are you American or English?

You can use the word 也 (yě), which means "also," in situations such as this one:

1： 你是老师还是学生？ (Are you a teacher or a student?)
2： 我是学生。 你呢？ (I'm a student. And you?)
1： 我也是学生。 (I'm also a student.)

Keep in mind that 也 can only come before the verb! In other words, in Chinese you must say "I also am a student." You can't say "I am also a student" or "I am a student also". 也 must come directly before the verb.

Languages:

你说什么语言？
Nǐ shuō shénme yǔyán?
What language(s) do you speak?

我说英文。
Wǒ shuō Yīngwén.
I speak English.

Simple enough, unless you speak more than one language!

What's that, you say? You do speak more than one language!?

Well, then, here's what you can say if you speak two languages, let's say French and Japanese:

我说法文和日文。
Wǒ shuō Fǎwén hé Rìwén.
I speak French and Japanese.

The word 和 (hé) means "and," and is used to connect two nouns.

Add any more languages and you'll need to throw in some commas to separate them, just like in English and other languages. Chinese actually has its own special comma used for the purposes of listing things， and it looks like this:

我说拉丁文、俄文和德文。
Wǒ shuō Làdīngwén, Èwén hé Déwén.
I speak Latin, Russian and German.

Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to type the "listing comma" with my Chinese layout (I had to switch over to Japanese to type it!), so expect me to use the familiar "，" comma in its place from now on.

OKAY. DONE!

That is a ton of stuff, and I applaud you for (supposedly) reading through all of it.

Here are some exercises, so you can practice everything you've just learned.

Exercises

1. What are the following numbers in Chinese?
a. 14
b. 95
c. 36
d. 50
e. 43

2. 你今年多大？

3. 你做什么？

4. 你是老师还是学生？

5. 你是中国人吗？

6. Translate the following dialogue into English:

我： Jean， 你是不是法国人？
Jean： 不是。 我是加拿大人。
我： 你说法文吗？
Jean： 不， 我说英文。 你呢？
我： 我说英文，西班牙文和中文。

7. Translate the following sentences into Chinese:
a. How old are you?
b. I'm 17 years old.
c. You flatter me!
d. What country are you from?
e. I'm Korean.
f. Are you Spanish or Italian?
g. I am a Japanese police officer.
h. You are a German student.
i. I am not French.
j. Yes, I am American. And you?
k. I am also American.
l. I speak Japanese, Chinese and English.
m. What languages do you speak?

'Til next time,
再见！
-晏达文

I am, 'cause that's what I've been using so far (although I'm familiar with many traditional characters), and because as I understand it, it's slightly easier to read traditional characters with a knowledge of simplified than the other way around.

Also, I'm nearly done with lesson 3!

Actually, For me Japanese is harder. I prefer traditional characters though! gonk I'll read through when I have time. 3nodding

That's because it is! I fixed it, good catch.


Both measure words are correct.

You can also use 只 for small animals, but 条 works as well for long, "strip-like" animals like dogs and fish, as well as being used for things like pants.

Oh, and 条 is also used for rivers (一条河), if you didn't know.

How do you say it? Just type it how it sounds, and I bet I (or dave) can figure it out. I wan't to know, I'd like not to call my waitress a prostitute.

"Oh Prostituuute, please bring us some more napkins." *slap*

Yeah, that's it! I forgot the second character for it.

My friend (who is Chinese-Canadian like me) went back to China last summer. She used "xiaojie" at a restaurant, and was very confused when her waitress looked offended and her mom had to explain the new meaning for it D:

Yay! More people are learning Chinese! And seeing as how you're already learning Japanese, it can make learning Chinese easier :3 (And vice-versa.)